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A new study completed by researchers from the National Research and Development Center for Welfare and Health in Finland, shows that 94 percent of maternal deaths associated with abortion are not identifiable from death certificates alone. Thus, the presumption by abortion groups such as Planned Parenthood that abortion is associated with fewer deaths than childbirth does not hold up once the pregnancy history of women is actually investigated carefully. Previously, it has been widely assumed that the mortality rate associated with abortion was only one-sixth that of childbirth. But those estimates were based primarily on information gathered only from death certificates or other public records. Proper identification of pregnancy history, the researchers found, reveals that the death rate associated with abortion is actually three times higher than that of childbirth. The findings of this study may have a profound impact on the abortion debate in the United States, according to some legal analysts. "The claim that abortion was safer than childbirth, at least early in pregnancy, was accepted as a crucial fact in Roe v Wade," says Walter Weber, an attorney with the American Center for Law and Justice, who specializes in abortion law. "In fact, the Court concluded that the states had authority to regulate abortion to protect women's health only at the point at which death rates associated with abortion exceeded those associated with childbirth." The recent study demonstrates an elevated risk of death following abortion, a risk that exceeds that of both non-pregnant women and women whose pregnancies are allowed to follow their natural course. The argument over risks of death following abortion versus childbirth won't be settled overnight, however. Planned Parenthood and the closely allied Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) continue to promote the message that abortion is safer than childbirth. Their argument is based on comparing the nationally reported rates of death for childbirth to the rate of death associated with abortion that is reported by the National Institutes of Health's Centers for Disease Control (CDC). In light of the studies documenting higher death rates associated with abortion, combined with renewed criticism of the CDC abortion surveillance unit itself, top CDC officials appear to be backing away from their past claims. In other words, the CDC numbers relied upon by Planned Parenthood and AGI are not truly comparable. While it is still unclear how this new information will ultimately affect abortion access, there is no doubt that it intensify the social, legal, and medical debates surrounding it. |