Health Risks of Abortion

Doctors slam ‘abortion safer than childbirth’

studyby Kathleen GilbertTue Jan 24, 2012 15:18 ESTComments (15)Tags: abortion, planned parenthood, pregnancy WASHINGTON, D.C., January 24, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) -


A study by family planning advocates concluding that abortion is safer for women than carrying a child to term has been sharply criticized by doctors who say the years-old claim has been debunked by data on the long-term effects of abortion.Dr. Elizabeth Raymond from Gynuity Health Projects in New York City and Dr. David Grimes of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, published the study in the February 2012 issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, examining estimated mortality rates associated with live births and induced abortions in the United States between 1998–2005. The data, taken from the Center for Disease Control and the Planned Parenthood-funded Guttmacher Institute, found 8.8 deaths per 100,000 live births, versus 0.6 deaths per 100,000 abortions.Raymond and Grimes are associated with Family Health International, a leading pro-abortion international family planning group, and both have lobbied for distribution of the abortifacient Plan B pill without a prescription in America.A Reuters article on the study linked by the Drudge Report this week quoted an OB-GYN student at Columbia University Medical Center in New York defending the study against outlandish criticisms.Is giving birth to your child more dangerous than aborting him? That's the claim that one new study makes. “We wouldn’t tell people, ‘Don’t have a baby because it’s safer to have an abortion’—that’s ridiculous,” Dr. Anne Davis told Reuters Health. “We’re trying to help women who are having all reproductive experiences know what to expect." But several pro-life doctors say that, because it fails to include the long-term adverse effects of abortions, the years-old claim that abortion’s mortality rate is lower misrepresents the overall effects of abortion on women versus bringing a child to term.“[Abortion] is not safe when you look into the long term,” Dr. Mary Davenport, president of the American Association of Pro-Life OB/GYNs, told LifeSiteNews.com. “They were only talking about immediate death. If you do the math, there is a much higher rate of risk-taking behaviors,” including suicide attempts and substance abuse, said Davenport. Microbiologist and bioethics commentator Gerard Nadal told LSN that such data fails to account for the physical damage often sustained by women during abortions, including damage to reproductive organs that has been strongly linked to subsequent pregnancy complications or even sterility. Meanwhile, he said, abortion’s link to increased risk of breast cancer, and childbirth’s protective effect against cancer, is ignored.Another OB/GYN, Dr. Matt Phillips of CEC For Life, agreed, saying the study’s claim is “at least 20 years old” and based on skewed information. “You can make the numbers look any way you want to make them,” he said. Patrick Carr of Family & Life of Ireland noted that countries where abortion is illegal, such as Ireland, routinely have the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world, while areas with liberal abortion laws such as South Africa top the maternal mortality charts.Those who minister to post-abortive women also say that the study fails to reflect the real-life consequences of abortion.Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life, which oversees the Rachel’s Vineyard Ministry and the Silent No More Campaign, called the study’s conclusion an “outdated myth.”“The dangerous effects of abortion have yet to be fully measured,” Pavone told LifeSiteNews.com. Experience with post-abortive women, he said, “shows that it is often only years or decades later that the harm abortion causes a woman becomes evident, or that the link of that harm with abortion becomes known.”

February Pro Life Events in the Country

Pro-Life Rally
Date: Sunday, February 5, 2012
Time: 3:00 PM
Venue: St. Joseph Church, Odessa, TX
>> Knights of Columbus
Council 10404 has scheduled a Pro-Life Rally at 3 p.m. Feb. 5 at St. Joseph’s
Catholic Church Hall, 907 S. Dixie Blvd. Speaker will be the Rev. Victor
Salomon, worldwide director of Hispanic outreach for priests for life. The rally
will be bilingual. Call 337-2213.
Category: Community
Venue details
St. Joseph Church
View
upcoming events
Address: 907 S. Dixie Blvd.,Odessa,TX,
79761
Map: Directions
Nearby: Bars · Restaurants · Parking

I'll keep posting as I find them!!

Common Questions

Common Pro-life QuestionsGuest Author - Rebecca Franklin
Here are some of the most commonly asked questions at Bella Online Pro-Life.

When does the baby's heart start beating?
Eighteen days after conception is when the baby's heart starts beating. Most mothers don't yet know they are pregnant at this early stage

When do the lungs develop?
The lungs begin to develop at six weeks. They are fully functional at 12 weeks, meaning the baby is "breathing" amniotic fluid in a fully developed breathing pattern. (The baby will continue to get oxygen provided by his umbilical cord until his birth, when he or she takes his first breath of air in the outside world.)

Many detractors claim that a baby isn't a living human being until he or she has been born. When does the baby have everything we (adults) have, and only needs to grow before being born?

Great question! At 10 or 11 weeks gestation all the major life functions are in place and functioning to some degree. Keep in mind, though, that these processes have to undergo major maturation before the baby can survive outside of the womb.

What is the earliest that a premature baby can survive outside of the womb?

Twenty weeks is the earliest premature birth that has survived. Survivals before 23 weeks are extremely rare. With medical technology constantly changing and improving, these numbers will hopefully become obsolete in the future.