{"id":224296,"date":"2020-05-25T15:34:48","date_gmt":"2020-05-25T20:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=224296"},"modified":"2020-05-25T00:35:43","modified_gmt":"2020-05-25T05:35:43","slug":"legalized-abortion-maternal-mortality-opposite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/legalized-abortion-maternal-mortality-opposite\/","title":{"rendered":"Legalized abortion doesn’t protect a woman from maternal mortality. It does the opposite."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this guest post are solely those of the author and are not necessarily reflective of Live Action or Live Action News.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cMaternal mortality is increasing in the United States.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAbortion is safer than childbirth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLegal abortion must remain readily available so women can end their pregnancies safely.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Have you ever heard a variation of these arguments? No obstetrician has ever greeted an excited newly pregnant patient with these words. This argument is usually only voiced to convince an undecided poor or minority woman to choose an abortion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Statistics on maternal mortality are widely known to be flawed and incomplete. A <\/span>recent study<\/span><\/a> documented an apparent dramatic increase in U.S. maternal deaths, and this has been widely reported. Subsequent individual state maternal mortality committee reviews have determined that improved detection of deaths and recording errors on death certificates have artificially caused much of the increase<\/span>. The CDC does not work proactively to discover maternal deaths, but merely records those that come to its attention, usually through death certificate documentation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Vocal abortion advocate and former CDC Abortion Surveillance Division chairman, Dr. David Grimes, was well aware of these limitations, but nonetheless <\/span>published an article<\/span><\/a> concluding that abortion is 14 times safer than childbirth. Misleadingly, he compared abortion-related deaths to the numbers of legal abortions (abortion mortality rate), whereas maternal deaths were compared to 100,000 live births (maternal mortality ratio). A comparison is not valid if it uses different denominators.\u00a0 Additionally, of the four numbers, only the number of live births is accurately known, due to mandated birth certificates. Yet, only two-thirds of maternal deaths are related to live birth. Maternal deaths may be separated from the end of pregnancy by up to a year, and mental health-related deaths are particularly difficult to correlate to the pregnancy event that initiated them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0NBC helps spread false idea that pro-life laws increase maternal mortality<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Abortion numbers, complications, and deaths are voluntarily reported and incomplete. In 2014, the CDC recorded 652,639 abortions, whereas the Guttmacher Institute reported 926,000. Only 28 states <\/span>require abortionists to report complications<\/span><\/a> and only 12 states require other physicians to report abortion complications. There are no penalties for non-compliance. <\/span><\/p>\n

It is estimated that 50% of maternal deaths <\/span>are not reported<\/span><\/a> as such on death certificates, and the number is undoubtedly much higher for deaths related to abortion. European records-linkage studies documented that 94% of abortion-related deaths were not reported as such on death certificates, and also found that a woman is <\/span>far more likely<\/span><\/a> to remain alive a year after delivery of a child than after an abortion. Due to legal or ideological motivations, search engine failure to obtain abortion-specific codes, and the failure of many abortionists to maintain hospital admitting privileges or care for their complications, it is likely that most U.S. abortion-related maternal deaths are not reported to the CDC for investigation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are multiple ways an abortion may cause a woman\u2019s death. A misdirected cervical dilator or instrumental perforation of the uterus during a surgical abortion may cause hemorrhage or damage to adjacent organs, leading to a catastrophic series of events. A dilation and evacuation (D&E) procedure <\/span>is particularly dangerous<\/span><\/a>, as the late-term fetus must be extracted in a piecemeal fashion, necessitating many blind passages with sharp instruments. <\/span>Compared to early abortions<\/span><\/a>, maternal mortality is 15 times higher early in the second trimester and 76 times higher after viability.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n