{"id":255223,"date":"2021-10-19T12:39:37","date_gmt":"2021-10-19T17:39:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=255223"},"modified":"2024-09-20T12:29:25","modified_gmt":"2024-09-20T17:29:25","slug":"politifact-misleads-rating-roe-abortion-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/politifact-misleads-rating-roe-abortion-deaths\/","title":{"rendered":"PolitiFact misleads with ‘half true’ rating on claim that Roe v. Wade ended abortion deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"
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PolitiFact’s recent “half true” rating fact checking the claim that \u201cRoe was the end of women dying from abortions\u201d is misleading. The claim originated from a\u00a0Facebook post<\/a>\u00a0created by Occupy Democrats, which reads, “Tens of thousands of American women died while having unsafe back alley abortions before Roe v. Wade,” with a meme falsely stating that “Roe was the end of women dying from abortions.”<\/p>\n

The claim was\u00a0posted<\/a> October 2, then flagged as “part of Facebook\u2019s efforts to combat false news and misinformation” and declared<\/a>\u00a0by PolitiFact as “half true” on October 13th, yet it remains online without any flags regarding accuracy (see image below taken Oct 16).<\/p>\n

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Facebook post false claim tens of thousands of women died from illegal abortion and Roe was end of women dying from abortions<\/p><\/div>\n

In 2019, the Washington Post gave<\/a> former Planned Parenthood president Leana Wen four Pinocchios<\/em> after fact checking a similar claim she made, alleging tens of thousands of abortion deaths prior to Roe<\/em>. Live Action News has also called out these kind of false stats (read here<\/a>, here<\/a> and later here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Claim:\u00a0\u201cRoe was the end of women dying from abortions\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Politifact chose to fact check only the claim made on the meme, which read, \u201cRoe was the end of women dying from abortions.\u201d\u00a0 Despite being 100% false, PolitiFact’s fact checker\u00a0Madison Czopek rated that claim “half true” because, according to Czopek, Roe “reduced<\/em> deaths from abortions.”<\/p>\n

The only problem is that the meme never claimed Roe “reduced” abortion-related deaths \u2014\u00a0it claimed it put an “end” to them. In addition, the fact checking group failed to cite exactly how<\/em> legalization reduced abortion deaths. They did correctly point to the fact that “discovery and popularization of antibiotics helped improve the safety of abortions,” which Live Action News also\u00a0previously<\/a> documented.<\/p>\n

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PolitiFact factcheck on whether Roe was end of women dying from abortions<\/p><\/div>\n

The fact is that post-Roe<\/em>, between 1973 and 1982, the\u00a0Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recorded nearly 170 abortion deaths, and nearly 450 deaths between 1973 and 2017<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yet, PolitiFact claims, “The number of deaths related to illegal abortions decreased to 19 in 1973 and dropped further, to six, by 1974,\u00a0CDC data<\/a>\u00a0shows. From\u00a01979 to 2017<\/a>, the number of women who died in a year was never higher than two.”<\/p>\n

However, as you can see in the\u00a0CDC’s table<\/a> below there have been multiple years where legal abortion deaths totaled more than two.<\/p>\n

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CDC abortion related deaths 1973 to 2017 (Chart : CDC Abortion Surveillance \u2014 United States, 2018)<\/p><\/div>\n

But merely citing statistics paints a foggy picture of the true impact of legal abortion on women’s health.\u00a0Potential complications, including death,<\/em> are\u00a0noted<\/a> on legal consent forms the abortion industry requires women to sign prior to their procedure. And while the lie that legalizing abortion made it “safe” continues to circulate, it is endangering actual women like\u00a0Keisha Atkins,<\/a>\u00a0Lakisha Wilson,<\/a>\u00a0Jennifer Morbelli,<\/a>\u00a0Christin Gilbert,<\/a>\u00a0Jamie Lee Morales<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 all of whom are now dead after believing the lie about safe and legal abortion.<\/p>\n

Live Action News<\/a>, Operation Rescue<\/a>,\u00a0Life Dynamics<\/a>, and multiple other pro-life organizations have meticulously documented<\/a> that legalizing abortion did not make it “safe,” and have proven that since Roe<\/em>, women still die from legal abortion.<\/p>\n

In 2003,\u00a0Planned Parenthood\u2019s implementation of the\u00a0unapproved\u00a0regimen<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0off-label<\/a>\u00a0use of the abortion pill<\/a> led to the\u00a0death<\/a>\u00a0of 18-year-old\u00a0Holly Patterson<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0septic shock<\/a>.<\/p>\n