Abortion 'Safety' Hoax
JAVA Newsletter (14 August 2002)
( Brent Rooney [email protected] )
Abortion 'Safety' Hoax chucks 16,000 Women into caskets
"In reality abortion is already one of the safest procedures
a woman can have--less risky than penicillin, and much safer
than having a baby." (The Quiet War on Abortion (Sept/Oct.
2001, Barry Yeoman, Mother Jones) There are literally dozens
of studies reporting that women with elective abortions have a
lower total 12 month death risk than women who deliver babies,
correct? No, not dozens, not 5 or 6, not even 1 or 2, but, in
fact, zero! In 1997 the top Scandinavian medical journal in the
field of women's health reported a very 'surprising' result for
Finnish women with induced abortions compared to childbearing
women:
Increased relative risk for women with elective abortions
Total death risk: +252%
Suicide risk: +546%
Accidental death: +324%
Homicide risk: +1299% (Acta Obstet Gyn Scand 1997;76:651-657)
Finnish study vs. U.S studies
Why concentrate on the 1997 Finnish study? Let's compare
the Finnish study to the 1982 "Cates" study published in 'JAMA'
(Journal of the American Medical Association 1982;248:192-196):
Finnish Study "Cates" study
All causes of death? YES NO (70%-80% deaths excluded)
Followup period 52 weeks 6 weeks
National abortion YES NO
registry used?
Equal followup for YES NO (childbearing women followed
both groups? 7.67 times longer)
If 'Alice' has an induced abortion in Finland, that fact is re-
corded in the national abortion registry. If 'Alice' dies within
a few weeks or months after her 'termination', medical personel
can easily know if she had a recent elective abortion. For exam-
ple, if the cause of death was a suicide, doctors may well sus-
pect "Alice's" abortion contributed to her death. In the U.S.
there is no national abortion registry, so reliably connecting
an abortion caused death to an abortion is, at best, a 'hit or
miss' affair.
'Tip of the Iceberg'
The 1982 "Cates" study presumes (!) that how a pregnancy ends
has no effect on the risk of the top four killers of young women:
accidents, homicide, suicide, cancer. Consider suicide risk. 3
published studies report a very much elevated suicide risk for
women with prior elective abortions:
Country Suicide risk
boost
Wales +225%
USA +160%
Finland +546%
Combined, the four top killers of young U.S. women account for
~70%-80% of all young female deaths. The Finnish study includes
all causes of deaths whereas the "Cates" study excludes the top
four killers of young females. "Cates" also only counted deaths
during the 6 weeks after 'pregnancy end' whereas the Finnish
researchers counted deaths for 8.67 times longer (i.e. 52 weeks).
A Hoax?
Some abortion clinics claim that compared to delivering a new-
born elective abortion is ten times safer (for the mother). To
continue spreading this false information with zero 12 month
total death studies to support it, represents a deadly hoax. How
deadly? If one ignores the long term breast cancer risk of abor-
tion, the 12 month 'after' death risk has taken over 16,000 U.S.
lives of women over the last 2 decades.
Exposing the myth/hoax of abortion 'safety'
Supporters of abortion 'safety' are being challenged via a
contest to provide just one citation to a published study finding
lower 12 month death risk for women with elective abortions. The
prize is $444 to the first one to correctly cite such a study.
Contest details are located at:
www.vcn.bc.ca/~whatsup/RoeWade.html
Since a full-term birth at a young age reduces a woman's risk
of ovarian cancer, breast cancer and suicide, it is not abortion
but birth that is therapeutic to the mom.
.................................................................
Brent Rooney (medical researcher)
Reduce Preterm Risk Coalition
Vancouver, Canada
www.vcn.bc.ca/~whatsup
[email protected]
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