Abortion Advocates Mislead on Maternal Mortality, Use Old Data to Make False Claims

Below are two particularly wild examples of the blatant deceit (or maybe academic incompetence) of the abortion lobby, including their ‘respected academic think tanks’ like the Guttmacher Institute or the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG).

Example 1: Maternal deaths in Nigeria from unsafe abortion

In 2008, Guttmacher stated that as many as 40% of maternal deaths in Nigeria may be from unsafe abortion. Their source was a 2008 paper by Henshaw et al claiming the same.

Only one of Henshaw’s three sources actually supports this claim: Oye-Adeniran’s 2002 paper. Ove-Adeniran’s sources go back to a 1999 paper by Okonofua et al. which says that abortion may be responsible for 40% of deaths in Nigeria. But Okonofua’s only citation which supports this claim is Ladipo et al. 1989. Ladipo does indeed say that abortion causes 30-40% of maternal deaths. The problem is that the paper Ladipo cites is Liskin 1980 and is talking about not Nigeria but Latin America. The Liskin paper itself is too old to find online, but is using data from the 1970s at latest.

Most remarkable about this is that 40% of maternal deaths in Chile around that time were indeed due to abortion. The problem is that abortion was legal in Chile-and once it was prohibited in 1989 abortion deaths fell dramatically: by 94.2% in 11 years.

Example 2: Maternal deaths in Malawi from unsafe abortion

A Telegraph article published February 2021 claimed that 12,000 women died annually from backstreet abortions in Malawi. It relied on a report produced by the Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Malawi College of Medicine and Guttmacher Institute. This report estimates approximately 141,000 abortions take place annually in Malawi. This figure was also cited by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG).

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In February 2022, the Telegraph retracted the article after I published a report summarizing contradicting evidence.

The report explains that recent figures from World Health Organization (WHO) and Global Burden of Disease (GBD) estimate total maternal deaths in Malawi (meaning maternal deaths from all causes, not just unsafe abortion) are between 1,150 and 2,100. Of those total maternal deaths, best estimates suggest that, at most, 150 are attributable to unsafe abortion. The Telegraph claimed Malawi maternal deaths from unsafe abortion were approximately 80x higher than evidence can empirically justify.

These examples are why it’s so important to check your sources, even if they come from “reputable institutions” like the Guttmacher Institute. Don’t listen without investigating the facts yourself.

LifeNews Note: Dr. Calum Miller is a researcher and Registered Medical Doctor based in the UK. This column originally appeared at Secular Pro-Life.

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