ProChoice.com
Abortion... When is it safe?
No medical procedure is 100% safe so the answer is never Completely,and less safe than many procedures. To be 100% safe don't have one.
Risks are:
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The below information provides scientific and other documentation that legal abortion, contrary to popular opinion, doesn't help women but hurts them severely and/or kills them.
There are approximately 350 entries linked to below showing how abortion hurts women.
Word-searching can be done by key words. Examples are "infection", "hemorrhage", "chlamydia", "trauma", and "breast cancer". Search without matching case.
In addition, you can also search for categories of how abortion hurts women. These are the categories:
Physical effects, cancer
physical effects, death
physical effects, smoking, drinking, and/or drugs
physical effects, general
physical effects, later complications
general
psychological
suicide
Because many sources are quoted several times, they would take up too much space unless abbreviated. Thus, they have abbreviations.
Abbreviations:
NAIRVSC is Strahan, Newsletter of Association for Interdisciplinary Research in Values and Social Change. NAIRVSC is available from NRL Educational Trust Fund, 419 7th Street NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20004, 202 626-8800. MAB is Thomas W. Strahan, ed., "Major Articles and Books Concerning the Detrimental Effects of Abortion" (Charlottesville, VA: The Rutherford Institute, December 1993).
ABSNM is David C. Reardon, Aborted Women: Silent No More (Wheaton, IL: Good News, Crossways Books; Chicago: Loyola University Press). Reardon's address and phone number are Elliot Institute, P.O. Box 7348, Springfield, IL 92791; 217 525 8202
PSSFA is Anne C. Speckhard, "The Psycho-Social Aspects of Stress Following Abortion," (Sheed and Ward: Kansas City, 1987).
Saltenberger means Ann Saltenberger, Every Woman Has a Right to Know the Dangers of Legal Abortion, (Glassboro, NJ: Air- Plus Enterprises, 1982).
TAP is Pamela Zekman & Pamela Warrick, "The Abortion Profiteers: Nurse to Aide: Fake That Pulse!" Chicago Sun-Times, November 1978, quoted in Saltenberger, 168-170.
JAMA is Journal of the American Medical Association.
Other notes about citations:
When quotes extend beyond one paragraph, the source is given at the end of the last paragraph.
If a paragraph includes information from several sources, citations are given at the various places within the paragraph. Those not at the end are placed in parentheses.
If you feel you have been injured by an abortion and might want to take legal action, call
American Rights Coalition at 800 634 2224.
Now the actual material on abortion hurting women begins.
A Planned Parenthood brochure entitled PLAN YOUR CHILDREN for Health and Happiness says, "An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun. It is dangerous to your life and health. It may make you sterile so that when you want a child you cannot have it."
Physical Effects: Death
001) The unadjusted mortality rate per 100,000 cases was 27 for women who had given birth, 48 for women who had miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies, and 101 for women who had abortions. Thus, the mortality rate from abortion is 101/27 = 3.7 times higher for abortion than for giving birth. Fissler, M, et al., "Pregnancy-associated deaths in Finland 1987 - 1994--definition problems and benefits of record linkage," Acta Obstetricia et Gynecolgical Scandinavica, 76:651-657, 1997.
002) "A recent analysis of just a few abortion-related complications indicates that the number of indirect deaths attributable to abortion exceeds 25,000 per year." Thomas W. Strahan, "Women's Health and Abortion II- Risk of Premature Death in Women From Induced Abortion: Preliminary Findings," Strahan, NAIRVSC, Spring 1993. This does not count additional deaths from breast cancer.
003) The Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, May, 1985, said that abortion is the sixth leading cause of maternal death in this country.
004) "Women have a 58% greater risk of dying during a later pregnancy." DRABSNM
005) Carol Everett, former clinic killing center owner says, "The last 18 months I was involved in the abortion industry we maimed to the point of major surgery one woman out of every five hundred. Let me define maimed. Hysterectomy, colostomy because her uterus had been perforated (punctured), and her bowel pulled through her vagina...or urinary tract repair because they had perforated her uterus and cut her urinary tract. Or...we had one death. A 32-year-old woman with two children. We never took
them to the closest hospital. We never called an ambulance. An ambulance is a terrible advertisement in front of an abortion clinic." Carol N. Everett, Women's Lobby program on KFIA Radio (California), January 1990.
006) In another case, Carol Everett says, "And the second time he went in with those big forceps he perforated her uterus and he pulled her bowl out through her vagina." Carol N. Everett, Women's Lobby program on KFIA Radio (California), January 1990.
007) Researcher Ann Saltenberger says, "What had I learned in three years of studying the effects of legal abortion? That there are myriad complications and that there are no guarantees of safe passage. No doctor, no hospital, no clinic can guarantee a woman she will survive a legal abortion." Saltenberger, 15.
008) "What concerns you is, what are your chances of dying from a legal abortion (or childbirth)? The distinction between these two unpleasant possibilities is clear, striking, and significant: the overwhelming majority of women who die from a legal abortion are perfectly healthy before their lethal surgery; in carrying their pregnancies to term few--if any--would die. But most maternal childbirth deaths occur within a very small group of high-risk patients. "Most Mother, Child Mortality Seen in Small High-Risk Group," Ob Gyn News, 15 May 1981, quoted in Saltenberger, 52. Those women who died in childbirth died from a disease process--an abnormality in the pregnancy/childbirth experience which for some reason could not be adequately treat-ed. No valid comparison can be made between two so entirely different classes of pregnant women: one group healthy and the other group diseased." Comments by Life Research Institute: i.e., childbirth is very safe except for the abnormal person, but abortion is dangerous for every woman.
009) "In an attempt to learn how pervasive the problem of serious abortion complications is, an American obstetrician surveyed 486 of his colleagues regarding their experience with abortion patients. 87% revealed they had hospitalized women with complications following legal abortions; 91% had treated patients for complications. Twenty-nine of the doctors reported patients of theirs dying from legally-induced abortions." M. J. Bulfin, "Deaths and Near Deaths with Legal Abortions," presented at the ACOG (American Col.of Ob/Gyn) Convention, 28 October 1975, quoted in
Saltenberger, 52.
010) "Ectopic pregnancy rose from 17,800 cases in 1970 to 73,700 cases in 1986. Nearly 800,000 women have been hospitalized for ectopic pregnancy since 1970. Thirty-six women reportedly died from ectopic pregnancy in 1986." H. Lawson, et al., "Ectopic Pregnancy in the United States," 1970-1986, Centers for Disease Control, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Vol. 38, No. SS-2, September 1989.
011) "From 1972-1979, hemorrhage was the third most frequent cause of death from legal abortion, accounting for 15% of deaths. If abortions are performed in free-standing clinics, the capability for rapid transportation to a nearby well-equipped hospital must be assured. Inordinate delays while waiting for an ambulance contributed to several deaths. The back-up hospital must have the ability to begin a laparotomy quickly and to transfuse large amounts of blood products." D. Grimes, et al., "Fatal
Hemorrhage from Legal Abortion in the United States," Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics, November 1983, 461-466.
012) "In an investigation of four Chicago-based abortion clinics (out of more than 20 in the state), investigative reporters for the Chicago Sun-Times uncovered 12 abortion deaths that had never been reported. Even when abortion-related deaths such as these are uncovered, they are not generally included in the "official" total since they were not reported as such on the original death certificates." DRABSNM,109.
013) "Maternal Death: Maternal death related to childbirth or induced abortion appears to be seriously under reported. Differing interpretations of the term 'maternal death' by various federal, state or local agencies makes any direct comparison between the risk of maternal death from childbirth or induced abortion impossible under the current circumstances." MAB, ii-v.
014) "Of the leading causes of direct maternal deaths during 1980-85, 45.5% were known to have been associated with delivery by cesarean section. It was concluded that maternal deaths from childbirth and abortion are underreported. [One method of late-term abortion is cesarean section.]" R. Rochat, L. Koonin, H. Atrash, J. Jewett, "Maternal Mortality in the United States: Report From the Maternal mortality Collaborative," Obstetrics and Gynecology, 72 (1988): 91.
015) "The cause of death from legal abortion during 1979-1985 was hemorrhage (22.2%); infection (13.9%); embolism (15.3%); anesthesia (29.2%) and other (19.4%)." H.K. Atrash, H. Lawson and J. Smith, "Legal Abortion in the U.S.: Trends and Mortality," Contemporary OB/Gyn, February 1990, 58-69.
016) "The incidence of maternal mortality is higher than vital statistics reports indicate. The person certifying the cause of death may not know that a woman had a recent pregnancy. Also, the definition of maternal death can greatly affect the reported incidence of maternal mortality." J. Smith, J. Hughes, P. Pekow and R. Rochat, "An Assessment of the Incidence of Maternal Mortality in the United States," Am. J. Public Health, 74 (1984): 780-783.
017) "The results suggest that the mortality rate [during delivery of a subsequent pregnancy] among women who have had abortions (1.9 per 100,000 legal abortions) is almost twice as high as maternal mortality rates for women who have had vaginal deliveries (1.1 per 100,000 live births)." M. Lanska, D. Lanska and A. Rimm", Mortality From Abortion and Childbirth,"(letter), JAMA, 15 July 1983, 361- 362.
018) "The state of California reported no deaths from abortion during 1982 and 1984, yet there was incontrovertible evidence from death certificates, police reports, coroner's reports and other sources that at least four women and teenage girls died from legal abortions in Los Angeles County alone during 1983 and 1984." "Brief of Amicus Curiae Feminists for Life of America, Women Exploited by Abortion, etc., Christine Smith Torre, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, (1988), 22.
019) "I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don't know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus, but it is the woman's body, and therefore ultimately her choice." Faye Wattleton, past president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in Ms, May/June 1997.
020) A Finnish study disputes claims by abortion advocates that abortion is safer for a woman than childbirth. The results are startling. A woman's risk of dying within a year after an abortion was four times higher than the risk of dying after miscarriage or childbirth, according to the study. The study involved maternal post-abortion deaths of 9,192 Finnish women, aged 15-49, during the period of 1987-1994. The study results were released in 1997 by STAKES, the statistical analysis unit of Finland's National Research and Development Center for Welfare and Health.
021) "Even though most abortion-related deaths are not officially reported as such1, legal abortion is reported to be the fifth leading cause of maternal death in the U.S.2 By extending their scope beyond the very narrow time frame that is examined by most post-abortion studies, the researchers were able to get a better look at how abortion truly affects women's lives. The results clearly showed that compared to women who carry to term, women who aborted in the year prior to their deaths were:
• 60 percent more likely to die of natural causes,
• 7 times more likely to commit suicide,
• 4 times more likely to have fatal accidents, and
• 14 times more likely to die from homicide.3"
References: 1. K. Sherlock, Victims of Choice (Akron, OH: Brennyman Books, 1996) 134-135, quoted in Amy R. Sobie, "The Risks of Choice," The Post-Abortion Review, July-Sept. 2000, 2. 2. Kaunitz, "Causes of Maternal Mortality in the United States," Obstetrics and Gynecology, 65(5), May 1985, quoted in Amy R. Sobie, "The Risks of Choice," The Post-Abortion Review, July-Sept. 2000, 2. 3.
Gissler, M., et. al., "Pregnancy-associated deaths in Finland 1987-1994--definition problems and benefits of record linkage," Acta Obstetricia et Gynecolgica Scandinavica 76:651-657 (1977), quoted in Amy R. Sobie, "The Risks of Choice," The Post-Abortion Review, July-Sept. 2000, 2.
After reading the above you should have a clear understanding that abortion is an unique procedure, in that, it is the only 'medical procedure' that gives special protection to those who perform it. Making those who profit from abortion safer and legally protected from the problems documented above.. This clearly defines for all, what it means to keep abortion safe and legal. As an industry, it operates with very little regulation or scrutiny and is continually lobbying for less.
If you like to be operated on in 3rd
world countries
but pay a civilized world price, this is for you.
Unlike bias industry claims, (that abortion is safer
than child birth,) according to a (non politically motivated) study
in finland, a woman is 4 times more likely to die within 1 year of an
abortion than childbirth.
(More
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Overview of some risks sighting sources
Information from an attorney proving findings
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