Springfield, IL (Sept 9, 2005)--International health
experts have published a new study disclosing that 94 percent of
maternal deaths associated with abortion are not identifiable
from death certificates alone. Proper tracking of pregnancy
associated deaths, they report, requires the linking of death
certificates to the deceased women's medical records. Only in
this way, they conclude, can accurate information about recent
pregnancies be determined--information that is frequently
missing from death certificates and autopsies.
The study,
completed by researchers from the National Research and
Development Center for Welfare and Health in Finland, shows that
the long held presumption that abortion is associated with fewer
deaths than childbirth does not hold up once the pregnancy
history of women is actually investigated using record linkage.
Previously, it has been widely assumed that the mortality rate
associated with abortion was only one-sixth that of childbirth.
But those estimates were based primarily on information gathered
only from death certificates or other public records. Proper
identification of pregnancy history, the researchers found,
reveals that the death rate associated with abortion is actually
three times higher than that of childbirth.
The
findings of this epidemiological study may have a profound
impact on the abortion debate in the United States, according to
some legal analysts. "The claim that abortion was safer than
childbirth, at least early in pregnancy, was accepted as a
crucial fact in Roe v Wade," says Walter Weber, an
attorney with the American Center for Law and Justice, who
specializes in abortion law. "In fact, the Court concluded that
the states had authority to regulate abortion to protect women's
health only at the point at which death rates associated with
abortion exceeded those associated with childbirth -- which at
that time was assumed to be around 12 weeks of
gestation."
This recent study is just one of a series of
studies done among women in Finland and California demonstrating
an elevated risk of death following abortion, a risk that
exceeds that of both non-pregnant women and women whose
pregnancies are allowed to follow their natural course.
According to Weber, these studies provide a new basis for states
to regulate abortion even within the judicial reasoning of
Roe.
The
argument over risks of death following abortion versus
childbirth won't be settled overnight, however. Planned
Parenthood and the closely allied Alan Guttmacher Institute
(AGI) continue to promote the message that abortion is safer
than childbirth. Their argument is based on comparing the
nationally reported rates of death for childbirth to the rate of
death associated with abortion that is reported by the National
Institutes of Health's Centers for Disease Control (CDC). But
both sets of numbers are drawn principally from death
certificates.
Even
before this latest study discrediting the accuracy of accessing
pregnancy associated deaths from death certificates alone, the
CDC's reports on abortion associated deaths had been severely
criticized by abortion opponents. One of the chief complaints
was that the top physician's in the CDC's abortion surveillance
unit had clear conflicts of interest since they were not only
outspoken advocates for expanding abortion services but also
practicing abortion providers.
Mark Crutcher, president of Life Dynamics, has charged
that CDC's abortion surveillance unit was set up by abortion
advocates within the CDC not to oversee abortion but to defend
and promote abortion. "When it comes to abortion, CDC stands for
Center for Damage Control," writes Crutcher.
A recent law review article examining the new data on
elevated death rates following abortion also criticizes the
CDC's resistance to adopting the new record linkage techniques.
According to the lead author, David Reardon of the Elliot
Institute, the CDC abortion surveillance team has yet to
apologize for and repudiate a blatantly misleading study its
team authored in 1982 which asserted they were successfully
identifying at least 90 percent of deaths associated with
abortion. "This report was particularly dishonest in that they
misappropriated a little known statistical comparison test, and
violated each of the test's three preconditions for validity,
simply to dismiss calls for better investigations."
Reardon says that the work of Kevin Sherlock, a writer
and reporter who specializes in public record research, proves
that the CDC's abortion mortality statistics are essentially
meaningless. Sherlock's independent review of death
certificates, with cause of death verified by autopsies and
court records regarding malpractice claims, confirmed at least
140 abortion related deaths for the decade of the 1980s, which
is thirty percent more than the total reported by the CDC. "That
a single investigator could fully document thirty percent more
deaths than the entire CDC abortion surveillance unit should
give everyone pause," said Reardon.
In light of the studies documenting
higher death rates associated with abortion, combined with
renewed criticism of the CDC abortion surveillance unit itself,
top CDC officials appear to be backing away from their past
claims. In response to a letter from Walter Weber questioning
the appropriateness of comparing maternal mortality statistics
for childbirth with CDC's reported mortality statistics for
abortion, Dr. Julie Louise Gerberding, director of the CDC,
wrote in July of 2004, that maternal mortality rates and
abortion mortality rates "are conceptually different and are
used by the CDC for different public health purposes." In other
words, the CDC numbers relied upon by Planned Parenthood and AGI
are not truly comparable.
According to Reardon, this is why the record-linkage
studies based on data collected in Finland and California are so
important. "These studies represent the first time that the
measurements of deaths associated with abortion and childbirth
have been taken using a consistent and uniform
standard."
While it is still unclear how this new information will
ultimately affect abortion access, there is no doubt that it
intensify the social, legal, and medical debates surrounding it.
###
Citing:
Gissler M, Berg C,
Bouvier-Colle MH, Buekens P. Methods for identifying
pregnancy-associated deaths: population-based data from Finland
1987-2000. Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol. 2004
Nov;18(6):448-55.
Sherlock K. Victims of Choice. Akron, OH, Brennyman
Books, 1996.
Reardon DC, Strahan TW,
Thorp JM, Shuping MW. Deaths associated with abortion compared
to childbirth: a review of new and old data and the medical and
legal implications. The Journal of Contemporary Health Law &
Policy 2004; 20(2):279-327.
