Mifepristone and Mortality
I think Kevin Drum's extracted the wrong factoid out of Kerry Howley's excellent article on the campaign to get Mifepristone (the "abortion pill") banned as dangerous. That a worst-case mortality rate of about one in 100,000 is lower than Viagra's five in 100,000 mortality rate is interesting. The truly crucial fact, however, is that compared to Mifepristone child birth is an absolute death trap. Kerry notes that "in 1997, the pregnancy-related mortality rate was 12.9 deaths per 100,000 live births; more than tenfold that of legal abortion." This CDC study concludes that "During 1991 to 1999 . . . about 12 pregnancy-related deaths occurred for every 100,000 live births." What's more, the CDC's ambitious long-term goal is that by 2030 we can reduce the maternal death rate to "no more than 3.3 deaths per 100,000 live births" which would make giving birth about three or four times as deadly as having an abortion.
Under the circumstances, attributing any danger whatsoever to abortion is deeply misleading. Of the options available to a pregnant woman, legal abortion by whatever method is, by far, the safest alternative. Obviously, that's not to say that nobody should ever have kids (the problems with this solution are pretty clear) but there's certainly no serious health argument in favor of childbearing.
Thank you for pointing this out. Too mamy debates about abortion focus on the health risks of abortion and overlook the fact that every outcome of pregnancy is inherently unsafe for a woman. 100 years ago, Americans of every social class would have known a woman who subsequently died in childbirth, or would have a friend or relative whose mother had died in childbirth. This isn't true today, but it's not becuase pregnancy has gotten safer, it's because medicine has gotten better at dealing with the complications of pregnancy and chilbirth.
There are two things going on today that make it hard for pregnant women to understand the relative risks of pregnancy's outcomes. The first is a notion that pregnancy and childbirth are "natural" and therefore inherently safer than abortion, which is a medical procedure and therefore "unnatural." At the same time, there has been a concerted effort by those opposed to abortion to exaggerate its risk.
In light of these widespread misconceptions, influential institutional players such as physicians, pundits, and op-ed writers have a professional responsibility to in every discussion of abortion risk point out that abortion is quite literally an order of magnitude safer than not having an abortion. Thank you for setting a good example.
April 14, 2006 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're missing the point. Women who have abortions are putting themselves at risk of ETERNAL DAMNATION, which is much more serious than death.
(and, before you get pissed at me for typing that, note the first half of my screen name.)
April 14, 2006 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
well, it's really the doctors who will be damned--the women, apparently, haven't the agency for sin. just ask the SD legislature.
April 14, 2006 11:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obviously, that's not to say that nobody should ever have kids (the problems with this solution are pretty clear) but there's certainly no serious health argument in favor of childbearing.
Well, I wouldn't say that. I would say that there is no serious health argument that childbearing is less dangerous in terms of immediate riask. Long-term, childbearing has some beneficial effects (e.g. it lowers the risk of breast cancer) that are not present in people who do not get pregnant of who abort a fetus early on (I am not certain whether a pregnancy aborted in, say, the third trimester would have the beneficial effect or not, but it is reasonable to assume it would). Of course, there are long-term negative effects too, so it is not clear which option is best in terms of long-term health.
"You say I'm a dreamer. We're two of a kind. Looking for some perfect world that we both know that we'll never find." - Thompson Twins, "Hold Me Now"
April 14, 2006 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've always suspected that this is the reason why when the American Taliban writes anti-abortion laws, they leave out the health of the mother exception. (if childbirth is more deadly than having an abortion, then all prenancies could be legally terminated for health reaons.)
April 14, 2006 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Labor and delivery are the closest to death that a female comes while doing something deemed to be 'natural'.
Women die in childbirth all the time, young women. I had a co-worker who was 30 and six months pregnant, she left early from work because she had a headache, but could not get into see the doctor until 5:30pm...so she laid down at home on her bed about 4pm, after calling her husband to tell him her head was hurting very bad. When he arrived at 6pm he found her dead on the bed.
I had another acquaintance, who went into labor and had some type of allergic reaction, where her entire body balloned up like a blimp..they performed a C-sect and gave her husband the baby. She did not live. He could not stop talking about how he did not recognize his wife she was swollen so badly.
I had another friend, who woke up feeling poorly and after all husband left for work, she felt weak and ended up having to crawl to the phone to call 911...she made it to the hospital, her husband arrived an hour later...the baby was find...she however was in a coma...she stayed in that coma for 2 weeks...her husband was a basket case...he prayed and prayed for her to live. She did.
These stories are the most harrowing, but the really common ones are about gestational diabetes and the really large babies that many women have as a result of diabetes during their pregnancy...women go through a lot to give birth.
I hear abortion stories about women who have late abortins with complications but no where near the frequency that I hear the horrific health complicatins women encounter to bring a child in this world.
Then we have these idiots who demand that becasuse a woman is capable of gestating she must...NOPE....abortion is safer than childbirth and pregnancy if done during the first 12 weeks.
Childbirth and pregnancy are health hazards and many, many women do not live through it.
April 14, 2006 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nah. Actually, it's because of Doe v Bolton, a decision issued by the Supreme court on the same day as Roe v Wade.
Doe v Bolton stands for the proposition that a doctor's decision that an abortion is medically necessary is utterly beyond any challenge or review. Consequently doctors are free to declare abortions medically necessary for any reason that strikes their fancy. Such as regarding a mother not wanting to deliver as a mental "health" issue.
It's the exception that swallows the rule. And the pro-life movement doesn't want the rule to be swallowed.
April 14, 2006 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Nobody should ever have kids": hmmm, maybe that's a solution that deserves another look . . .
April 15, 2006 9:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
that's what djlicious wrote.
April 15, 2006 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink