Mortality rate

Abortion Increases Women's Mortality Rate
Elliot Institute; August 27, 2002

Abortion Increases Women's Mortality Rate

Springfield, IL -- A study published in the latest issue of the Southern  Medical Journal reveals that women who have abortions are at significantly  higher risk of death than women who give birth. This finding contradicts the  widely accepted opinion that abortion is safer than childbirth.

Researchers examined death records linked to Medi-Cal payments for births and  abortions for approximately 173,000 low income Californian women. They  discovered that women who had abortions were almost twice as likely to die in  the following two years and that the elevated mortality rate of aborting  women persisted  over at least eight years.

During the eight year period studied, women who aborted had a 154 percent  higher risk of death from suicide, an 82 percent higher risk of death from  accidents, and a 44 percent higher risk of death from natural causes.

This is the second major record-based study to link abortion to elevated  mortality rates. In 1997, a study of women in Finland sent a tremor of worry  through family planning agencies when it revealed that in the first year  following an abortion, aborting women were 252 percent more likely to die  compared to women who  delivered and 76 percent more likely to die compared to women who had not  been pregnant.

This new study confirms the trend found in Finland. It is also the first  American study to use a uniform and objective standard for associating deaths  with prior abortions and births.

Critics of abortion have long complained about the inaccuracies of abortion  mortality figures. There are no federal or state regulations requiring the  reporting of abortion complications. Indeed, the international standard for  identifying cause of death does not even provide a means for identifying  surgical abortion as a cause of death.

Another recently published Elliot Institute study using the California data  reveals that aborting women also seek more subsequent mental health care. A  third Elliot Institute study, published last January in the British Medical  Journal, reveals that subsequent long-term clinical depression is more common  among those women who have had abortions. Depression can weaken the immune  system and reduce overall health.

More information, researchers comments, and a link to the actual study are  posted for the press at http://www.afterabortion.org/News/deaths_smj.html