Pro-Life/Pro-Baby ping!
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Posted on 3/8/2006, 2:42:07 PM by wagglebee
At the 50th session of the U.N.'s Commission on the Status of Women, members of the Pro-life, Pro-family Coalition for Non-Government Organizations are distributing vital information about abortion -- information that flies in the face of the conventional leftist wisdom.
More importantly, it is information that could mean the difference between life and death for women around the world who hear nothing except positive portrayals of abortion by "women's rights" advocates. In fact, women around the world hear a constant refrain that abortion is essential to "empowering" women and creating "gender equality."
The counterbalancing information about abortion and its negative impact on women's health and well-being from pro-life and pro-family advocates is carefully, meticulously documented. It often comes from the liberal organizations that promote their agenda though headlines that contradict their own research and facts.
Here are some little-known facts about abortion that directly impact women's health and well-being.
Abortion data is incomplete and/or inaccurate.
While abortion is one of the most frequently performed surgical procedures in the United States, it is the least regulated, has less follow-up care, and is remarkably protected from the usual accountability for complications. In fact, abortion has escaped the thorough review, regulation and accountability to which other medical procedures are subjected.
Doctors report that abortion is seldom identified as the source of problems or death: a medical diagnosis might indicate "severe pain" when the real cause is abortion. The medical records might cite "vaginal bleeding" as the problem when that bleeding stems from an abortion. An operation might be indicated because of a "ruptured ectopic pregnancy and internal hemorrhage" after an abortion fails to end a pregnancy. An autopsy might list as the cause of death "overwhelming sepsis" after an abortion gone wrong.
Medical progress, not the legalization of abortion, reduced maternal deaths.
The decrease in maternal mortality coincided with the development of better obstetric techniques -- antibiotics, blood transfusions and better management of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy – and improvements in the general health status of women. In fact, even the United Nations Population Division and World Health Organization acknowledge that there has been no substantial increase in maternal mortality since 1995, even though more women than ever had access to legalized abortion.
Sadly, they acknowledge that 99 percent of maternal deaths occur in developing countries and that those deaths could be prevented with adequate basic health care and good obstetric care before and after births. WHO also supports the view that improvements in general health and the development of modern obstetric techniques would dramatically (WHO's word) decrease maternal mortality in developing nations.
Worldwide data does not support the conclusion that legalizing abortion is responsible for reduced maternal mortality. Ireland, with one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world, has not legalized abortion. The United States, which "legalized" abortion in 1973 and has high general health standards, has a maternal mortality rate that is four times that of Ireland. In Finland, where abortion is legal, a study has shown that the risk of dying within a year after an abortion is several times higher than the risk of dying after miscarriage or childbirth.
Abortion can be very dangerous for women.
Three international health organizations -- UNICEF, WHO, UNESCO -- have published warnings on abortion. The major problems that women face from separation from the fetus (whether by delivery or abortion) are hemorrhage, infection and obstruction. These risks are relevant in both births and abortions because the woman who aborts is already experiencing the changes of pregnancy and, thus, faces the risks associated with childbirth.
Obviously, the risks are greater in developing nations where the general health care is poorer, antibiotics are limited, and clean facilities and drugs for hemorrhage are less available than in developed nations. Experts agree that the key to saving women's lives -- even in developing nations -- is to improve overall health care for women rather than to legalize abortion.
Abortion is four times deadlier than childbirth.
Abortion advocates routinely claim that childbirth causes six, 10, or 12 times more deaths than abortion. Abortion clinics advertise that legal abortion is many times safer than childbirth. The statistical analysis agency for Finland's government conducted a very accurate and complete study that reveals that out of 100,000 women, there were 281 cases of maternal deaths – 27 were women who had given birth, 48 were women who had miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies, and 101 were women who had abortions.
When the researchers calculated ratios, they determined that women who abort are 3.5 times more likely to die within a year than are women who carry to term. More startlingly, the researchers reported that the risk of death from suicide within a year of an abortion is more than seven times higher than the risk of suicide within a year of childbirth. A Canadian study revealed similar findings, as did a study of Medicaid payments in Virginia.
Sadly, many women have none of this information about the dangers of abortion. Instead, they know only the front-page information that has become conventional U.S. wisdom. Indeed, only a minute number of abortion deaths are classified as such in official data -- which leaves women at the mercy of abortion lies instead of being well informed about abortion realities.
And if the Culture of Death is successful, this will get a lot worse.
Pro-Life Ping.
I only have one question (and my math mind is forcing me to write this). The article states that there were 281 maternal deaths; 21 of which were from women who gave birth, 48 miscarriages/ectopic pregancies, and 101 were women who had abortions. 101+21+48=176...what are the other 105 from and why didn't they state what that last 37% died from? Shouldn't they have laid out their facts a bit better?
That's a good question and I have NO IDEA what the answer is. I suppose it could be deaths from other factors that are completely unrelated to pregnancy (automobile accidents, etc.), but I don't see where these would listed as "maternal" deaths (unless this refers to any death of a woman while she is pregnant) and in any case it seems like a VERY HIGH percentage.
National Right to Life has just about every piece of information you would ever need.
http://www.nrlc.org/
Please FreepMail me if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.
Thank you bump!
Please FReepmail me if you would like to be added to, or removed from, the Pro-Life/Pro-Baby ping list...
They published "Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health" in Sept 2005. On page 113 is a chart which lists the reasons women gave in 2004 and 1987 (the first time AGI did such a study) for having their abortions.
The most common reason women gave for having an abortion was that "Having a baby would dramatically change my life" (education, job/career, etc.)
Whenever possible, I like to use AGI statistics: the pro-abortion people can't argue with "their" own guys!
Thanks for the ping!
bump
I also wish there had been footnotes showing the sources and their publishers. (But then that's a frequent complaint that I have with articles like this.)
I know a woman, 32, who had an abortion at 21. In angry response to demonstrators outside the abortion clinic she says, "I knew exactly what I was doing. I didn't appreciate the pro-lifers making me feel worse." Following this abortion she had two miscarriages and now has two living children. It's ironic and sad. She's still trying to convince herself she's "at peace" with her decision to abort eleven years ago. I fight between caring for her as a person and wanting to scream, "You know what you did was wrong. Just admit it and face what you did was wrong." I'd like her to watch 'Silent Scream'. She never would, though.
I believe that God will forgive any woman for abortion, but she must be penitent. We have all done things which have harmed others, granted most have not caused the death of an innocent baby, and we eventually realize the sense of relief that comes when we ask Him for forgiveness.
Many of these women have convinced themselves that there is no God, and therefore no need to ask for His forgiveness. But that doesn't help the guilt.
Certainly -- we've all sinned against God and we can all be forgiven. It's when you read things like an unborn baby is "an appendage" and "not a person" that I cringe. I don't know if these people are blinded to the truth and/or in denial. Realizing we don't exist for ourselves is humbling. Once you attain this life truth for yourself you can't see the unborn as personal property to be aborted because it's just not a good time for you to have a child. Most women say "I could never do that" - to adoption - obviously cognizant of the pain involved in giving their child to another to love and raise. But what a gift. God will always provide a way -- wether a woman chooses to raise the baby herself or allow another this precious gift. Women faced with unplanned pregnancy, if they could only grasp the fact that their life - and that of their baby - is more precious to Someone than it is even to them.
As Christians, we are taught to love the sinner but not the sin. However, it seems for the leftist secular-humanist culture of death, they love the sin and could care less about the sinner.
Never heard it said like that before. It does seem this way.
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