Ambivalence and Resolve About Roe

First Things ^ | Fri. Jan. 19, 2007 | Richard John Neuhaus

[livius]

Good analysis. Another thing that is never reported is how many women still die from LEGAL abortions. One of the reasons that this is never reported is that nobody really knows - many of the states, particularly the largest states with the most abortions (New York, for example), do not require abortion performers to report incidents the way this would be required of, say, dentists. Nobody collects these statistics because they are simply not available as a group, and have to be picked out of death reports or ER visits.

Of course, occasionally they'd get out to the press. For example, when some poor girl, usually about 14 or so (in other words, she'd already been the victim of rape) would bleed to death or have a seizure after having an abortion in some dirty little "clinic" run by a Pakistani "doctor" in her dismal slum. It only got out if he had done something spectacular, like dump her lifeless body in front of a hospital somewhere, or if some of the other workers got scared of criminal liabilty and called EMS.

In addition, abortionists, unlike all other people considered health workers, never have to report that they have seen a minor who has been sexually abused. So she's 10 years old? Give her an abortion and send her back to the household where the man lives who made her pregnant in the first place. After all, she can always have another abortion next year.

[TigersEye]

You are quite right. Another reason those numbers are hard to find is that a death resulting from an abortion will be listed on the death certificate as "hemorrhage" or some other specific physiological cause not "abortion."

I did a lot of searching for statistics on deaths of mothers from legal abortions when I first put that post together. I asked for help from FRs most active Pro-Life posters. I found nothing doing searches and only the reasons you and I have posted (for the lack of info) from other posters. I would say that there is an intentional effort to prevent those statistics from being collected or disseminated. Only our government, led by our politicians, has the power to suppress the collection, analysis and dissemination of that data.