Medical Records Link Abortion With Death

By AFA Journal
February 28, 2006

(AgapePress) - Several new studies reveal an unprecedented accuracy in linking women's medical records to their death certificates when comparing abortion and childbirth mortality rates. Such findings could possibly change the application of the 33-year-old Roe v. Wade ruling -- which legalized abortion -- while alerting medical professionals to common risk factors associated with abortion and death.

One of the studies, which is part of a series, was completed by researchers from the National Research and Development Center for Welfare and Health in Finland. Its findings disputed the age-old presumption that abortion is linked to fewer deaths than is childbirth -- that is, when a woman's pregnancy history is examined linking her medical records to her death certificate.

With proper identification of pregnancy history, the death rate associated with abortion was found to be three times higher than the rate associated with childbirth.

According to Walter Weber, an attorney with the American Center for Law & Justice who specializes in abortion law, the findings provided by these studies set a new basis for state regulation of abortion even within the realm of Roe v. Wade.

"The claim that abortion was safer than childbirth, at least early in pregnancy, was accepted as a crucial fact in Roe v. Wade," Weber said, but is now being challenged by these recent findings.

In addition, a similar study conducted over a 13-year period by the same research center revealed a direct correlation between abortion and death specifically from suicide, accidents, and homicide. Once again, medical records were linked that signified a relationship between the cause of death and abortion. Some of the findings include, but are not limited to, the following:

- Female deaths from suicide, accidents, and homicide were 248 percent higher in the year following an abortion when compared to deaths among women who had not been pregnant the previous year.

- Women who had an abortion were six times as likely to commit suicide than women who gave birth the previous year.

- The results of a 1997 Finland-based study were confirmed, which found women who had had an abortion were 3.5 times more likely to die in the following year as compared to women who gave birth.

There is no certainty as to how these studies and their findings will affect the availability of abortion, but it will definitely heighten the social, legal, and medical debates that surround it.

Medical Records Link Abortion With Death