Legalizing abortion had no impact on number of women dying

From an article in a leading medical journal in 1978, 5 years after abortion was legalized:

“There has been no major impact on the number of women dying from abortion in the United States since liberalized abortion was introduced… Legal abortion is now the leading cause of abortion -related maternal deaths in the United States.”

D Cavanagh, Am J Ob Gyn 130(3):375 Feb 1, 1978

Quoted in:  Ann Saltenberger Every Woman Has a Right to Know the Dangers of Legal Abortion (Glassboro, New Jersey: Air – Plus Enterprises, 1983)

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85% of illegal abortions were done by doctors

Although pro-choice advocates claim that there were thousands (or sometimes even tens of thousands) that’s from illegal abortion before Roe V Wade, in fact the year before abortion was legalized there were only 39. Alfred Kinsey said, the following 50 years before abortion became legal:

He said that 85% of illegal abortions were done by”

“Reputable physicians in good standing in their local medical associations.”

Alfred Kinsey, cited by John Willke, Abortion Questions and Answers (Cincinnati, Ohio: Hayes Publishing Co, 1988), 169.

Read more about illegal abortion deaths here.

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Planned Parenthood director says abortion activists lie about deaths from illegal abortion

Malcolm Potts, former Medical Director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), who helped promote abortion throughout the world, claimed in 1970:

“Those who want the [abortion] law to be liberalized will stress the hazards of illegal abortion and claim that hundreds, or thousands, of women die unnecessarily each year – when the actual number is far lower.”

Malcolm Potts, Peter Diggory and John Peel. (Abortion, Cambridge University Press 1970)

Read about illegal abortion deaths in the US and how pro-choicers distorted the numbers here.

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NARAL, pro-abortion group, lied about number of abortion deaths

Doctor Bernard Nathanson, Former abortionist and founder of NARAL, talking about when he and others were trying to make abortion legal in New York State:

“There were perhaps 300 or so deaths from criminal abortions annually in the United States in the 60s, but NARAL in its press releases claimed to have data that supported a figure of 5000.”

Bernard Nathanson The Hand of God (Washington DC: Regnery Gateway, 1996) 89 – 90

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Legal abortion deaths replaced illegal ones, doctor says

A few years after Roe V. Wade, Dr. Dennis Cavanaugh wrote in The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology:

“It really makes no difference whether a woman dies from legal or illegal abortion, she is dead nonetheless. I find no comfort in the fact that legal abortion is now the leading cause of abortion related maternal deaths in the US.”

Dennis Cavanaugh “Effect of Liberalized Abortion on Maternal Mortality Rates” American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology February 1978: 375

He noted that the legalization of abortion did not lead to a huge drop in abortion related deaths that pro-choicers predicted. Many illegal abortionists simply began operating legally, killing women after Roe just like they killed women before Roe. See stories and details here 

Read more about illegal abortions here. 

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Abortion deaths: 5,000-10,000 women a year?

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For more info on illegal abortion deaths before Roe, go here. 

 

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The New York Times Lied About Number of Illegal Abortion Deaths

“By 1967, the year  the [New York Times] was declaring 4000 women dead annually from abortion, there were only 133 such deaths on record. The New York Times had allowed itself an editorial adjustment of slightly more than 3000%.”

James Burtchaell Rachel Weeping: And Other Essays on Abortion (Life Cycle, 1990) 65

Read more about illegal abortions before Roe here. 

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Dr. John Willke on legal and illegal abortion deaths

One article on illegal abortion said the following:

In a telephone interview, [Pro-life activist Dr. John] Willke said “nobody has the slightest idea” how many illegal abortions took place before 1973.

He said, however, the number of abortion-related deaths was more concrete because “a perforated uterus – which is evident on autopsy – a massive infection, a hemorrhage . . . (make it) pretty obvious what has happened.”

Willke said that in the 1950s, an average of 250 women a year were reported to have died in the United States due to illegal abortions. But by 1966, while abortion was still illegal everywhere, the annual number of reported deaths had dropped to 128. In 1972, the year before Roe vs. Wade, 39 abortion-related deaths were reported.

After 1973, when the ban ended in all states, “illegal abortion presumably disappeared,” Willke said. “If, in fact, the elimination of illegal abortion eliminated back alleys, there should have been a perceptible drop in the number of women dying. That didn’t happen. The line didn’t even blip from 1967 to 1973 and 1974. . . . It just kept going down at the same slow rate. There was no evidence of a decline in mortality from legalization.”

Kiley Armstrong “Abortion in the `bad old days’ // Era wasn’t that awful, foes of operation contend” Chicago Sun-Times April 16, 1989

To learn more about illegal abortion deaths before Roe versus Wade, go here

 

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Legal abortion deaths were higher than illegal ones, prior to Roe versus Wade

David Reardon cites statistics from Hilger’s Medical Hazards of Abortion on abortion deaths after abortion was legalized in New York (before Roe versus Wade):

“In contrast to New York’s “official” safety record for abortion, a 1971 study done by Dr. Joseph J Rovinsky concluded that the actual abortion mortality rate in New York, was no less than 38 per 100,000. Indeed, by 1972, the year prior to Roe versus Wade, the reported number of women who died from legal abortion exceeded the number dying from illegal abortion by almost 2 to 1.

Only after all requirements for reporting were struck down [did] the number of reported deaths from legal abortion even begin to level off.”

Hilger’s Medical Hazards of Abortion, Abortion and Social Justice, 63 Quoted in David C Reardon Aborted Women: Silent No More (Westchester, Illinois: Crossway books, 1987) 112

When abortion was legalized, many “back alley” abortionist simply hung up their shingles and began practicing abortion legally. Read about illegal abortions and abortion deaths here. Read about women who have died from legal abortion here.

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There was no “detectable change” in the number of abortion deaths after legalization

A study showed that the legalization of abortion did not lead to a big decrease in abortion related deaths. This was not what pro-choicers claimed would happen when abortion was legalized:

“As a result, there has been no detectable change in the relative frequency of abortion-related maternal death due to induced abortion in the United States in the last 30 years. It is extremely important that there has been no significant impact on the relative frequency of abortion related maternal death due to induced abortion in the United States since the legalization of abortion.

The reason for this appears to be quite simple. While maternal death due to criminal abortion appear to be decreasing, they have been replaced, almost one for one, by maternal deaths due to legal abortion.”

Thomas W. Hilgers, M.D. and Dennis O’Hare “Abortion Related Maternal Mortality: An In-Dept Analysis” in New Perspectives on Human Abortion, ed. By Thomas W. Hilgers,  M.D. Dennis J. Horan, and David Mall (Frederick, Maryland: University Publications of America, 1981) p 84

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