Posted on 08/07/2015 1:19:27 PM PDT by Gamecock
2.8%
As of late the left has been pressing really hard on the life of the mother as a defense of abortions. Last night during the debate Megan Kelly got particularly nasty in pushing that argument. Based on the rhetoric one would think that over half of the abortions performed are to save the mother's life.
But what is the real story. There are lots of studies giving reasons that women have abortions and most ignore the reasons trotted out by the left. Most of them center on the convenience factor. Examples include lack of money, the timing to have a child is bad, etc. These reasons make up well over 75% women gave for having an abortion.
Why do these studies not report the reasons pushed by the left? Could it be that those reasons are so statistically insignificant that they left really doesn't want us to know?
I dug deeper to find exactly how many women chose to have an abortion because their lives are at risk,and here is what I found:
25.5% want to postpone childbearing
7.9% Want no more children
21.3% Cannot afford a baby
10.8% Will disrupt education or a job
14.1% Relationship problem or partner doesn't want a child
12.2% Too young
2.8% Risk to maternal health
3.3% Risk to fetal health
2.1% Other
Source: Reasons Why Women Have Induced Abortions: Evidence from 27 Countries. Spetember 1998
Now I know that is an old article, but the health of the child bearing woman in the US has not changed. If anything advances in medicine will drive that number down.
2.8% FRiends, burn that number into your head. Throw it out whenever someone trots out the red herring of the mother's health.
“Risk of maternal health” does not necessarily mean threat of death either.
I work with patients who have terrible pre-existing diseases, and their doctors help many of them ccarry their babies full term at tremendous risk to the mother. To me, based on my experiences, this entire argument is bogus. I also read somewhere that the “life of the mother” was frequently expolited by Dr Tiller to “justify” his late term abortions in situations like hyperemesis, maternal depression, and whatever else flim-flam symptoms these women could come up with to say their “health” was in jeopardy.
Years ago I read a statement from the American Medical Association that there are virtually no circumstances in which an abortion is needed to protect the life of the mother. I also remember a doctor who was doing partial birth abortions justified it by the woman’s telling him that she would ‘commit suicide’ if forced to go through with the pregnancy. That was his ‘life of the mother’ argument.
That does not mean that you have to KILL that baby. Preemies can survive.
That is incredibly broad definition. The court effectively gave carte blanche to the abortionist and the woman seeking an abortion. Any reason whatsoever could be defined as a maternal health reason.
How is that a red herring, when the vast majority of the country supports such an exception and nobody thinks the exception is other than rare?
Threat to a mothers life has always been a red herring...
Abortion is a lie, the arguments for it are all lies.
The strongest supporters of abortion are not women, the most reliable supporters for anytime anywhere abortion are and always have been young single men.
Abortion is not about choice, its nearly always about avoiding the consequences of a previous choice.
Thanks for tracking this info down. Enlightening.
exactly right. the proportion of maternal deaths due to child birth is probably much smaller assuming today’s maternity care.
i’d like to see an honest study of the proportion of predictabile deaths from full-term gestation (say derived from a study of mothers chancing death due to a provable pre-existing condition in full term childbirth).
i’d also like to see an honest study of the proportion of unpredictable deaths resulting from botched abortions performed to “save the life” of the mother.
About 90% said no they would not pursue an abortion if it were not legal.
10% said that they would try to abort even if were illegal.
Planned Parenthood dominates the sex ed angle in order to prepare girls to choose abortion when they get pregnant later.
Abortion clinic councilors have to trick a lot of women into deciding to get abortions. It is unnatural for 90% of the women, who are law abiding, to decide to pay someone to kill their babies.
I can't find the article I read back in 1984. The Guttmacher website does not upload old studies.
But what this means is that 90% of all abortions would not take place if it were not legal to extract living babies from their mothers wombs.
Ectopic pregnancies occur in about 1 out of 50 pregnancies, and are a true life-threatening event for which the only option is an emergency abortion.
Of course, that 1 in 50 life-threatening pregnancy does not justify the 1 in 3 babies killed because their mothers did not feel like using contraceptives.
I was sidewalk counseling years ago and this couple came out of the clinic, the woman had aborted. My friend asked the husband why he let his wife get the abortion. I thought he was going to haul off an smack us, but instead he said that the lady doctor "saved my wife's life." So how did she do that, sir? He gave some rapturous answer naming some non-existant disease, and my friend then said, "Well, if your wife was really suffering from that why did you go into an office not set up as a medical facility? Don't you have a real doctor? Did that lady in there make an appointment to see your wife later to make sure your wife is truly all right?"
"Well, all I know is she saved my wife's life."
Yeah right.
The doctor says "your life has been saved," and the woman can think anything she wants.
Not to quibble — actually, I'm making a point that strengthens your argument — but the way many ectopic pregnancies are dealt with is not equivalent to an abortion. An embryo lodged in a fallopian tube can be removed, along with part of the tube, without directly killing the embryo. Will the embryo die when it's removed (if it hadn't already died when it got stuck)? Yes, the embryo will die. However, there are premature babies who die after emergency c-sections are performed because the mother is, say, hemmoraghing. The embryo in an ectopic pregnancy doesn't need to be “crunched” as that abortionist said on that video.
And, as in any triage situation, priorities are set based on the best possible outcomes that can be expected given the condition of the patients and the medical skills and technologies that exist at that time and place.
Linguistic etymology might demand that the loss of the baby in that circumstance, when no chance exists to save both baby and mother but the chance exists to save the mother, be called an abortion but there is no moral or medical comparison to the other 97.2% of abortions where the primary intention is to kill the baby.
re: Ectopic pregnancies occur in about 1 out of 50 pregnancies, and are a true life-threatening event for which the only option is an emergency abortion.
see: http://liveactionnews.org/get-facts-straight-treating-ectopic-pregnancy-not-abortion/
Ectopic pregnancies require emergency medical attention, not something one goes to their local Planned Parenthood or local abortionist for. The treatment is not considered an abortion. The purpose of an abortion is to destroy the life in the mother. In dealing with ectopic pregnancies, the purpose is to save the life of the mother, and the child dies in the process because it is impossible for the pregnancy to continue.
The site I linked above states that Web MD, Mayo Clinic, even Planned Parenthood do not refer to the treatment for an ectopic pregnancy as an abortion. You can link to those 3 sites and their discuss of ectopic pregnancies from http://liveactionnews.org/get-facts-straight-treating-ectopic-pregnancy-not-abortion/.
That is a distinction that really means nothing.
Stat seemed a little high. so...
19.7 per 1000
Ectopic pregnancy occurs at a rate of 19.7 cases per 1,000 pregnancies in North America and is a leading cause of maternal mortality in the first trimester.
http://www.aafp.org/afp/2000/0215/p1080.html
And, why?
There are a few factors that can play a role in women that are more likely to have problems with ectopic pregnancies including older mothers around age 35 to 44. Those who have had previous ectopic pregnancies are also more likely to have another. Those with previous pelvic or abdominal surgery are also more likely to have ectopic pregnancy, according to ectopic pregnancy statistics. Those with induced abortions as well as women who get pregnant after they’ve had tubal ligation or while an IUD is in place are more likely to have a problem with ectopic pregnancy.
http://www.pregnancystatistics.org/content/ectopic-pregnancy-statistics.html
It is the difference between purposely killing the baby and
being unable to save the baby. That means something to me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.