[Wamvan] [WAM!] Abortion Safer Than Giving Birth: Study

[Frances Kissling]

Sometimes facts are not very useful. Women choose to have babies or not
have babies rarely based on "let's see, I am now pregnant and it would be
safer to have an abortion rather than a baby". Some facts, such as this one
have very little salience in convincing anyone of anything. Its the Lakoff
argument about frames of reference beating out facts time and time again

On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 8:36 PM, Joanna Chiu <chiu.joanna5 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Have any WAMmers written about this?
>
> Excerpted from Reuters, see:
>
> http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/23/us-abortion-idUSTRE80M2BS20120123
>
>
>
> ABORTION SAFER THAN GIVING BIRTH: STUDY
>
> By Genevra Pittman, January 23, 2012
>
>
>
> NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Getting a legal abortion is much safer than
> giving birth, suggests a new U.S. study published Monday (in the journal
> Obstetrics & Gynecology). Researchers found that women were about 14 times
> more likely to die during or after giving birth to a live baby than to die
> from complications of an abortion.
>
>
>
> Experts say the findings, though not unexpected, contradict some state
> laws that suggest abortions are high-risk procedures ( . . . ) What makes
> it complicated ( . . . ) is when the law interferes and requires doctors to
> state information that isn't always balanced or medically sound -- usually
> exaggerating the risk of abortion.
>
>
>
> The researchers on the new study combined government data on live births
> and pregnancy- and abortion-related deaths with estimates on legal
> abortions performed in the U.S. from the Guttmacher Institute, which
> conducts sexual and reproductive health research and education ( . . . )
> Most abortions have typically been done surgically ( . . . ) but since the
> abortion drug mifepristone was approved for use in the United States in
> 2000, the number of medically-induced abortions has been on the rise. Both
> methods are now considered equally safe ( . . . )  with the main risk --
> though very small -- coming from medication- and procedure-related
> infections ( . . . )
>
>
>
> --
> Joanna Chiu
>
> www.joannachiu.com <http://www.joannachiu.com%20>
> twitter.com/joannachiu
> Ph: 917 767 6145
> WAM! Vancouver <http://www.wamvancouver.wordpress.com%20>
> <http://twitter.com/joannachiu>
>
>
>
>
>
>  --
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-- 
Frances Kissling
Visiting Scholar
Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania
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