From: Larry Margolis <margoli@watson.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: Guilty of ... Thoughtcrime!
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 08:58:48 GMT
Reply-To: margoli@watson.IBM.com
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: The Village Waterbed

In  <1992Sep26.010844.3042@zooid.guild.org>  Will Steeves <goid@zooid.guild.org> writes:
>
> Actually, I've seen many statistics showing that pregnancy is no greater a
> risk for women than the operation to terminate one.

Where have you seen these statistics?  Everything I've seen says that
the risk for carrying to term is much higher.

A few examples:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
MORTALITY REATES FROM LEGAL ABORTION AND CHILBIRTH

each per 100,000

_Year_ _Abortion_      _Childbirth_
 1971   11.0            14.9
 1972    4.1            15.2
 1973    3.4            12.5
 1974    2.9            12.4
 1975    2.8            10.3
 1976    0.9            10.2
 1977    1.3             9.8
 1978    0.6             9.7
 1979    1.2             8.0
 1980    0.6             7.5
 1981    0.4             7.2
 1982    0.8             7.9
 1983    0.3             8.0

source: universal almanac, 1990.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
From the Alan Guttmacher Institute, published in "Facts in Brief:
Abortion in the United States."

--     The risk of death associated with childbirth is about 11
     times as high as that associated with abortion.

--     the risk of complications with abortion is minimal --
     less than 1% of all abortion patients experience a major
     comlication associated with the procedure, such as a
     serious pelvic infection, hemorrhage requiring a blood
     transfusion or unintended major surgery.

--     The risk of death associated with abortion decreased
     more than fivefold from 1973 to 1985, with 3.4 deaths per
     100,000 legal abortions in 1973 to 0.4 in 1985.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
From a book called "Abortion and Sterilization: Medical
and Social Aspects" which is really a series of monographs
edited by Jane E. Hodgson of the Department of Obstetrics and
Gynecology, Department of Minnesota, Minnesota, USA.

The Library of Congress call number is:HQ767. At Yale, the full
call number is HQ 767 A275 (1981).

The specific monograph with the statistics in it is called:
"Morbidity and Mortality of abortion in the United States"
by Willard Cates, Jr. and David A. Grimes

"Compared to other surgical procedures, the death to case rate for
legally induced abortion is remarkably low. A routine tonsillectomy
carries a risk of death twice as high as that of legal abortion, whereas
an appendectomy is approximately 100 times more dangerous than legally
induced abortion (Wennberg, 1979)"

"Compared to continuing the pregnancy to term, terminating a pregnancy
before 16 weeks gestation is associated with seven-fold lower mortality
even after having standardized the population groups for difference in
age and race(Cates and Tietze, 1977)."

This article was 1981. They conclude:
"Legally induced abortion has become one of the most frequently performed
--and one of the safest--operations in the United States. Fewer than one woman
per 100 suffers a major complication from abortion, and in the last two
years, fewer than two per 100000 dies from the procedure. The risk of
death from abortion is lower than that of other surgical procedures or
than continuing the pregnancy to term. Although the rates for short-term
complications from abortion are low, the potential long-term effects of
abortion on subsequent fertility await further evaluation. Increasing
percentages of women obtaining suction curettage abortions early in
pregnancy should ensure that induced abortion will become and even
safer procedure in the years ahead."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The U.S. death rate from pregnancy and childbirth is 10 per 100,000
pregnant women.

The U.S. death rate from surgical abortion is 0.4 per 100,000 abortions.

The death rate from RU-486 is 1 per 100,000 women who have used the drug.

US death rates from an article by Dr. Rosenberg in the American Journal of
Public Health.  Stats on RU-486 from the Population Council of New York.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm looking forward to seeing your numbers and sources, Will.

> I was speaking from anger, but I never actually threatened her.
>
> She, however, threatened *me* three times.  Just *who* is the violent
> person here?  Me, who dared to have *thoughts* of it, or her, who actually
> *threatened* me three times?  You decide.

Saying "I'll kill you if you tell anyone about this" is not, generally
speaking, a serious threat.  (Is it safe to assume that she did *not*
kill you?  :-)

> This is also an interesting subject matter... How can "pro choice" people
> oppose abortion after a sex determination, if they are in favour of abortion
> "for any reason and no apologies"?  Will they oppose sex determination solely
> because "it just might be a female"?
>
> But if one *is* "pro choice" *and* opposes abortion after a sex determination,
> then the question arises : What do these people *really* believe?  - In being
> Pro-Choice, or Pro-Choice-Only-If-It's-A-Choice-We-Agree-With?

You seem to be confused.  Pro-choice is not pro-abortion.  Pro-choice does
not mean that you're in favor of abortions at all.  It means that you're
in favor of letting the woman make her own choice as to what's best for her.
You can oppose abortion for sex selection, or abortion for any reason at
all, as long as you don't want to *legislate* your opposition.

Larry Margolis, MARGOLI@YKTVMV (Bitnet), margoli@watson.IBM.com (Internet)
Newsgroups: soc.women