From: dsh@csl36h.csl.ncsu.edu (Doug Holtsinger)
Subject: Re: Abortion and Infanticide
Reply-To: dsh@csl36h.csl.ncsu.edu (Doug Holtsinger)
Organization: North Carolina State University
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 00:38:37 GMT

In article <1992Jul27.000047.21506@cs.yale.edu> 
rescorla@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu (Eric Rescorla) writes:

>dsh@csl36h.csl.ncsu.edu (Doug Holtsinger) writes:

>> I have seen claims that a D&E is safer for the woman and that
>> it's the "preferred" procedure for late second-trimester abortions,
>> but I have not seen anything to suggest that it is "much" safer
>> for the woman than prostaglandin.

> From "Abortion and Sterilization: Medical
> and Social Aspects" [...]
>
> Type of Procedure         Death to case rate(usa, per 100000 cases)
> ----------------------------------------(1972-77)----------------
> Type of procedure                           wks of gestation
>                      <=8    9-10  11-12   13-15    16-20  >=21
> curettage            .5      1.6   2.9
> D&E                                        6.7      12.9   16.7
> Saline                                     2.5      19.3   20.6
> Prostaglandin/other                        62.2     11.6   77.3
> Hysterototomy/Hysterectomy   58.8  39.7    70.8     47.8   157.5
>
>---Quote ends here.
>
> So, in weeks 13-15 D+E is ~10x safer than Prostaglandin.
> 16-20 it's actually less safe. >=21 it's ~4x safer.
>
> I'd say that those numbers are significant.

Thanks for posting these statistics. No offense intended, but these
figures seem to be out of date. I believe the current mortality rate 
for childbirth is somewhere around 10 per 100,000 births, which is 
lower than any of the abortion procedures performed after 16 weeks.
The reported mortality rate for abortion has dropped since the 70s,
and perhaps the differences between procedures has also changed.

These numbers might be "significant", but that's debatable. Some 
pro-choicers like to point out that the reported percentage of third 
trimester abortions is "insignificant", yet at a rate of 10 per
100,000 abortions, that rate is on the same order as the absolute
differences in the mortality rates between the D&E and prostaglandin. 

Also, these figures might give a rough idea of the relative safety
of different abortion procedures, but I'm not certain they can be
applied to individuals. For example, some women obtain late abortions
for medically indicated reasons, and these women generally suffer
higher mortality rates due in part to their medical conditions. 


>> medical texts which I've perused, they often list "possible
>> fetal survival" as a disadvantage of a prostaglandin abortion,
>> indicating that a physician might select a D&E over prostaglandin
>> since a D&E ensures fetal death.

> That's probably true. Does prostaglandin usually cause significant
> damage to a fetus? If so, I can see how survival might be a negative.
> If the possibility is of healthy fetal survival, choosing
> a D+E merely to ensure fetal death is reprehensible, IMHO.

I'm pretty sure that prostaglandin does not directly damage 
the fetus since it can be administered through the vagina, but 
there's always a risk of fetal death in any abortion procedure.
But "possible fetal survival" was also listed as a disadvantage
in a hysterotomy.

> [...]
> I think that a woman SHOULD be entitled to have an abortion
> of a child with Down syndrome, however, the justification is
> certainly not one of risk to the mother. [I would consider this
> to be merely a special case of the more general right to abortion.]

Then what is the justification for aborting a fetus with Down's syndrome?

> [.. rest deleted ..]
>-Ekr


Doug Holtsinger

Newsgroups: talk.abortion