From: Larry Margolis <margoli@watson.ibm.com>
Subject: Abortion safer than giving birth
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 19:13:15 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  <nyikos.714864342@milo.math.scarolina.edu>  nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
>
> It will take me very much longer to get a clear picture of what
> mortality rates are really like today, as opposed to official
> figures of the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.  But that's one reason
> I am on this net, to report to you from time to time on what I learn.

It's not clear that you're interested in learning, if you automatically
dismiss facts because you don't like the source.  Perhaps you'll like
one of these sources better.

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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.
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The following is extracted from:
>Message-ID: <1992May3.203007.4798@cs.yale.edu>
>From: rescorla@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu (Eric Rescorla)

Data follows:
They are 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
..
The authors go on to say
"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."
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Larry Margolis, MARGOLI@YKTVMV (Bitnet), margoli@watson.IBM.com (Internet)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,talk.religion.misc,talk.politics.misc