February 27, 2010

Beware the Negligible Danger of Abortion!

Attention all those advocating for women to be forced to give birth:

If you feel you must do this, then go ahead and do it, but be aware that you cannot pretend to be doing it for the safety of the mother.

When you tell us a story, like this woman does on her blog, about a young girl dying from an abortion pill, you are merely demonstrating that you do not understand the difference between anecdote and a statistical fact. The argument that abortion is a very dangerous ordeal and therefore women should choose to give birth is based on a huge fallacy, and the fact that it is so commonly accepted is a sin perpetrated against uninformed women the world over.

The fact is that birth is far more dangerous than any abortion procedure or pill (except what women have done when abortion is not available and the very late term).


The Guttemacher institute's report on abortion is extremely enlightening in general, but it shows that:
In the US, The risk of death associated with abortion increases with the length of pregnancy, from one death for every one million abortions at or before eight weeks to one per 29,000 at 16–20 weeks—and one per 11,000 at 21 or more weeks.
While just putting Maternal Mortality into Wikipedia.com will show you that in the US, there is basically 1 death for every 9,000 live births,

Please stop misleading women about their options. It's not very, how should we say, Christian of you...

PS A special thanks to Angie Jackson, or Angie the Anti-theist (@antitheistangie) as she's know online, for committing to livetweeting her experience of the abortion pill in order to demystify it for other women having to make the same kinds of choices. Putting yourself out there in this climate is very brave and you are a hero to me and many others.