A new study of maternal health of Chileans has shown that the mortality rate of pregnant women has decreased significantly since 1989 when Chile enacted a law to protect unborn children.
For background, read Abortion Safer than Giving Birth, Physicians Claim
From "Education, Not Abortion, Reduces Maternal Mortality, Study Suggests" posted at ScienceDaily 5/10/12
Using 50 years of official data from Chile's National Institute of Statistics (1957-2007), the authors looked at factors likely to affect maternal mortality, such as years of education, per capita income, total fertility rate, birth order, clean water supply, sanitary sewer, and childbirth delivery by skilled attendants. They also analyze the effect of historical educational and maternal health policies, including legislation that has prohibited abortion in Chile since 1989, on maternal mortality.
During the fifty-year study period, the overall Maternal Mortality Ratio or MMR (the number of maternal deaths related to childbearing divided by the number of live births) dramatically declined by 93.8%, from 270.7 to 18.2 deaths per 100,000 live births between 1957 and 2007, making Chile a paragon for maternal health in other countries.
One of the most significant findings is that, contrary to widely-held assumptions, making abortion illegal in Chile did not result in an increase in maternal mortality. In fact, after abortion was made illegal in 1989, the MMR continued to decrease from 41.3 to 12.7 per 100,000 live births (69.2% reduction). "Definitively, the legal status of abortion is unrelated to overall maternal mortality rates" emphasized [Dr. Elard Koch, epidemiologist and leading author of the study].
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From "Chilean Study Dispels Maternal-Mortality Myth" by Mary Novick, posted at National Review Online 5/11/12
For years abortion advocates and international bodies have been pressuring Chile to decriminalize abortion — claiming that Chile’s 1989 law prohibiting abortion is increasing the maternal mortality rate because women must be turning to unsafe and illegal abortion as an alternative. However, a study of statistical data from 1957 through 2007 in Chile was released this week, which dispels this myth about abortion and maternal mortality.
The researchers observed that the maternal-mortality rate continued to decrease after 1989 when abortion was made illegal. If the claims made by abortion advocates were true, then one would expect the maternal-mortality rate to have increased after 1989 to account for a dramatic increase in dangerous illegal abortions, but these numbers did not increase. They continued to plummet.
In spite of the attacks from the international pro-abortion lobby, Chile has a pretty great track record on maternal mortality. In fact, Chile has the lowest maternal-mortality rate in Latin America and it even has a lower maternal-mortality rate than that of the United States — a country with legal abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.
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From "Study: Making Abortion Illegal Doesn’t Increase Maternal Mortality" by Andrew Bair, LifeNews.com 5/9/12
According to the World Health Organization (Trends in Maternal Mortality), the Central American nations of Nicaragua and El Salvador, in which abortion is completely illegal, have both seen a 44% drop in their maternal mortality ratios since 1990.
South Africa legalized abortion on demand in 1997. Since then, maternal mortality in that country has risen significantly according to the World Health Organization. The maternal mortality ratio is now estimated at 410. The MMR of Canada, which permits abortion on demand, increased 94 percent from 1990 to 2008. The MMR of the United States, which also permits abortion on demand, increased 96 percent. It’s clear, legalizing abortion does nothing to ameliorate high maternal mortality rates.
“Definitively, the legal prohibition of abortion is unrelated to overall maternal mortality rates” emphasized Koch.
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From "New Chile study challenges the ‘safe abortion’ myth" by Carolyn Moynihan, Mercatornet.com 5/8/12
Before 1980 the causes of MMR in Chile were on the whole directly related to pregnancy and birth. From then on the underlying health problems of “aging pregnancy” began to take over in the mortality stakes: hypertension, diabetes and obesity among others. The problem now, there and here in the developed world, “is not a matter of how many children a mother has, but a matter of when.”
Did the reproductive health brigade get that? Delayed motherhood can be literally deadly. At a certain point, the gains of education and good health and social services are taken too far and recoil upon the modern woman. With the greater part of the world, including many developing countries, now below replacement TFR, maternal mortality from social progress is set to climb before deaths from deprivation have been thoroughly, and one could say properly, addressed.
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To read the published study, CLICK HERE.
