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World Abortion Estimates: An Audit Part I--What are the Numbers, and Where Do They Come From?
Editor's note. This important but widely unreported aspect of the abortion debate requires extensive examination and much documentation. This series will run over the next several months and eventually be placed on NRLC's web page at www.nrlc.org.
Whenever there are special U.N. conferences, whenever there is a debate in Congress about aid to organizations that promote abortion overseas, at some point you're likely to hear someone assert that there are 30, 40, 50 million abortions a year (or more) in the world with tens of thousands of "abortion-related" or maternal deaths due to "unsafe abortions." Abortion's promoters argue that figures like these prove not only the need of more money for "family planning" (which includes abortion) but also the medical necessity to legalize abortion worldwide.
What is the source of such claims? And is there any solid statistical basis for these assertions? National Right to Life decided to try to track down the source of these claims and find out how and where the advocates of abortion got their numbers. It was not easy.
What we did discover is that there is an abundance of oft-times questionable assumptions and very often skimpy hard data to document the assertions. Not surprisingly the areas of the world with the most incomplete methods of tracking abortions and abortion complications are listed as having the most "unsafe" abortions and abortion deaths.
Estimates of "Unsafe" Abortions and Abortion Deaths
Check on different sites on the Internet and you'll see estimates of annual world abortions ranging from 20 million (Maryland Sierra Club) to 88 million (One World Supersite) abortions. Among the recent publications most commonly cited in academic studies or governmental literature, however, are the Alan Guttmacher Institute's Sharing Responsibility: Women Society & Abortion Worldwide (1999); Unsafe Abortion, a 1998 report from the World Health Organization (WHO); and two articles by Christopher Murray of Harvard and Alan Lopez of WHO that estimate worldwide mortality by cause, including abortion mortality.1
These sources put the number of annual world abortions at 46 million,2 with some 20 million of these officially deemed "unsafe." Both WHO and AGI estimate the number of maternal deaths associated with abortion at 78,000.3
- Zero tolerance for unsafe abortion.(Abortion: A Worldwide Perspective)(Book...
- Magazine article from: Conscience Lee, Ellie March 22, 2008 700+ words
...Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Oceania and North America. The information tells something about the abortion laws...reinforces the uneven distribution of wealth worldwide. Unsafe abortion is "largely a problem of poverty," they contend. Thus...
- Unsafe abortion: worldwide estimates for 2000.
- Magazine article from: Reproductive Health Matters Ahman, Elisabeth Shah, Iqbal May 1, 2002 700+ words
...Iqbal Shah (b,1) Abstract Unsafe abortion is preventable and yet remains a significant...the regional and global incidence of unsafe abortion. Estimates based on figures around...one in ten pregnancies ended in an unsafe abortion, giving a ratio of one unsafe abortion...
- Warriner, I.K.; Shah, I.H. (Eds.). 2006. Preventing Unsafe Abortion and Its...
- Magazine article from: Arrows For Change December 1, 2006 700+ words
...Eds.). 2006. Preventing Unsafe Abortion and Its Consequences: Priorities...global and regional problem of unsafe abortion and identified a research...reducing unintended pregnancy, unsafe abortion, and the resultant burden...
- Unsafe abortion and fundamentalism in the Philippines: locating absences,...
- Magazine article from: Women in Action Viado, Lalaine P. April 1, 2008 700+ words
...findings, specifically on the issue of unsafe abortion. The dominant discourse on the issue of unsafe abortion in the Philippines is fundamentalist...fundamentalist line. The issue of unsafe abortion in the country is thus transformed...
- Unsafe abortion.(ROUND UP: Publications)(Brief article)
- Magazine article from: Reproductive Health Matters May 1, 2008 700+ words
...estimates of the incidence of unsafe abortion and related mortality for the...rates; health consequences of unsafe abortion and the difficulties in obtaining reliable data. Estimated unsafe abortion rates, ratios, related deaths...
- Complications of unsafe abortion: a case study and the need for abortion law...
- Magazine article from: Reproductive Health Matters Oye-Adeniran, Boniface A. Umoh, Augustine V. Nnatu, Steve NN May 1, 2002 700+ words
Abstract Complications of unsafe abortion account for 30-40% of maternal...This paper reports a case of unsafe abortion by dilatation and curettage...recovery, for two weeks. Unsafe abortion is fraught with many complications...
- Using the right to life to confront unsafe abortion in Africa.
- Magazine article from: Reproductive Health Matters Teklehaimanot, Kibrom I. May 1, 2002 700+ words
Abstract Unsafe abortion is one of the leading causes of...approaches to tackling the problem of unsafe abortion. One is to advocate the right...to minimise the consequences of unsafe abortion. African societies are communal...
- Estimates of health care system costs of unsafe abortion in Africa and Latin...
- Magazine article from: International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health Vlassoff, Michael Walker, Damian Shearer, Jessica Newlands, David Singh, Susheela September 1, 2009 700+ words
...treating medical complications from unsafe abortion constitute a significant financial...treated annually for complications from unsafe abortion; (2) the cost of treating such...quantifying the economic costs of unsafe abortion is critical for informing public policy...
