A nationwide ban on abortion in the US would lead to 21 percent. the increase in pregnancy-related deaths, and among black women the proportion would be as high as 33%. – according to a recent study conducted at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Its results were published on October 25 in the journal Demography.
The authors note that the presented figures relate only to deaths caused by natural complications during pregnancy and childbirth. If you add the deaths resulting from unauthorized or illegal abortions, the death rate will be even higher.
“The conclusion of the study is this: if we deny people the right to an abortion, the number of pregnancy-related deaths will increase because pregnancy is more dangerous for a woman than abortion,” – author, demographer Dr. Amanda Stevenson.
The study was conducted in response to a Texas law prohibiting abortion after 6 weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions. In recent weeks, the Texas Supreme Court has upheld these laws, making it the most restrictive law in the United States. For now, however, the ban has been suspended by the White House, which explains that the act grossly violates women’s constitutional rights.
Stevenson, who deals with reproductive health policy, points out that supporters of the abortion ban often emphasize how dangerous the procedure is and how many women die from it. Yet, in fact, deaths from such incidents were very common before 1973, when the right to abortion was legalized in the United States, and are now quite rare. This is due to the fact that along with liberal law, safe, medically controlled methods of abortion have emerged.
In order to predict the consequences of the total abortion ban on maternal mortality, Stevenson – based on the data on the number of abortions and births from recent years – calculated how many more pregnancies would be continued in the absence of a legal abortion, and substituted the numbers from the current pregnancy-related mortality statistics.
It turned out that pregnancy is much more risky for a woman’s health than an abortion; for example, carrying a pregnancy to term is 33 times more risky than terminating it. In the case of abortion, the death rate is 0,6 per 100. treatments, while for every 100 thousand. live births is 20,1 (according to data from the Centers for Disease Control).
The study also estimated that in the years following the introduction of the national abortion ban, an additional 140 women will die each year from pregnancy-related causes, an increase of 21%. Among black women, this number would increase by a third.
“Black women decide to have an abortion more often. The main reason is unequal access to education, work, housing and health care – says the author of the publication. – At the same time, the risk of mortality related to bringing pregnancy to term is more than three times higher for black women than for white women. Therefore, exposing black women to an increased risk of pregnancy-related death by denying them access to abortion would exacerbate the existing public health crisis. “
The researcher also emphasizes that her publication does not take into account the estimates of the increased number of deaths due to attempting illegal (and thus dangerous) abortions or self-induced abortions. And while it assumes that this number is quite low, it is nevertheless higher than zero. A recent study revealed that around 1,5 percent. women of childbearing age tried to terminate the pregnancy on their own, often using ineffective and potentially dangerous methods such as herbs, drugs or sharp objects.
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