The pro-abortion movement loses yet another excuse to promote the death of babies thanks to faulty statistics.
One of the main and most popular defenses of abortion is the claim that it is an effective treatment method to save the life of a pregnant mother. She may have medical complications that cause the natural process of childbirth to become a fatal one. Therefore, abortion advocates often say this is what bolsters abortion’s claim to being a reproductive health right for women.
This defense has won over the hearts and minds of nearly all abortion advocates, but it has also convinced most pro-life advocates to carve out an exception to the rule in its case. According to the Pew Research Center, of the 37% of adults who are pro-life, 46% of them excuse abortion to save the life of the mother, while 27% of them do not.
No matter how strictly pro-life a state or its legislature may be, every state, including those with abortion bans or restrictions, holds exceptions to save the life of the mother. Despite this, advocates have protested that legislation that decreases the accessibility of abortion has dramatically raised maternal mortality rates in the United States.
This “life of the mother” defense was undermined by a study published on Wednesday by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. It revealed that the term “maternal mortality” has been dramatically extrapolated in recent research on the subject. It has enveloped not only death due to complications directly linked to childbirth but also any instance of death while being pregnant.
The numbers were spiked due to the inclusion of a positive pregnancy checkbox that was recommended two decades ago and has since then been incorporated into research methods in all 50 states. This means that researchers tagged every deceased pregnant woman, regardless of the cause of death, and went from there.
The result is that studies on maternal mortality have generally overestimated by more than 300%. The study showed that maternal mortality rates in America have been pretty stable for the past 25 years, going only from a rate of 10.2 to 10.4. This disproves the claim that restricting abortion access creates significantly higher maternal mortality rates.
Interestingly, if you look up “maternal mortality” on Google at the time of this publication, you see that Google placed the introductory paragraph of this very study at the top to claim that the maternal mortality rate has risen dramatically. What Google very conveniently left out was the second half of that paragraph, which reads: “However, these high and rising rates could reflect issues unrelated to obstetrical factors, such as changes in maternal medical conditions or maternal mortality surveillance (eg, due to introduction of the pregnancy checkbox).”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Another study for the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation assessed the maternal mortality rates of 181 countries, both in developed and developing countries. It found that they have generally fallen across the world for the past 30 years. This included nations that implemented abortion restrictions throughout this period, such as Poland and El Salvador. While America had a higher rate, there was no indication that abortion restriction was the cause.
Try as they might, abortion advocates, their researchers, and their establishment supporters cannot deny the fact that abortions do not save lives but only take them.
Parker Miller is a 2024 Washington Examiner Winter Fellow.
