The Danger of Illegal Abortions

Given the recent headlines about Dr. George Tiller,  there is an article in the New York Times that I wish everyone in the country would read. The article is titled "The Deadly Toll of Abortion by Amateurs" and is quite simply about just that.

The article focuses on the women of Tanzania, where abortions are illegal and in turn the maternal death rate is higher due to botched abortions:

"Pregnancy and childbirth are among the greatest dangers that women face in Africa, which has the world’s highest rates of maternal mortality — at least 100 times those in developed countries. Abortion accounts for a significant part of the death toll.  Maternal mortality is high in Tanzania: for every 100,000 births, 950 women die. In the United States, the figure is 11, and it is even lower in other developed countries."

What has always struck me about the "pro-life" movement is the hypocrisy of the title of the movement.  It is clear that making abortion illegal would not actually save lives, it would simply change the lives that were being put at risk.  Of course there would be more babies born (more life) but in turn there would be a lot more pregnant women who would die, and they would mostly be poor.

Not to mention that the other factor in this equation is the use of birth control by African women:

In most countries the rates of abortion, whether legal or illegal — and abortion-related deaths — tend to decrease when the use of birth control increases. But only about a quarter of Tanzanians use contraception....In interviews, some young women from the area who had given birth as teenagers said they had not used birth control because they did not know about it or thought it was unsafe: they had heard that condoms were unsanitary and that birth control pills and other hormonal contraceptives could cause cancer.

Women who use birth control can be labeled as promiscuous and even if she can get around the social taboos, it is also geographically hard to get birth control to women.   Where this connects to the US is that most pro-lifers also tend to be anti-safe sex education and birth control.   Which is clearly an intense contradiction to their supposed "pro-life" stance.

And of course, there is Dr. Tiller.

*photo by advencap (CC) of a woman's health clinic in Tanzania

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