Stop me if you’ve heard this one: the abortion lobby is lying about abortion’s medical risk—oh, you have? Of course you have; they do that a lot. But since one such lie has been debunked yet again, I’ll go on.
Planned Parenthood claims that “Safe, uncomplicated abortion does not cause problems for future pregnancies such as […] miscarriage.” Its information page on miscarriage makes no mention of abortion as a risk factor. NARAL calls it a “lie” to suggest “a link between abortion and future miscarriages,” declaring “ first-trimester abortions pose virtually no long-term risks of such problems as […] miscarriage.”
Despite these claims, Reuters reports that researchers from Rabin Medical Center in Petach Tiva and Tel Aviv University studied medical records from 13,000 women and found new evidence of such a link….
Among the women with a past terminated pregnancy, 53 percent had miscarriages, 33 percent had abortions and another 14 percent didn’t have the type of termination specified in their records.
About 7 percent of women with a prior abortion or miscarriage had labor induction, compared with about 5 percent of women pregnant for the first time.
Cesarean deliveries were performed for 25 percent of women with a prior terminated pregnancy, compared with 18 percent of the other women.
Retained placenta after birth occurred with about 7 percent of women who had a history of miscarriage or abortion, compared with roughly 5 percent of the other women.
But extensive bleeding, a serious side effect of the placenta failing to emerge after the baby, was rare and happened in roughly 3 percent of the deliveries regardless of the women’s prior pregnancy history.
Lead researcher Dr. Liran Hiersch concluded that the increased risk was “only mild,” but still something “crucial” for doctors to inform their patients of—something America’s leading abortion provider clearly isn’t interested in.
Even so, you may be thinking, “we’re still talking about a small risk, and nothing comes with no risk whatsoever, so what’s the big deal?” The big deal is that this is simply the latest in a series of studies finding the same thing—and at much higher levels:
- British Journal of Gynecology, 2006: Post-abortive women have a 60% higher risk of future miscarriage.
- International Journal of Epidemiology, 2003: “prior history of induced abortion was significantly associated with increased risk of miscarriage (<28 weeks of gestational age) and first-trimester miscarriage (<14 weeks of gestational age).”
- British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 1991: Post-abortive women have a 1.5-1.7% higher risk of ectopic pregnancy compared to women who’ve previously carried a pregnancy to term.
- Journal of the American Medical Association, 1980: “Women who had had two or more prior induced abortions had a twofold to threefold increase in risk of first-trimester spontaneous abortion, loss between 14 to 19 and 20 to 27 weeks,” although “No increase in risk of pregnancy loss was detected among women with a single prior induced abortion.”
- Why Can’t We Love Them Both? by pro-life pioneers John and Barbara Willke identifies nine additional studies from between 1971 and 1983, published in the above and other mainstream medical journals, linking abortion and miscarriage.
From the nature of what they’re destroying to their actual effects on women hiding behind the “Care. No Matter What” slogan, there is no aspect of abortion Planned Parenthood will not misrepresent. Indeed, especially in light of their Medical Directors’ Council President Mary Gatter admitting this week that “we’re kind of violating the protocol that says to the patient, ‘we’re not doing anything different in our care of you,’” the abortion giant’s idea of informed consent should inspire less confidence than ever.
