Study: Abortion is safer than giving birth

A new study has revealed that abortion is a procedure that is not only safer than giving birth, but people are 14 times more likely to die during childbirth than during an abortion:

Dr. Elizabeth Raymond from Gynuity Health Projects in New York City and Dr. David Grimes of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, found that between 1998 and 2005, one woman died during childbirth for every 11,000 or so babies born.

That compared to one woman of every 167,000 who died from a legal abortion.

The researchers also cited a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which found that, from 1998 to 2001, the most common complications associated with pregnancy — including high blood pressure, urinary tract infections and mental health conditions — happened more often in women who had a live birth than those who got an abortion.

But what’s truly notable about the study is that the findings blatantly contradict state laws in place that not only restrict abortion on the premise that the procedure itself is not safe, but literally force doctors to give medically unsound information about (in other words, exaggerate the fuck out of) abortion health risks.

This hasn’t been the first time I’ve seen similar info about the risks of abortion v. childbirth, but considering the starkness of difference here, I can’t imagine that this study couldn’t be used as pretty powerful evidence to challenge some of these state laws.