A new study done in Denmark showed that abortion pills (aka medical abortion) pose no risk to a woman who decides to have a child later in life.
The study in the New England Journal of Medicine found no difference in the rates of subsequent tubal pregnancies, miscarriages, premature births or low birthweight births for women who had previously had surgical abortion, usually through vacuum aspiration, or those taking any of the three drug regimens that eliminate a fetus.About 2.4 percent of later conceptions led to tubal pregnancy and just over 12 percent miscarried, regardless of the type of earlier abortion, the researchers found.
The likelihood of having a premature birth (5.4 percent) or a low birthweight baby (4 percent) was slightly lower among the women who had received the abortion pill but the difference was not statistically significant.
Dr. Jun Zhang of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, who worked on the study, said "The short-term safety of medical abortion has been well established."
Previous studies have established the safety of surgical abortion in the first trimester.
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Those stats also don't sound significantly different than the ones for women who've never had any type of abortion. So can we please put to bed the idea that abortion is necessarily bad for women?
Regardless of the safety of abortion, I doubt this will help silence pro-lifers. The building next to where I live has a large banner describing the pro-life movement as "the radical idea that babies are people." I fear they will always have that argument. :-(
"the radical idea that babies are people."
They should change that to "the radical idea that fetuses and embryos are people and women aren’t".
Or the radical idea that an embryo isn't a baby.
How did abortion-by-medication become known as a "medical abortion"? All abortions are medical. Why not "chemical abortion" or "pharmaceutical abortion" or something more descriptive? I always get the terms confused, medical abortion is such an unclear phrase.
Well, KMG, it's because "regular" abortions are performed by bloodthirsty, axe-wielding monsters with horns and claws.
The AP article I read about this said that the 12,000 women came from Denmark's abortion registry, not a sample of volunteers who willingly and anonymously gave their information to the researchers. As pleased as I am with the results, I'm a bit bothered by the fact that the researchers essentially got this information behind these women's backs.
Hee! SarahMC made me snort-laugh.