Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Planned Parenthood Making Stuff Up Again? No, never

Betsy Illingsworth writes today's headline article for Planned Parenthood's website. The article boldly asserts that,

"This year alone, abortions performed under unsanitary conditions or by untrained providers will cause 19 million women to suffer injuries, illness, or death.

Nearly all of these 19 million women are living in poverty-stricken countries."


To me this stuck out right away because I remembered that according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute (Planned Parenthood's research arm) there were something like 40 million (it's 46 million) abortions every year throughout the world so I thought it odd that nearly half of these abortion would result in "injuries, illness or death" to the women having them.

Where does Betsy get her statistics? The article doesn't say (no footnotes, no endnotes, no nothing) but I'm guessing she took the number from this web page at the Alan Guttmacher Institute web site which reads,

"The World Health Organization defines "unsafe abortion" as a "procedure for terminating an unwanted pregnancy [carried out] either by a person lacking the necessary skills or in an environment lacking minimal medical standards, or both." It estimates that almost 20 million unsafe abortions occur each year--19 million in developing countries and the remainder mostly in Eastern Europe."


So is Betsy taking the number of "unsafe abortions" and then determining that every or close to every "unsafe abortion" resulted in women suffering "injuries, illness or death?" That's certainly the way it appears.

4 comments:

  1. ......it's not about abortions....if it was then everyone would realize that sex education and available birth control would reduce unwanted pregnancy.....which has become the main reason for abortions......it's about choice....freedom of choice over ones own body.......to eliminate abortions......eliminate unwanted pregnancies.......it's that simple.....freedom is non-negotiable.

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  2. --"The World Health Organization defines "unsafe abortion" as a "procedure for terminating an unwanted pregnancy [carried out] either by a person lacking the necessary skills or in an environment lacking minimal medical standards, or both." --

    There's plenty of unsafe abortion happening in legal clinics in the United States. But don't hold your breath waiting for PP to get their panties in a knot over it.

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  3. Hi Oberon,
    Thanks for commenting. Are the unborn part of a woman's body? Wouldn't the fact that they have different DNA and are directing their own development lead us to believe otherwise?

    Are birth control and sex education not available in the U.S.? If they are available, then why does the U.S. have such a high abortion rate?

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  4. Christine,
    I saw that definition and was thinking the same thing especially considering Planned Parenthood fights tooth and nail to stop bills that provide rules for the upkeep of abortion clinics.

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