Friday, May 20, 2011

Can you spot Roe?

If you were presented with a graph of maternal mortality in the United States, could you spot the point where abortion was legalized nationwide? The first graph shows overall maternal mortality -- including deaths from miscarriages and induced abortions. Click below and see:
click mapNoClose EnoughAfter Roe
This second graph shows deaths just from induced abortions, both legal and illegal. Each section of the map -- before, at, and after Roe, takes you to a page with a bit more information. Feedback is most welcome before I start slapping this into posts and pages.
click mapBefore RoeClose EnoughAfter Roe

2 comments:

L. said...

My guess is that Roe is some blip near the end, and that the huge drop corresponds to the widespread use of penicillin.

Christina Dunigan said...

DING DING DING DING DING and L wins the cigar!

Though it wasn't just penicillin. It was better nutrition so that women were healthier in the first place. It was better sanitation so that it wasn't so easy to pick up an infection. It was doctors embracing aseptic methods. It was the development of blood transfusions and other blood products. Better anesthesia and better surgical techniques.

It was a lot of things.

If somebody's going to embrace legalization of abortion, it's going to have to be for some reason other than cutting maternal mortality, because it had a negligible impact if it had any impact at all.