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Wednesday, August 08, 2012

The CDC's Abortion Death Numbers, and What They Mean

The 2008 CDC Abortion Surveillance Summary has been released. The most recent year for which they present abortion deaths is 2007.

Some visitors mistakenly assume that the Cemetery of Choice (COC) includes all abortion deaths in the United States since legalization. As you can see by comparing the number the CDC counted with the number I was able to verify, this is hardly true. Even the CDC's slipshod and spotty efforts uncover more abortion deaths than I can, since I lack access to confidential medical documents that the CDC can review.

Year CDC COC
2012 -- 1
2011 -- 0
2010 -- 1
2009 -- 3
2008 -- 0
2007 6 2
2006 7 3
2005 7 4
2004 8 2
2003 10 4
2002 10 4
2001 7 2
2000 11 5
1999 4 3
1998 9 6
1997 7 4
1996 9 5
1995 4 2
1994 12 8
1993 7 6
1992 10 9
1991 12 8
1990 9 7
1989 13 15
1988 16 15
1987 9 11
1986 11 16
1985 12 10
1984 12 10
1983 12 8
1982 12 8
1981 9 9
1980108
1979228
1978167
1977217
1976136
19753311
19743218
1973448
19726318




Those who claim that the number of abortion deaths would be higher were abortion not "safe and legal" would do well to review abortion mortality numbers since 1940. I marked vertical lines at 1970 (when New York and California became the first states to legalize abortion on demand) and 1973 (when Roe vs. Wade legalized abortion on demand nationwide).


If you're having a hard time spotting it, I'll zoom in a bit on abortion deaths since 1960. Note that I marked New York and California's legalization and Roe vs. Wade for you:

As you can see, legalization did absolutely nothing to change the existing steep downward trend in annual abortion death. Instead, legal abortion deaths started replacing illegal abortion deaths.

Abortion rights advocates who try to claim that legalizing abortion reduces maternal deaths either have never looked at the data, or are deliberately being misleading.

Every woman's death is a tragedy for her and her loved ones. Brushing off legal abortion deaths as being unworthy of notice or concern treats these women's deaths as insignificant and betrays a lack of real concern for the lives of women walking into supposedly safe legal abortion facilities every day.

We should address abortion quackery, not shrug it off.

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