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FALSE ABORTION STATISTICS EXPOSED

Isabelle Bégin
Independent Health Researcher
Ottawa, Ontario

If you were one of the few billions of people around the world who thought we could count on the World Health Organization (WHO) for reliable statistics on abortion, brace yourself.

Unfortunately, some in the world health industry and political community have accepted or, at least, tolerated legal abortion only because it was regarded as "safe" for women, according to the WHO statistics. This conclusion was reached because no deaths were ever reported under the category of abortion in the cause-of-death publications throughout the world. And why was this? Not because the abortion procedure is safe, but rather, because the World Health Organization has a rule against reporting abortion deaths!

WHO's coding rule no. 12, together with its recommendation no. 7, states that deaths due to medical and surgical treatment must be reported under the complication of the procedure and not under the condition or reason for treatment. In effect, this makes abortion a "ghost" category under which it is impossible to code a death. Medical coders have, in fact, relayed that any attempt to code a death due to abortion under an abortion category yields a "reject message" from the computer programs provided by the National Centre for Health Statistics of Washington D.C., a division of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. (This computer program is now used in Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, and will be introduced in the British Isles this January.) These computer programs simply incorporate the same problematic coding rules already used throughout the world. Only a minute number of abortion-related deaths actually qualify to be declared under abortion, i.e. those for which the medical certificate of death categorically and unequivocally gives abortion as the underlying cause of death. If abortion is mentioned anywhere else on the death certificate, on the underlying cause line, the death gets coded as an accident of some kind, a sudden or unexpected death, an illness (like septicaemia—blood poisoning) or an injury, etc.

Another, perhaps, even more disturbing problem exists as a result of the data collection rules of WHO. On the WHO-prescribed medical certificate of death form, there is a confusing (and optional) maternal death question that reads as follows: "If deceased was a female, did the death occur either during pregnancy (including abortion and ectopic pregnancy) or within 42 days thereafter? Yes, No." In this way, deaths due to abortion can very well be attributed to pregnancy in general! This has prompted health professionals throughout the world to tell women the outrageous fallacy that it is 7 to 10 times more dangerous to have a baby than to have an abortion.

As a result of the WHO coding, abortion deaths have remained buried under tons of coding volumes published by the World Health Organization and titled International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision" (or ICD9). The discovery of this crucial matter (which resulted in a huge long distance phone bill for me) represents a great breakthrough for pro-life: indeed, it is no longer possible for any organization — not even the WHO — to claim that legal abortion is safe, as all statistics ever published on the matter are now totally and irrefutably invalidated.

In summary, because all medical interventions are included together under categories for complications of all kinds, it is impossible to know just what share of these deaths is attributable to abortion. In Statistics Canada’s Causes of Death publication for 1995, under those categories in which medical coders have admitted to tabulating abortion-related deaths, there are 1,026 deaths of women between the ages of 10 to 50. The categories given by coders include misadventures during surgical and medical care; accidental cut, puncture, perforation or haemorrhage; accidental poisoning by urea, saline solution, prostaglandins, anti-infectives, sedatives and anaesthetics; postoperative shock; postoperative haemorrhage; postoperative infection; convulsions; injuries to abdominal organs/blood vessels; and late and adverse effects of the above.

Some indication of the magnitude of the number of abortion-related deaths, however, is provided by, of all persons, Henry Morgentaler. His own assessment of the risks of mortality associated with abortion are included in his book, Abortion and Contraception, published in 1982: "The risk of mortality increases by almost 30% with each week of gestation, and approximately doubles for every two weeks after eight menstrual weeks" (p. 94); "Ten to fifteen percent of all deaths due to abortion are caused by haemorrhage" (p. 77); "Embolism accounts for 24% of abortion deaths" (p. 87); "Infection accounts fully for 25% of all deaths resulting from abortion" (p. 85) ; "Mortality due to hysterectomy [caesarean section for termination of pregnancy] is quite high." (p. 61); "The reason why pregnancies of less than six weeks carry a higher risk of major complications is that before seven to eight weeks, the cervix has not softened enough and dilatation, therefore, is more difficult and carries more risk of perforation and cervical injury. Also, menstrual extraction, done early in pregnancy, has a high rate of incomplete abortion with retention of tissue." (p. 69); "Delay of suction curettage from eight to ten weeks gestation increases the risk of a major complication by 60%. Delay of abortion from eight to sixteen weeks gestation increases the risk of a major complication by 300 to 1,300%." (p. 71). (Emphasis added.)

If all of the 1,026 deaths of women in 1995, as stated by Statistics Canada, were abortion related, then the mortality rate for legal abortion would be close to 1% (1,026 out of 106,458 abortions performed in Canada in 1995). That would make legal abortion no less than 25 times more dangerous than illegal abortion, which, "in developed countries such as the United States or Canada, has an estimated mortality rate of 40 deaths per 100,000 illegal abortions" (0.04%) (Morgentaler, Dr. Henry. Abortion and Contraception, p. 130).

This is entirely possible because:

1. Women are not able to exert pressure on themselves so as to perforate their own uterus and abdominal organs. Only the dilation required to insert suction canulas, curettes and forceps can create such pressure;
2. Rarely are the instruments used by women as potentially damaging to the women as the curette used by doctors (a slotted spoon with a sharp, serrated edge);
3. Only in hospitals, is it possible to be given general anaesthesia, which dramatically increases complications, such as blood coagulation defects and hence haemorrhage (life-threatening blood loss requiring an immediate blood transfusion) or embolism, regurgitation of and choking on gastro-intestinal contents (a complication specific to pregnant patients), and cardiac and respiratory failure;
4. Women do not have access to such potent drugs as those available in clinics and hospitals, and never do they ingest as many as the number they are given in clinics and hospitals. In fact, a number of the drugs given during an abortion are actually classified as "immunosuppressants". These drugs help kill and expel the baby but also expose the woman’s body to increased risks of infection.
5. Women seldom attempt to abort their babies at 5 months gestation or later, as is done in clinics and hospitals;

2. are not required to report complications; and they have been shown not to observe procedural ethics.

For example, in 1976, Morgentaler was charged by the Quebec College of Physicians for not taking any patient history or blood or urine tests, and for not examining the tissue after removal; more recently, in 1998, he was found guilty of negligence by the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia for allowing a woman leave the clinic, unattended, within 30 minutes of the operation, even when she was complaining of pain and shakiness: she drove off, fainted and swerved into oncoming traffic.

How many other abortion-related deaths exist — but remain unreported?

Responses to Inaccurate Abortion Statistics

Response to the unearthing of the inaccurate recording of abortion deaths has been encouraging. The International Statistical Institute, based in The Netherlands has agreed that intervention is required. It stated in its letter "The problem … originates from the coding rules issued by the World Health Organization. Since they issue erroneous coding rules, they are responsible for correcting them. ISI would certainly endorse such an approach."

The Canadian Medical Association stated: "Physicians need to know the risks of mortality and morbidity associated with termination-of-pregnancy procedures in order to communicate them to women … this information is not readily available, due in part to the World Health Organization’s coding rules. Our work on this issue will depend to a large extent on the responses you received from Statistics Canada, Health Canada and the WHO. We would greatly appreciate receiving copies of these responses."

On the other hand, Statistics Canada has simply chosen to circumvent the issue, stating that "there is no evidence, based on the most recent Canadian mortality data, of increased risk of death from induced abortion compared to other outcomes of pregnancy… We will consider your suggestions if analysis is conducted on this issue in the future."  From the point of view of women’s safety, such a response is unacceptable.

Because of this highly questionable reporting system determined by the World Health Organization, young girls and women are prevented from giving their truly informed consent to a procedure which puts their lives at risk.

A letter requesting the implementation of the appropriate modifications to its abortion reporting system was sent by myself to the WHO late August. I await its response.

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