World Health Organization undermines conservative talking points

October 12, 2007

The World Health Organization and the Guttmacher Institute released an important study today on reproductive health. It reflects common sense, but it’s helpful to have the quantitative data to back up what most of us realize to be true. (thanks to LM for the tip)

A comprehensive global study of abortion has concluded that abortion rates are similar in countries where it is legal and those where it is not, suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it.

Moreover, the researchers found that abortion was safe in countries where it was legal, but dangerous in countries where it was outlawed and performed clandestinely. Globally, abortion accounts for 13 percent of women’s deaths during pregnancy and childbirth, and there are 31 abortions for every 100 live births, the study said. […]

“We now have a global picture of induced abortion in the world, covering both countries where it is legal and countries where laws are very restrictive,” Dr. Paul Van Look, director of the W.H.O. Department of Reproductive Health and Research, said in a telephone interview. “What we see is that the law does not influence a woman’s decision to have an abortion. If there’s an unplanned pregnancy, it does not matter if the law is restrictive or liberal.”

This should come as a surprise to … absolutely no one. There are unintended pregnancies. Women want to end them. Whether the government approves or not isn’t terribly relevant. What matters is safety and public health — as Van Look explained, “Generally, where abortion is legal it will be provided in a safe manner. And the opposite is also true: where it is illegal, it is likely to be unsafe, performed under unsafe conditions by poorly trained providers.”

There is, however, a flip-side. Abortion rates are falling globally, and the research highlights why.

Again, it’s just common sense. Outlawing abortions doesn’t reduce abortions; making contraception widely available does. In Eastern Europe, abortion rates were cut in half after contraceptive choices broadened. As one researcher noted, “Contraception is often the missing element” where abortion rates are high.

Rachel Larris had a good take on all of this.

It’s clear to me then that if anti-choice forces really wanted fewer abortions in the U.S., they should be dedicated to keeping it legal. Western Europe has a ratio of 12 abortions per 1,000 women whereas in North America (which includes Canada) the ratio is 21 per 1,000. Meanwhile in places where the procedure isn’t lawfully permitted, the 39 unsafe abortions per 1,000 women (in Eastern Africa) and 33 per 1,000 (in South America) testify to the fact that many women will break the law to end a pregnancy.

Smart anti-choice people may say, “I think there should be increased contraception access, but no choice of abortion.” But that’s not the bargain offered in America. Name for me one anti-abortion group that spends a significant amount of time lobbying for an increase in contraception and sex education. It’s impossible — there aren’t any.

Groups like Concerned Women For America and the Family Research Council aren’t suggesting we outlaw abortion but follow the Western European model of sex education and readily available birth control. They don’t want contraception covered by insurance. They don’t want Plan B to be available over the counter. They don’t want comprehensive sex education taught in school.

Quite right. I’m reminded of the 2005 debate over the Prevention First Act, launched by Senate Dems (including both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama). The goal was to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and the resulting abortions by taking prevention seriously, through a combination of family-planning programs, access to contraception, and teen-pregnancy prevention programs. Predictably, the religious right criticized the idea — Dobson famously said “there is no middle ground” on abortion — and Senate Republicans refused to even consider the bill.

Shortly thereafter, the White House appointed an opponent of birth control to run federal family-planning programs.

The evidence is there for anyone who wants to take it seriously.

As long as the wingers have the capacity to waste their time on meaningless bullshit, this data will not make a dent’s worth of difference to the most wingnutty of them.

  • The whole abortion debate is a complete red herring, used by the Republic-thugs to manipulate the evangelical christian base. Whether a woman gets an abortion or not has to do with the condition of her heart, not the law. Women have been getting abortions for as long as women were able to get pregnant. Women have their reasons, and it is their decision. Period. No supreme court judge can change the condition of a mother’s heart, and no right wing politician seems to want to help these women parent these unwanted or unaffordable children. The right wing politicians are aware of this fact, but it’s a good line in a political speech.

    There is abortion on demand in the USA and I really don’t believe the powers that be (right wing republicans) really want to change that fact. It is just another meaningless plank in their phony platform.

  • “Whether the government approves or not is terribly relevant.”

    CB, I think you mean “is not terribly relevant” here, yes? Just checking. 🙂

  • I saw a very revealing video on the Internet a while back where none other than the Prince of Pest Control, Tom Delay, was making a speech to college republicans. Abortion was being discussed, and Delay made mention of the fact that if abortion had been outlawed, there would be 50 million more people in the US today that would work the jobs the illegal immigrants are working. He spoke of a few other ‘problems’ that could be ‘corrected’, had there not been so many abortions.

    What struck me about this were the racial overtones in his speech. I came away with the feeling that I may have finally understood the right’s frenzied anti-abortion stance.

    It’s not that they necessarily are against abortion; it’s that they are against WHITE PEOPLE having abortions.

    Think about it. Abortion is a medical procedure that I am sure costs more than your average person living in poverty can afford. So then who gets the abortions? Most likely, it would be white, middle to upper class women who can afford the procedure. If Tom was right about that 50 million abortions figure, then in his mind, that is 50 million white people in America that should be here, helping to maintain and perpetuate the superiority of white culture in America.

    This is all based on the threat of whites becoming a minority in this country, and that my friend TERRIFIES right wingers.

    Trust me, I’d bet the farm that if abortion was outlawed, the ban would be enforced for whites, but would carry on for people of color, with a wink and a nod, under the radar…

  • Conservatives are obsessed with sex — not about having it but about denying it. They oppose sex education because that will encourage it; they oppose contraceptives because contraceptives allow people to do it; they oppose abortions because abortions give give people a way out when they do do it. We all now how they feel about gays. So, really, the only conservative solution to unintended pregnancies is not to have sex except when you really mean to have kids.

    No wonder they’re so crazy. They either need to get laid more — and not feel guilty when they do — or quit lying about not using contraceptives or having recreational sex themselves.

  • The root of the abortion issue is that there are groups out there who think sex is dirty and want people to suffer the burdens of having sex, whether it results in pregnancy or an STD, as punishment for the evil deed. All the talk of culture of life is but a convenient subtext to justify their hatred of things sexual and serves as a stunning couterpoint to taking brutally puritanical stands on other issues such as capital punishment, incarceration for drug offenses and waging wars against other religious faiths.

    Of course all the repression the anti-sex crowd generates does nothing but blow it up into bigger and more damaging issues. People have sex — and enjoy it! Get over it.

  • The right is just using the abortion issue as a trojan horse to undermine personal freedom. This is what their really apposed too. There is no evidence their agenda has done much to actually reduce abortion. The right might have political power, but, their losing the American people.

    And if want to see the “culture of life” in action, then look to cutting the SChip program and attacking a 12 year old for supporting it. Or to Blackwater and its murderous ways. (It’s founder, Erik Prince, is a big supporter of the religious right, by the way)

  • Won’t do a thing to help prevent unwanted pregnancies then…won’t do a thing to help terminate an unwanted pregnancy when it occurs.

    The religious right are sexually paranoid…they want to punish women for having sex. “If your going to do it then this will be the result…period.” Many of them believe that sex should only be for having children. You may only enjoy it if you are bonded together and having children.
    They will lose the war over and over again until they accept that people have sex without wanting a child to result. Why they can’t accept reality and promote birth control to head off abortion as the only means to prevent having a child is a self defeating philosophy.

  • I believe we are all missing one basic concept here. Many of the same people who do not want abortions to be available also do not want to allow contraceptive distribution nor reasonable sex education (not the politicians who cozy up to them but the people who would bomb abrtion clinics). These people are the Orgasm Police. No orgasm should occur without the intent, at least, to reproduce. Orgasms for any other reason are vile and dispicable and anybody who engages in sexual behavior not intended for reproduction, ie for pleasure, is sinful and evil and contemtable. Therefore an unwanted child is illogical and unjustifiable. Contraception would be unnecessary. Trying to justify any such behavior is simply trying to justify a sinful secular lifestyle. No good orgasms should go unpunished!

  • I agre with liberal wacko-so this middle aged nurse must be one, too. The point to remember is that abortions will occur-do you want them to cause sterility, chronic illness or death or not?

  • These people really want this country to become some sort of puritanical theocracy! I shudder to think what kind of society we’d have if they actually were able to achieve their goals.

    It really is astonishing that in the 21st century, we are grappling with issues concerning humanity that should have been settled long ago.

    Have we witnessed the end of the age of reason?

  • This should come as a surprise to … absolutely no one.

    Then I must be weird, because I find it surprising. Especially if you look at the conclusion from the other side. Instead of “suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it,” it likewise suggests that legalizing abortion does little to encourage women to have them.

    I’m not surprised that there’s a background level of abortion even in jurisdictions where it’s banned. I am surprised that there isn’t an increase in places where it’s a viable option.

    It’s always surprising when any law proves to have no influence on behavior.

  • Hey Steve,

    Rachel Larris’ take makes no sense. When you say Western Europe has just 12 abortions per 1,000 women, that is just fun with numbers. The real number to look at is how many abortions per live births. Now when we look at that we have:

    Western Europe 23 abortions per 100 live births
    Africa 17 abortions per 100 live births
    Eastern Europe a shocking 105 abortions per 100 live births

    We even need to spin worldwide abortion numbers – how sad we are.

  • Anybody who thinks that the legality of abortion, or even if it were legal and FREE, causes women to lazily use it as a method of birth control so they can enjoy casual sex clearly has never seen – never mind experienced – such a procedure. Nobody in their right mind would choose it over contraception. Women who choose abortion have ridden their options to the last stop. Stuffy Republican white guys who don’t mind leaving the little woman at home with their six kids can’t begin to grasp this.

  • Just a note: Citizen Pain is incorrect. About 60% of all abortions are procurred by women under or near the poverty line. Blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately represented. More than half are already mothers.

    The right screams when you point out the poverty link. But you would think that Christians would find it affirming, since it makes Jesus teachings relevant to the problem. But I guess it doesn’t make sense if your real religion is the GOP…

  • Anybody who thinks that the legality of abortion, or even if it were legal and FREE, causes women to lazily use it as a method of birth control so they can enjoy casual sex clearly has never seen – never mind experienced – such a procedure. — Mark, @16

    I’m all for the “up to the woman” for the first trimester, “consult with your doctor” for the second and “only life-and-death” for the third trimester abortions “rule”. But Mark is “off”, at least globally (not sure of the US story; wasn’t here in my late teens/early twenties) in the above statement.

    Back in Poland, I had to show up every 3 months at the “parental planning” clinic to get my pill prescription renewed. While waiting my turn ( it’s true you have to wait to see a doctor in the universal health systems. It may only be 15 minutes longer than the time I spend in the waiting room of my health-plan’s doctor, but I’m sure 15 minutes is well-worth the $700-or so we pay for the plan ), I often heard the doctors comment that people like me — going for prevention instead of the “cure” — were greatly appreciated. They (ie the doctors) were “sick and tired” of women who thought that abortion (easily available and, while not free, very cheap) was an alternative to a condom or a pill. And, although most of the girls/women I knew considered an abortion the last resort and a grief to be avoided at all costs, I also knew a girl who had 3 “induced miscarriages” (as 1st-trimester abortions were called) before she went on the pill. And she went on the pill then only because a) she finally found “the man of her dreams” and, b) the doctor told her that one more abortion would mean no children, ever, since the walls of her uterus had been “scraped” really thin…

    So, it’s my experience that, while most of the anti-abortion propaganda is a lot of overinflated hooey, some of it has a basis in real life conditions.

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  • Hey Sarah,

    The statistics I am providing are from the same report only looking at a different table – the one that really makes the most sense. The study was published at http://www.thelancet.com the study in question is:

    Induced abortion: estimated rates and trends worldwide
    Gilda Sedgh, Stanley Henshaw, Susheela Singh, Elisabeth Ã…hman, Iqbal H Shah
    The Lancet – Vol. 370, Issue 9595, 13 October 2007, Pages 1338-1345

    If you get the report, look for table 3.

    Table 3. Global, regional, and subregional estimated abortion ratios and percentages of pregnancies that ended in abortion, 2003

    Here is a direct quote from the report:

    “The abortion ratios in developing countries tended to be lower than those in developed countries, even though the rates were comparable or higher in developing countries, largely because birth rates were higher in developing countries.”

    Hey more abortions per 1,000 women in developing countries because people in developing countries are having more babies. However, people in developed countries abort their pregnancies more often.

    People who spin don’t expect others to verify.

    Thanks for asking.

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