From your friendly fact checker: How do they get these numbers?
“We would argue if you’re really going to tackle maternal health and morbidity you’ve really got to tackle safe abortion because, in the developing world there are more than 19 million unsafe abortions every year and the toll that takes on women, particularly young women, is enormous.” The federation estimates that of 500,000 annual maternal deaths, complications from unsafe abortion account for approximately 70,000, or 13 per cent.
I’m genuinely curious. Because many of the countries in the developing world don’t keep stats of any kind on maternal health, or health care in general. As a result, data on abortion would be harder still to get. Cripes–Canada doesn’t make abortion-related data available.
So how is they are able to estimate these numbers abroad?
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For no reason at all, Brigitte would like to point out that Andrea is one heck of a fact-checker. Ask me how I know…
by 
The pro-abortion movement has never been above fabricating or exaggerating numbers to fit a purpose. Much of the loss of government funding for abstinence education could be blamed on exaggerated numbers.
With government funding vanishing for programs that prevent abortions and value a pro-life perspective, how are ministries and other non-profits to fund their efforts?
Many of the Christian Ministries I work with are dismayed to find that few foundations, even Christian Foundations with conservative values, are interested in truly saving babies.
I am hopeful that as 2010 progresses foundations will recognize this need and bgin to respond to the changes in government funds to address the issue.
My company, Here-4-You Christian Grant Consulting is working with crisis pregnancy centers; single parent programs, adoption resource centers, residential services for pregnant teens, and other programs that are in desperate need of funding to continue the work they have started.
Googling!
Here we are:
“About 70,000 worldwide women die because of unsafe abortions annually, and about 85% of such deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa and Southcentral Asia, according to an International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics report released on Monday at the group’s five-day meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, AFP/Yahoo! News reports. The report, titled “World Report on Women’s Health 2006,” …
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/56136.php
That really wasn’t hard to find. Just google ‘500,000 70,000 abortion.’
Jeffrey: Pro-choicers lie. Pro-lifers lie. This is politics: Everybody lies.
Suricou: That’s not a source. That’s another news report citing the same numbers. If I had time I could go into the Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics report for methodology on how the numbers were obtained, which is what I want.
Sadly, I don’t have time. But if any of our readers are looking for something to do, I’m still interested in the real source on those numbers.
🙂
I’ve started slogging through their publications list, but it’s slow going.
I can’t keep at this right now, but if someone else wants to, you can check the link”http://www.searo.who.int/LinkFiles/Publications_Unsafe_Abortion.pdf”. This report references a study in its footnotes – when I went to check the footnotes (specifically, # 50 and 52), I found that the footnotes stopped at # 48!
I’m trying that as a hyperlink now:
WHO report
The hyperlink doesn’t work properly (sorry, it’s now stuck in there). It’s a WHO report, anyway. Unfortunately, I lost the title for it already.
@Suricou
“Pro-choicers lie. Pro-lifers lie. This is politics: Everybody lies.”
1) Wow. First time I have heard a Pro-choicer admit that Pro-choicers lie.
2) Everybody lies. Now there is a nice statement of OPINION. Funny. When I Google “Everybody lies” I do not come up with a reference (Scientific or otherwise. Unless you include the writers of “House”) to support this. Oh yeah. I forgot. Pro-choicers invent their own statistics…..
I’m not sure what kinds of numbers pro-lifers can be accused of lying about (I guess lying doesn’t have to just be about numbers – but I’m not especially aware of any other lies either).
Yikes – I didn’t even hit ‘enter’ and that went through.
I am aware of some pro-choice exaggerations, especially some that have played a profound role in shaping public perception of the pro-choice ‘case’. For example, according to ex-pro-choicer Bernard Nathanson, prior to Roe v Wade, the number ‘5,000 to 10,000’ annual maternal deaths due to illegal abortion in the US was thrown around, even though there was no empirical basis for that number. He admits that it was used because it was a useful number to press their case (the actual number of maternal deaths able to be attributed to illegal abortion in the year prior to RvW was 39 deaths). This kind of lie is particularly useful to recall in the above article, and it’s why specific, supportable references are so necessary, but in the case of a media that is more interested in justifying abortion than in seeking truth, we are not likely to get that kind of responsible journalism.
As with global warming, it seems that when numbers help a journalist’s personal beliefs, they are not willing to do the legwork to check for accuracy.
Precisely, Shane, I’ve read Bernard Nathanson’s book where he describes how they made maternal death numbers up.
This 70,000 bothers me because it would be close to impossible to estimate with any accuracy. So I wonder if someone has done a “guestimation” that they know find–with delight–that the media doesn’t bother looking into.
On the other hand, if the number is correct and they are able to estimate this with precision, then it’s still important to know…
“Unsafe abortion contributes to 13% of maternal deaths [1].” FROM
http://download.journals.elsevierhealth.com/pdfs/journals/0020-7292/PIIS0020729209001659.pdf
Footnote no. 1 takes you to this:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/10/4/gpr100402.pdf
and that’s as far I can go right now. But I don’t see the 13% in the Guttmacher document. If someone else sees it, please let me know.
Here’s what I have, Andrea:
The 70,000 deaths from unsafe abortion statistic seems to come from Guttmacher. I found it in “Facts on Induced Abortion Worldwide” which can be found here: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_IAW.html#r15
The 70,000 statistic here is referenced to
Singh S et al., Abortion Worldwide: A Decade of Uneven Process, New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2009.
which can be found here:http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/AWWfullreport.pdf
On page 32 of this report we find: “Globally, an estimated 70,000 women die every year as aresult of unsafe abortions,(137)
The reference 137 referred to is:
137. Åhman E, estimate for 2005, personal communication,
Feb. 3, 2009.
So basically some honcho at Guttmacher, this E. Ahman, whoever he or she is, told Susheela Singh that 70,000 women die every year, and we are expected to accept that statistic as gospel truth. I don’t think it is backed up with anything but a conversation between Ms. Singh and this E. Ahman.
If someone can point me to who this E. Ahman is, or what authority s/he has in coming up with these statistics, I will happily take a look at the evidence. But until I have better evidence that this 70,000 number comes from reliable evidence, I’m not going to acknowledge it at all. I really think that this number was pulled out of somebody’s backside.
A little more —
Elisabeth Ahman, at least until relatively recently, was associated with the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. However, it is interesting to note that the estimates she arrives at in her various papers are all based on 2 assumptions
1) legal abortion = safe
2) illegal abortions = unsafe.
This kind of Pro-Choice bias on the science is highly prejudicial and, in fact, not necessarily correct. Let’s face it — here in Canada, Henry Morgentaler performed abortions illegally for 2 decades before the law was changed. But I am willing to bet that most Pro-Choice advocates would consider his work for those 2 decades, although illegal, to be “safe”. (Safe for the mother, that is. I am reasonably certain that it was fatal for 100% of the babies involved). Yet there is an assumption throughout all of Ahman et al’s publications that abortions that are performed illegally, are by definition also unsafe. This is a very big assumption. Apparently all medical doctors who go “underground” to provide illegal abortions (for huge profit) in countries where they are not legal…well, apparently these medical doctors suddenly forget all of their training and schooling and become unsafe practitioners?
As Andrea mentioned, in Canada, a developed nation with legal abortion, it is nearly impossible to collect reliable abortion data. How exactly did E. Ahman manage to come up with her estimates from largely under-developed countries where reporting and records-keeping (especially in the case of illegal procedures) would be highly questionable?? Me-thinks there is a lot of wishy-washy “statistics” at play.
Re: 2:18 post.
If that’s “Suricou’s” actual name, it’s not very good/kind netiquette to ‘out’ her. She certainly wasn’t doing anything untoward in her participation on this site (that I’m aware of, at least).
Thanks, everyone. I’m going to continue to see if there’s anything more substantial than a conversation… from what I could tell there certainly seemed to be a lot of circular referencing but no hard evidence.
http://www.c-fam.org/docLib/20090514_Removing_the_Roadblocksfinal.pdf
Thank you for the article Rene. The Pro-Choice agenda’s mis-direction and mis-information is mindboggling.
Andrea, you need to put Rene on your fact-checking payroll 🙂
A couple weeks ago another women died from an abortion. I find it interesting that pro-choicers love to tell the number of deaths from illegal abortions (of which many were done by doctors) but ignore those who died from abortion after it became legal.
My earlier hyperlink appears to work, after all – although it didn’t for me at work.
@Shane O. About your footnotes–#50 is:
50 Åhman E, Shah IH, Mathers C. Mortality and morbidity due to unsafe abortion. (Unpublished).
and #52:
52 Shah IH, Åhman E. Age patterns of unsafe abortion in developing country regions. Reproductive Health Matters, 2004, 12(24; suppl):9-17.
Thanks, Melissa – how were you able to access them?
And since no one else has done so – please, Brigitte, tell us how you know about Andrea’s fact-checking skills.
She fact-checked me, back in the day. That’s how I got to know her – as a really, truly, thoroughly meticulous fact-checker. She was very good at it. Let’s just say I’m glad I eventually saw other sides of her personality.
In my defence, fact checking is very dull. The ONLY sense of satisfaction a fact checker gets is in… finding mistakes. (that you can triumphantly hold up to validate your existance as a fact checker.)
I know I was annoying. But fact checking Brigitte was particularly annoying because there were rarely any errors to catch. So I’d search all the harder…
Anyway, we’ve moved on to happier times now so why revisit this? 🙂
Andrea–
The WHO report that Shane referenced (written by Elisabeth Ahman) looks to be the source of those numbers. On page 28 she says “Globally, the proportion of maternal deaths due to unsafe abortion has remained close to 13% over time, although there have been regional variations.” However she does not give a reference for this fact. Then, in a footnote, also on page 28 she says “New maternal mortality estimates for 2005 show that the improvement is slower than assumed and indicate that the corresponding unsafe abortion deaths for 2005 may be close to 70 000.”, but again, no reference.
On page 38, she goes into her methodology for estimating the prevalence of abortion in countries where it is illegal. There are *lots* of fudge factors and estimations involved. If you read Rene’s article you’ll get an idea of what is involved. She does make the assumption that illegal abortion = unsafe abortion. And if there was no data from a particular country (and, call me cynical, but I kind of think that if the data available from a country didn’t meet with her expectations) she would substitute the data from another country with similar fertility rates and health care.
Shane–the references for the body of the report begin on page 34. The references at the end of the report are for the appendices.
Congratulations. Noone has ever worked out the meaning of my name before without at least being told there was one hidden to find.
Now for bonus points, work out why ‘raven.’
Le Devoir came out this morning with an editorial citing the 70,000 figure, depicting the kind of world where a woman bleeding to death from an abortion would be left to die while her sister in the next bed would be treated for her hemorrhage in childbirth. Of course the Catholic Church/prolife was blamed.
http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/canada/283092/avortement-et-contraception-maternite-selon-harper