Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Abortion safer than giving birth: study (unless you're a baby!)

http://www.godvoter.org/Photos/abortions-thoughts.jpg

(Reuters Health) - Getting a legal abortion is much safer than giving birth, suggests a new U.S. study published Monday.

Researchers found that women were about 14 times more likely to die during or after giving birth to a live baby than to die from complications of an abortion.

Experts say the findings, though not unexpected, contradict some state laws that suggest abortions are high-risk procedures.

The message is that getting an abortion and giving birth are both safe, said Dr. Anne Davis, who studies obstetrics and gynecology at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York, and wasn't involved in the new study.

"We wouldn't tell people, 'Don't have a baby because it's safer to have an abortion' -- that's ridiculous," she told Reuters Health. "We're trying to help women who are having all reproductive experiences know what to expect."
An induced abortion -- like any other medical procedure -- requires getting informed consent from the woman, said Dr. Bryna Harwood, an ob-gyn from the University of Illinois in Chicago who also didn't participate in the new research.

That means women understand and acknowledge the risks of their different options.

What makes it complicated, Harwood added, is when the law interferes and requires doctors to state information that isn't always balanced or medically sound -- usually exaggerating the risk of abortion...

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