A respected Oxford academic and medical doctor, Dr Calum Miller, recently reviewed the effect on women’s health of the legalisation of abortion in Ethiopia in 2005, disproving the pro-abortion line that abortion protects women from harm.
Dr Miller has published a study in the Ethiopian Medical Journal revealing that when Ethiopia liberalised its abortion law, in 2005, maternal deaths and illness did not significantly decrease – refuting the pro-abortion claim that abortion is needed to protect women’s health.
Dr Calum Miller is an associate fellow at the Bios Centre. He is also a medical doctor at the University of Oxford.
In his study, Dr Miller points out that data in Ethiopia disproves the claim that the legalisation of abortion there was a sensible move to protect women from needless deaths and injuries.
On the contrary, he writes, “in the decade following legislation, the proportion of maternal deaths due to abortion did not fall beyond the prior trajectory, and arguably did not fall at all”, while morbidity (i.e., maternal illness) actually increased.
Dr Miller continued: “Ethiopia’s progress in reducing maternal deaths has been considerably less than expected, especially with respect to abortion…
“It is possible that, as in other countries, a disproportionate focus on family planning based on inflated claims of abortion mortality has diverted resources from emergency obstetric care and thereby failed to reduce maternal mortality more significantly.”
SPUC comment
A SPUC spokesperson said: “Abortion advocates have for decades advanced abortion as a health measure (ignoring the millions of deaths of unborn children as a result) that, they claim, saves women from harm and even death.
“But data coming of Ethiopia and elsewhere disproves this line, a notion that was perhaps always a propaganda device justifying the unjustifiable act of abortion. Moreover, we increasingly witness the terrible effects of abortion, not just on babies, but on women’s health as well.
“SPUC invites everyone to read the evidence-based review Abortion and Women’s Health, freely available to all, detailing the horrific impact that abortion has on the health of women.”
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