Legalizing Abortion and Back-alley Abortionists :: Argumentative Persuasive Topics

Legalizing Abortion and Back-alley Abortionists      Ã‚  Ã‚   The head of one of the major pro-choice/pro-abortion organizations in the U.S. has said: "In 1972 there were 1,000,000 illegal abortions and 5,000 to 10,000 women died from them." The data would indicate that legalized abortion is a godsend for women. This essay will examine the truth or falsity of the above quote in all of its complexity.    True? Or False? No one knows. For the obvious reason that illegal abortions have never been reported. There are no statistics, no numbers anywhere to report. Therefore, if anyone tells you that there were X numbers of illegal abortions somewhere in a certain time, they are guessing. The pro-abortion leader may guess 1,000,000. The pro-life spokesman may guess 100,000, but both are guessing.    There is only one reported figure that can lead us to some degree of accurate estimate of the numbers of illegal abortions and that is the number of women who died from illegal abortions. Many nations report only one figure for women who die, lumping together women's deaths from spontaneous abortion (miscarriage), legally induced abortion and illegally induced abortion. Such statistics are no help. The United States, since the 1940s, has reported such deaths separately, so we know the number of deaths from illegal abortions. Good! Now if we knew how many illegal abortions it took to cause one death, we could easily calculate the total number of illegal abortions. The problem is, no one has the slightest idea how many it took, and so we're back to where we started from.    How many women died? The chart used on the floor of the US Senate during the tumultuous debate on abortion in 1981 was compiled from official U.S. statistics and was not challenged by the pro-abortion forces. It shows that after Penicillin became available to control infections, the number of deaths stabilized during the 1950s at about 250/year. e.g. 1956 = 250. Note that by 1966, with abortion still illegal in all states, the number of deaths had dropped steadily to half that number - 120, because of new and better antibiotics, better surgery and the establishment of intensive care units in hospitals. This was in the face of a rising population. Between 1967 and 1970 sixteen states legalized abortion. In most it was limited, only for rape, incest and severe fetal handicap (life of mother was legal in all states).