Blogging for Choice month
posted by bitchphd
Started today.
Let's begin with a few details and statistics, okay? Worldwide, over half a million women die each year. From pregnancy.
Here are some of the risks of pregnancy.
In the U.S., about 300 women a year die from pregnancy. More than one in five pregnant women who is admitted to a hospital goes there not to deliver, but because of some pregnancy-related complication. Ectopic pregnancies *alone* constitute a little over 1.5% of all pregnancies in the U.S.; for women of color, for some reason, the rate of ectopic pregnancy--which is always fatal if not terminated--is 2%. Here's an interesting PDF about pregnancy morbidity in the U.S.
So, to begin with, let's acknowledge that pregnancy, in and of itself, is dangerous to women's health. In the U.S. it is much less dangerous than it is in the developing world--but it is still difficult and dangerous, especially for women with health problems, and more so for women who are poor, very young, or for other reasons unable to obtain good health care and good nutrition. (Believe me, simply eating while pregnant is not cheap: I went through a half gallon of milk every day, and I estimate that our grocery bill doubled while I was pregnant.)
We worry a lot about the number of women who will die from unsafe abortions if abortion is outlawed. And that's a legitimate worry. But look at the chart in that link; almost as many women die from eclampsia (high blood pressure) as die from unsafe abortions. (These statistics are from the WHO, so I'll assume that the "unsafe abortions" statistic can serve as a rough approximation of what would happen if abortion were illegal here.) Add in labor itself, hemmorhage, sepsis, and ectopic and other problematic pregnancies. And suddenly--if we have no doctors who are trained to abort pregnancies, even for health reasons; if doing so is illegal--we have women dying not only from illegal abortions, but from pregnancy itself.
At my age, as a light smoker, I would be ten times more likely to die from any given pregnancy than I am to die of lung cancer in the next ten years.
Pregnancy isn't just a mild inconvenience. It's wrong to force someone to risk their health against their will. Period.
Let's begin with a few details and statistics, okay? Worldwide, over half a million women die each year. From pregnancy.
Here are some of the risks of pregnancy.
In the U.S., about 300 women a year die from pregnancy. More than one in five pregnant women who is admitted to a hospital goes there not to deliver, but because of some pregnancy-related complication. Ectopic pregnancies *alone* constitute a little over 1.5% of all pregnancies in the U.S.; for women of color, for some reason, the rate of ectopic pregnancy--which is always fatal if not terminated--is 2%. Here's an interesting PDF about pregnancy morbidity in the U.S.
So, to begin with, let's acknowledge that pregnancy, in and of itself, is dangerous to women's health. In the U.S. it is much less dangerous than it is in the developing world--but it is still difficult and dangerous, especially for women with health problems, and more so for women who are poor, very young, or for other reasons unable to obtain good health care and good nutrition. (Believe me, simply eating while pregnant is not cheap: I went through a half gallon of milk every day, and I estimate that our grocery bill doubled while I was pregnant.)
We worry a lot about the number of women who will die from unsafe abortions if abortion is outlawed. And that's a legitimate worry. But look at the chart in that link; almost as many women die from eclampsia (high blood pressure) as die from unsafe abortions. (These statistics are from the WHO, so I'll assume that the "unsafe abortions" statistic can serve as a rough approximation of what would happen if abortion were illegal here.) Add in labor itself, hemmorhage, sepsis, and ectopic and other problematic pregnancies. And suddenly--if we have no doctors who are trained to abort pregnancies, even for health reasons; if doing so is illegal--we have women dying not only from illegal abortions, but from pregnancy itself.
At my age, as a light smoker, I would be ten times more likely to die from any given pregnancy than I am to die of lung cancer in the next ten years.
Pregnancy isn't just a mild inconvenience. It's wrong to force someone to risk their health against their will. Period.
Posted at 8:37 PM
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