Abortion is a political issue so reports about medical research around the subject of abortion are politically charged also.
But sometimes the science really makes you sit up, as Melanie McDonagh discovered when she went to a lecture by pro-life researcher Dr. Byron Calhoun.
In his 2003 paper, “Induced Abortion and the Risk of Later Premature Births,” Dr. Calhoun reported that the risk of premature birth is doubled for a woman who has had two or more induced abortions, and nine times for a woman who has had four or more abortions.
It made McDonagh sit up.
In other words, for a woman who has never had an abortion, the chances of having a baby before 34 weeks are about 3 per cent; in women who have had an abortion in the past, the rate doubles to 6-12 per cent.
Calhoun reviews the risks of abortion more generally in this paper Another Abortion Risk: Preterm Birth, including:
- Increased risk of maternal mortality
- Increased risk of breast cancer
- Significant emotional impact
And so it goes.
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