Mary Novick of AUL writing at National Review Online:
For years abortion advocates and international bodies have been pressuring Chile to decriminalize abortion — claiming that Chile’s 1989 law prohibiting abortion is increasing the maternal mortality rate because women must be turning to unsafe and illegal abortion as an alternative. However, a study of statistical data from 1957 through 2007 in Chile was released this week, which dispels this myth about abortion and maternal mortality.
The Chilean study found that maternal mortality rates actually decreased by 69.2 percent in the 14 years after abortion was made illegal — dropping from 41.3 to 12.7 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. This suggests that the abortion advocates are mistaken in their continuous assertion that lack of access to legal abortion increases deaths to pregnant women.
The study found that the greatest factor in lowering the maternal mortality rate was not access to abortion, but rather was access to education.
