 WASHER'S
CALL FOR AUSSIE FOREIGN AID TO FUND ABORTION
BASED ON DODGY FIGURES
Media Release: Festival of Light Australia
May 30, 2007
Dr
Mal Washer's call for Australian foreign
aid to be used to fund abortion in third
world countries as a service to women is
based on misquoted statistics and a wrongheaded
approach to maternal health according to
Festival of Light Australia, an advocacy
group for family values.
"If
Dr Washer wants to really help women in
developing countries, he should be working
to keep abortion illegal and to ensure Australian
aid is directed at genuine measures to decrease
maternal mortality," said Richard Egan,
National Policy Officer for Festival of
Light Australia.
"Such
measures include training midwives to repair,
and more importantly prevent, obstetric
fistulas," Mr Egan said.
"Dr
Washer claimed this morning that if you
have an illegal abortion … there is a 13
per cent chance of death on average. This
is not true, according to the witnesses
to the Parliamentary Group on Population
and Developments roundtable last year. They
gave an average figure for the maternal
mortality rate for unsafe abortion in the
developing world as 1 death per 300 abortions,
which is just 0.33%. Dr Washer's misquote
inflates this death rate by 39 times," Mr
Egan said.
"Dr
Washer may be muddling this up with an entirely
different statistic from the World Health
Organisation (WHO) which claims that globally,
approximately 13% of all maternal deaths
are due to complications of unsafe abortion.
Confusion like this on the basic data is
no basis for public policy decision making,"
Mr Egan said.
"A
careful consideration of the available data
indicates that keeping or making abortion
illegal leads to a decrease in maternal
mortality.
"In
1993 Poland made most abortions illegal.
Opponents of this law predicted it would
lead to increased maternal mortality rates.
However, maternal mortality actually decreased.
"According
to a UN Population Division 2005 report,
Ireland, where abortion is illegal, had
a maternal mortality rate of 5 per 100,000
compared to the United States, where abortion
is legal, with a maternal mortality rate
of 17 per 100,000," Mr Egan said.
"The
decisive population-wide Finnish study[1]
showed that women who abort are 3.5 times
more likely to die within a year than are
women who carry to term," Mr Egan said.
"We
encourage the Australian Government to continue
to direct foreign aid to areas that genuinely
help women and reduce maternal mortality
- and not to be misled by the dodgy statistics
and misplaced rhetoric of Dr Washer and
his colleagues," Mr Egan said.
Further
comment: Richard Egan 0416 148 008
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] M. Gissler, et al, "Pregnancy-Associated
Deaths in Finland, 1987-1994", Acta Obstetricia
et Gynecolgica Scandinavica 76:651-657 (1997)
Website: www.fol.org.au
|
