Planned Parenthood Black Community recently posted on
Twitter: “If you are a black woman in America, it’s statistically safer to have
an abortion than to carry a pregnancy to term or give birth #scarystats.“
According to commonly cited stats, all pregnant women are
statistically safer having an abortion than giving birth, though the degree of safety falls on a sliding scale. The rate of maternal death in the United States is lowest for white women and highest for black women,
with pregnant women of other races or ethnicities landing somewhere in the middle.
I want to address this question: is it statistically
safer for a pregnant woman in the United States to have an abortion than to carry a baby to term or
give birth?
It’s not statistically safer for the unborn baby, of course,
who always dies in an abortion. One cannot address the broader moral issue of abortion without addressing the status of the unborn. But, for the sake of
this post, I am only going to look at the initial claim involving the mothers.
My interest in this is not to make an anti-abortion argument, though I am happy to do that and have done so elsewhere. My interest is in the facts swirling around a claim that has life-changing implications for pregnant women.
My interest in this is not to make an anti-abortion argument, though I am happy to do that and have done so elsewhere. My interest is in the facts swirling around a claim that has life-changing implications for pregnant women.
