Pro-Life Groups Say New Abortion Report From Alan Guttmacher Misleading 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
May 4, 2006
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Pro-life groups are saying that a new report on abortion from the Alan Guttmacher Institute is misleading. AGI, which is affiliated with Planned Parenthood, attempts to deny the ever-accumulating evidence that abortion harms women physically and psychologically.
In its report, AGI says abortion is harmless for women but urges abortion facilities to seek solutions to reduce the number of abortions.
"Three decades of legal abortion have brought broad benefits to women and their families," AGI claims.
The report calls on lawmakers to "improve access to abortion for all women and to help women prevent unintended pregnancies" by promoting contraception and the morning after pill.
“This report reveals the way abortion advocates choose to address the problem that abortion harms women is by ignoring the increasing evidence and women’s testimonies of their own experiences," says Wendy Wright, the president of Concerned Women for America.
"If abortion is harmless like Guttmacher claims, why should there be fewer of them?" Wright asks.
Deirdre McQuade, speaking for the pro-life office of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, agrees.
“The report tries to maintain an impossible balancing act: claiming the goal of reducing abortions, while at the same time calling for more aggressive promotion of abortion services,” she said in a statement provided to LifeNews.com. “But how could more unregulated abortion do anything but increase abortion rates?”
“The authors also claim that widespread access to contraception clearly leads to lower abortion rates,” McQuade noted.
“Yet Guttmacher’s own data show there is no correlation between the two. States ranking highest for access to contraceptive services, including California and New York, also rank highest in abortion rates," McQuade explained.
She pointed out that states such as Kansas and the Dakotas, have among the lowest abortion rates in the country even though AGI considers them "weak" in terms of supporting access to contraception.
“Those states have reduced their abortion rates, in part, by choosing not to subsidize abortion, and ensuring informed consent for women and parental involvement for minors seeking abortions – policies which the Guttmacher report demands be rescinded,” she explained.
Wright told LifeNews.com that abortion "clearly" carries a number of medical risks for women, including death. But the risks extend to psychological and emotional issues as well.
“The most recent evidence of abortion’s harm comes from a New Zealand researcher who studied a group of 500 girls from birth to age 25. The pro-choice, atheist researcher found a definitive link between abortion and depression, even after accounting for previous mental illnesses and other conditions," she explained.
Ultimately, Wright says lawmakers and women should distrust any recommendations from AGI, because it is affiliated with the nation’s number one abortion business.
“A study by Guttmacher Institute on abortion should be taken with as much seriousness as a tobacco industry study on nicotine," she concludes.
Relatd web sites:
AGI Report – https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/05/04/AiWL.pdf
Concerned Women for America – https://www.cwfa.org
USCCB – https://www.usccb.org
