Academics From U.S., Canada, Other Nations Pressure G8 to Promote Abortion
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
May 27, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — The heads of the U.S. National Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Society of Canada joined their counterparts from Germany, Italy, Japan, France, Russia and Britain to release a statement pressuring the leaders of nations at the G8 summit to promote abortion.
They want the heads of state to include access to "safe" abortion as part of the major funding initiative agenda at the upcoming meeting.
"What is troubling is that these leading scholars equate ‘unsafe’ to illegal abortion,’ says Susan Yoshihara of CFAM.
"Worse, the top academics ignore the latest research available on the subject. They use figures that have always been controversial, unsubstantiated, and unverifiable," she adds. "They were recently shown to be false in a highly acclaimed study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, published by the Lancet in April."
"I am not sure which is worse, the use of these elite and prestigious scientific institutions to promote a highly politicized agenda, or the fact that the agenda and their statement are based, seemingly deliberately, on discredited science," Yoshihara added.
The Lancet study found maternal morality numbers are declining worldwide even though more nations around the world are not legalizing abortions.
The report makes it clear abortion advocacy groups are presenting false arguments when saying more pro-abortion laws are needed to cut maternal deaths around the globe.
The Lancet reports 526,300 maternal deaths worldwide in 1980 and 342,900 deaths in 2008, a reduction of 35 percent. A total of 60,000 of the 2008 deaths were pregnant women in eastern Africa who died from AIDS.
“This new study is further proof that it is clean water, clean blood and adequate access to health care—not abortion on demand—that will help pregnant women and their babies globally,” Scott Fischbach, director of the MCCL Global Outreach program, told LifeNews.com.
The New York Times article quotes Dr. Richard Horton, who states he received pressure from maternal mortality advocacy groups not to release the new findings.
“For years the advocates of abortion have used the maternal mortality issue to overthrow pro-life laws in country after country,” Fischbach continued. “Without the maternal mortality argument, another gaping hole exists in their push for abortion on demand.”
The solution to illegal abortions and high maternal mortality rates is very simple Fischbach explains: provide hope, opportunity and support for pregnant women by ensuring a clean water supply, clean blood supply and adequate health care. Statistics confirm that these save women’s lives — not the legalization of abortion.
Ireland, a country with pro-life laws in place, has the lowest maternal mortality rate in the world, and Nepal, a country with abortion on demand, has one of the highest maternal mortality rates at 830 deaths per 100,000 live births.
According to the new study, maternal mortality increased in the United States by 42 percent from 1980 to 2008. Abortion was legal in the U.S. throughout all nine months of pregnancy during this 28-year period.
This new report comes from the University of Washington and the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and was paid for by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has funded numerous abortion promotion programs abroad.
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