Researcher: Study Showing Abortion-Premature Birth Risk Points to Cerebral Palsy

International   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Sep 17, 2009   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Researcher: Study Showing Abortion-Premature Birth Risk Points to Cerebral Palsy

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 17
, 2009

Toronto, Canada (LifeNews.com) — A Canadian researcher says a new study showing confirmation of the link between abortion and premature birth is significantly important. Brent Rooney says the new study from Dr. Prakesh Shah, a professor at the Department of Pediatrics at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, is a meta-analysis.

That means Shah didn’t conduct just one individual study but took a look 37 published studies in medical journals conducted over the years to find out an overall conclusion.

Shah’s analysis found women who have just one abortion in either the first or second trimester of pregnancy have a 35 percent increased risk of having a low-birth-weight baby in the next pregnancy and a 36 percent increased risk of having a baby born prematurely.

Women having multiple abortions have a 93 percent increased risk of subsequently having a premature baby and a 72 percent increased risk of having an underweight baby.

Rooney talked with LifeNews.com and noted the impact of the Shah report.

”Suction’ (vacuum aspiration) abortion was invented by doctors in communist China and ‘announced’ to the world in 1958 in the Chinese Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology," he said. "Fifty years later the British Medical Journal had that 1958 article translated into English."

"From 1958 to 2009 there has never been a ‘study of studies’ (termed “meta-analysis") or systematic review" of the literature on the link between abortion and premature birth.

He said the Shah meta-study showed "very strong evidence [that] the most common induced abortion procedure, ‘suction’ abortion" has a "risk of a later preterm birth or the low birth weight baby."

The practical impact is also important as Rooney’s own research with medical doctors from 2007 shows there were 1,096 newborn babies in the United States born at a low birth-weight, and who developed cerebral palsy, due to their mother’s prior induced abortions.

The cerebral palsy link is important because "babies under 32 weeks’ gestation have 55 times the cerebral palsy risk as full-term (at least 37 weeks) newborns."

As a result, if abortions increase the risk of a low birth-weight baby and low birth-weigh significantly contributes to an unborn child having cerebral palsy, then the performance of abortions clearly results in more children diagnosed with the condition.

Rooney also noted a small study of studies conducted by Dr. Hanes Swingle of the University of Southern Alabama in February.

"Swingle reported that women with prior induced abortions raised their relative odds of a birth under 32 weeks’ gestation by 64 percent," he said. "Dr. Swingle and colleagues used data from four prior studies to get that result."

Rooney agrees with Shah that "women should receive informed medical consent about the abortion-premature birth risk of prior induced abortions before the procedure is performed."

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