Women's risks of dying DURING Abortion
Introducing today’s article by Dr Donna Harrison
The reversal of Roe versus Wade raises a huge question: is legal abortion a threat to a woman’s life or just like you “get your bunions done”? (Prof Lesley Regan here )
Sadly, women die during abortion and also years after from abortion complications. Few know more about this than gynecologist Dr Donna Harrison MD., from Michigan, USA.
How surgical abortion damages women’s organs
The physical bond between a woman and her preborn child involves a growing network of intertwining blood vessels – the placenta. The placenta is designed to separate from the mother after delivery of the baby.
However, most elective abortions are done early in pregnancy when the risk of retained placenta is very high. If placental tissue is left behind, there is a high risk of infection. That is why most surgical abortions involve not just removal of the fetus but also a suction curettage trying to scrape the placenta from the lining of the womb.
If an abortionist scrapes too gently, fetal tissue will be left and infection will follow. Mother of 5, Sarah Louise Dunn need not have died during abortion sepsis in 2020 see here If the abortionist scrapes too deeply, the lining of the womb can be damaged, and the womb itself can be perforated with subsequent damage to the mother’s bowels or bladder.
Unfortunately, retained fetal tissue can result in chronic inflammation. As well as this, forced dilation of the cervix by the surgeon can damage the cervix – the ‘exit’ – from the womb. This can result in the womb letting go of the next baby meaning very preterm birth in following pregnancies.[i] [ii]
Higher risks with the abortion pill
Chemical abortion (Pill abortion), recently permitted for home abortion in the UK, is done with mifeprex and misoprostol. These can also result in haemorrhage and infection – but more often. In fact, the incidence of retained tissue and the need for emergency surgical completion after mifeprex abortion prior to 9 weeks of pregnancy is four times greater than the risk for surgical abortion.[iii]
Women’s mortality rates following first pregnancy outcome at 180 days and during each of first to tenth years after pregnancy ends.
(Data points from Reardon DC, Coleman PK. Short and long-term mortality rates associated with first pregnancy outcome: Population register based study for Denmark 1980-2004. Med Sci Monit. 2012;18(9): PH71 PH76. Table 1 with 180-day data from Table 2.)
Chemical abortion raises risks of severe bleeding
For women after 13 weeks gestation, one out of every three using a mifeprex abortion will need surgical completion to remove retained tissue or stop massive haemorrhaging.[iv]
Haemorrhage was one of the most common adverse events reported to the FDA in the US after the use of mifepristone. [v] [vi] Some of these women required 5- 10 units of blood and blood products to survive. That is similar to the blood losses seen in major motor vehicle accidents.[vii] Why? Mifepristone increases the risk of haemorrhage by directly interfering with the ability of the spiral arteries in the womb to contract.[viii] And spiral artery contraction is how a woman stops bleeding after the placenta is removed.
Higher infection risk using chemical abortion
Equally concerning is that both mifepristone[ix] [x] and misoprostol[xi] can suppress a woman’s immune system, making her extremely vulnerable to overwhelming infections. This is what happened to the women who died from overwhelming infections due to a common soil bacteria called Clostridium sordellii. Misoprostol administered through either the vagina or in the cheek (buccal) has led to deaths from C. sordellii.[xii]
So we have seen that death by bleeding or infection are both risks intrinsic to the abortion procedure itself. The later in the abortion, the higher the risk of both. And both are more common in drug-induced abortion than in surgical abortion.
Women need not die of ignorance
One of the total contraindications for inducing an abortion is ectopic pregnancy – a situation where the pregnancy is growing outside of the uterus, most often in a woman’s tubes. Neither surgical abortion nor mifeprex abortion regimens treat ectopic pregnancy.
An untreated ectopic pregnancy can grow until the woman’s tube ruptures and she dies from haemorrhaging inside her abdomen. Approximately 3% of pregnancies are ectopic. The problem is that a rupturing ectopic pregnancy feels exactly like the symptoms that a woman experiences with a mifeprex abortion: abdominal pain and bleeding.
Women in the U.S. have bled to death from a rupturing ectopic pregnancy after they were told that their pain and bleeding was normal…they should just take Tylenol (paracetamol) and go to bed. These women’s deaths should have been avoided. The abortionist should have taken the time to actually make the diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy as required by good medical practice.
In conclusion
About one-in-five women using the abortion pill will have a serious complication of bleeding, infection or tissue left in the womb. These may involve the hospital and there is a risk to life.[1] Home abortion where women are easily coerced to abort, often alone and can die without being able to call for help is especially dangerous.
Britain reported two deaths soon after the chemical abortion, for home abortion was introduced in 2020.[2]
Donna Harrison is CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the largest non-sectarian pro-life medical organization in the world. They provide evidence-based information about the effects of elective abortion on both the pregnant mother and her unborn child.
More information on why women die during and after abortion is on page 189 here [for the UK] and here outside UK
Next month: Why Women Die LONG After Abortion
[1] https://care.org.uk/news/2020/08/two-women-die-after-government-approve-diy-at-home-abortions
[2] https://christianconcern.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/CC-Resource-Misc-Judicial-Review-Abortion-200729-NHS-email-2.pdf
[i] The Association between Surgical Abortion and Preterm Birth: An Overview available at: https://aaplog.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/PB-5-Overview-of-Abortion-and-PTB.pdf
[ii] A Detailed Examination of the Data on Surgical Abortion and Preterm Birth available at: https://aaplog.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/PG-11-A-Detailed-Examination-of-the-Data-on-Surgical-Abortion-and-Preterm-Birth.pdf
[iii] Niinimaki M, Pouta A, Bloigu A, et al. “Immediate complications of medical compared with surgical termination of pregnancy.” Obstet Gynecol 2009;114(4):795-804. DOI:10.1097/AOG.0b013e3181b5ccf9. Free full text: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19888037/
[iv] Mentula MJ, Niinimaki M, Suhonen S, et al. “Immediate adverse events after 2nd-trimester termination of pregnancy.” Hum Reprod 2011;26(4):927-932. DOI: 10.1093/humrep/der016 Free full text: https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/26/4/927/627865
[v] Kathi A. Aultman et al., Death and Severe Adverse Events After the Use of Mifepristone as an Abortifacient From September 2000 to February 2019, 36 Issues L. & Med. 3, 23 (2021)
[vi] Gary M and Harrison D. Analysis of Severe Adverse Events Related to the Use of Mifepristone as an Abortifacient. The Annals of Pharmacotherapy ■ 2006 February, Volume 40.
[vii] Kathi A. Aultman et al., Death and Severe Adverse Events After the Use of Mifepristone as an Abortifacient From September 2000 to February 2019, 36 Issues L. & Med. 3, 23 (2021)
[viii] Ralph P. Miech, Pathopharmacology of excessive hemorrhage in mifepristone abortions, 41 ANNALS PHARMOCOTHERAPY 12, 2002-07 (Dec. 2007).
[ix] Jeanette I. Webster & Ester M. Sternberg, Role of the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis, Glucocorticoids and Glucocorticoid Receptors in Toxic Sequelae of Exposure to Bacterial and Viral Products, 181 J. Endocrinology 207, 207–17 (2004)
[x] Miech RP. “Pathophysiology of Mifepristone induced septic shock due to Clostridium sordellii.” Ann Pharmacother 2005;39:xxxx. Published online, 26 Jul 2005, www.theannals.com, DOI 10.1345/aph.1G18. Free full text: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.581.8018&rep=rep1&type=pdf
[xi] David M. Aronoff et al., Misoprostol Impairs Female Reproductive Tract Innate Immunity Against Clostridium Sordellii, 180 J. Immunology 8222, 8229 (2008).
[xii] Food and Drug Administration U.S. Mifepristone U.S. Post-Marketing Adverse Events Summary through 12/31/2018 available at: https://www.fda.gov/media/112118/download