If you have ever wanted to get a fully professional, reliable angle on abortion research a new initiative by Priscilla Kari Coleman (interviewed by MercatorNet in November) should interest you.

Professor Coleman, Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Bowling Green University in Ohio and a leading abortion researcher, has just launched the World Expert Consortium for Abortion Research and Education (WECARE). It is registered in the US as a non-profit with tax exempt status. She writes:

WECARE brings together credentialed scientists with a research program on the physical, psychological, and/or relational effects of abortion to engage in international research collaboration, scientific information dissemination, professional education, and legal consultation. By adopting a non-religious, non-partisan approach to understanding the implications of abortion, WECARE exists to enhance the quality of information, develop strategies for effectively transmitting research findings, and to break down barriers to evidence-based medicine.

There are already a number of articles on the site and I was particularly interested to find this one -- Abortion-Related Deaths Compared to Childbirth-Related Deaths -- after reading an editorial published in The Lancet this week.

The editorial endorses a study of global abortion rates by the Guttmacher Institute. Among other things it claims that “when abortion is provided with proper medical techniques and care, the risk of death is negligible and nearly 14 times lower than that of childbirth.”

Well, we have heard such claims before. This one makes reference to a study about to be published in the February issue of the (US) Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology by Dr Elizabeth Raymond and Dr David Grimes, using US data.

As you can imagine, arriving at abortion-related death rates is not a very straightforward science, even in the USA. In that context Prof Coleman points out, for example, that “abortion-related mortality rates typically fail to factor in abortions beyond the first trimester which constitute [only] 12-13% of abortions”.

However, it’s in the longer term that childbirth proves more protective than abortion. It has been shown to protect against breast cancer and suicide. Although suicide deaths are rarely linked back to abortion, Prof Coleman calculates that over 5 per cent of suicides in the US are abortion-related.

I believe this project and website will be a great step towards evening the scales in the arena of abortion information -- where it is very difficult to get funding from public and major philanthropical sources unless one toes the population control line.