Maternal Death Rate Changes Little in 15 Years
An analysis of maternal deaths around the world shows that nearly 536,000 women die in pregnancy and childbirth each year, with about half of the deaths in sub-Saharan Africa. It's a number little changed from the 576,000 who died in 1990. Maternal deaths fell by less than 1 percent a year between then and 2005.
The analysis was done by Harvard professor Ken Hill and published in the British medical journal the Lancet. Dr. Richard Horton, the Lancet's editor, says women are too often seen as just "containers" for babies, the BBC reports.
In a separate study published in the Lancet, Dr. Iqbal Shah of the World Health Organization found rates of abortion fell globally by 17 percent between 1995 and 2003 — from 46 million per year to 42 million. But the number of abortions carried out in unsafe conditions remained the same at approximately 20 million, just below 50 percent of the total.
The lowest global abortion rate — 12 abortions per 1,000 women — was found in Western Europe, where abortion is legal. (The U.S. had 21 abortions per 1,000 pregnancies in 2003.) In contrast, the estimated rate in 2003 was 54 per 1,000 in Uganda, where abortions are illegal.
The study suggests that outlawing abortion does little to deter women from seeking it, The New York Times reports. And researchers "found that abortion was safe in countries where it was legal, but dangerous in countries where it was outlawed and performed clandestinely."
Groups that oppose abortion criticized the study. Randall O'Bannon, director of education and research at the National Right to Life Educational Trust Fund in Washington, said the scientists made judgments from imperfect figures. "These numbers are not definitive and very susceptible to interpretation according to the agenda of the people who are organizing the data," he said.
12:16 PM ET | 10-12-2007 | permalink
