The authors of the recent study published in The Lancet interpret their findings in light of the impending 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals for improving the lives of the poor. The study’s authors write, “[t]he substantial decline in the abortion rate observed earlier has stalled, and the proportion of all abortions that are unsafe has increased…. Measures to reduce the incidence of unintended pregnancy and unsafe abortion, including investments in family planning services and safe abortion care, are crucial steps toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals.”
However, Solter says one of the most important aspects recognized by the recent study is how difficult it is to collect data on abortions, and particularly unsafe abortions. She says unsafe abortions tend to rank fourth on lists of leading factors in maternal mortality. “But sometimes women’s deaths are miscategorized…. A mother may die of hemorrhaging, but that could really be the effect of an unsafe abortion,” she says.
She says the study’s data and findings could make an impact in developing countries.
“There is more and more interest now in maternal mortality…. When health ministries come to see what a huge risk unsafe abortions are, when they have hard proof and data that say it’s a major cause of mortality, it may make them more likely to address it,” Solter says.
Care for unsafe abortions can be costly. “It actually impoverishes ministries of health. Some of the countries where [I] work, the annual budget is only a few dollars per person each year. Dealing with someone who comes in hemorrhaging from an unsafe abortion is costly,” says Solter. “And its preventable,” she says, adding that it is not just a question of mortality but morbidity.
“Unsafe abortions can damage women for the rest of their lives,” she says.
Mark Sappenfield
Dear Reader,
About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:
“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”
If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.
But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.
The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.
We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”
If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.
