Ingrid Skop, M.D., FACOG

Existing research on postabortion emergency room visits is sparse and limited by methods which underestimate the incidence of adverse events following abortion. Postabortion emergency room (ER) use since Food and Drug Administration approval of chemical abortion in 2000 can identify trends in the relative morbidity burden of chemical versus surgical procedures.

The prevalence of induced abortion among women with children has been estimated indirectly by projections derived from survey research. However, an empirically derived, population-based conclusion on this question is absent from the published literature.

A trend of mounting concern is occurring in abortion provision.  When elective induced abortion was legalized in the United States in 1973, one oft-cited motivation was to improve abortion’s safety, as it was frequently claimed that many women were injured and sometimes died from illegal abortions. Recently, abortion advocates have changed their strategy. Whereas once they claimed they wanted abortion to be “safe, legal and rare,” now they favor immediate access and convenience to abortion for all women experiencing unintended pregnancies, regardless of whether it might be more dangerous for a woman, or whether the law prohibits it. Thus, they have begun encouraging women to seek more dangerous, “self-managed” abortions.

The current measuring metric and reporting methods for assessing maternal mortality are seriously flawed. Evidence-based prevention strategies require consistently reported surveillance data and validated measurement metrics.

Controversy exists regarding whether doctors who perform abortions should be required to hold hospital admitting privileges, but no research exists as to the extent to which they actually hold and use such privileges.