European Medical Journal exposes Abortion-Cerebral-Palsy:
Elective Surgery boosts Cerebral Palsy risk
In their excellent review of CP (Cerebral Palsy) history, Schifrin and Longo
end with the words, "We need to let the truth take us where it will."(1)
This letter assumes that there is the courage to do exactly that.
Although the etiology of CP has many uncertainties, preterm birth and
incompetent cervix are considered to be risk factors.(2)
A preterm new-born is much more likely to be Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW: birth weight under 1500 grams) than a full-term newborn.
A Swedish study of 19 year-old boys reported fifty-five times the normal risk of CP for boys with VLBW (95% CI 40.8-75.2).(3) From a 1991 CP-VLBW meta-analysis: "If one assumes the incidence of cerebral palsy in the general population to be 2/1000 live births …. then the relative risk for cerebral palsy among surviving VLBW infants would be 38 times that in the general population."(4)
Elective Surgery and Preterm Birth risk
There are at least seventeen studies that have found that previous
induced abortions increase preterm birth risk.(8-24)
The latest of these studies reported on 61,000 Danish women and is one
of the largest studies ever linking "terminations" to later prematurity.(9)
The relative risk of a very preterm birth (before 34 weeks' gestation)
for Danish women with one previous induced abortion is 1.99.
The relative risk of a pre-term birth for women with two previous
"evacuation" type abortions is 12.55.(5) The RR for one previous
"evacuation" abortion is 2.27.(5)
Why the silence about the abortion-prematurity risk and cerebral palsy
from medical researchers?
Let's have the courage to explore this credible risk with the definite possibility that
what is learned may help reduce the cerebral palsy rate
and the heartache that it causes the affected infants and parents.
Is it biologically plausible that abortions can increase risk
of a subsequent preterm birth?
Highly regarded obstetric expert, Barbara Luke (PhD), has identified one
mechanism that explains abortion causing prematurity risk. "The procedures
for first-trimester abortion involve dilating the cervix slightly and
suctioning the contents of the uterus (see Figure 3).The procedures for
second-trimester abortion are more involved, including dilating the cervix
wider and for longer periods, and scraping the inside of the uterus. Women
who had had several second-trimester abortions may have a higher incidence
of incompetent cervix, a premature spontaneous dilation of the cervix,
because the cervix has been artificially dilated several times before this
pregnancy." (5)
The second biological risk that helps to explain higher prematurity is
infection risk.
"Our findings indicate that an abortion in a woman's first pregnancy does not have the same protective effect of lowering the risk for intrapartum infection in the following pregnancy as does a live birth."
So wrote researchers from the University of Washington in the journal Epidemiology in 1996.(6) Infection is a leading cause of death from
induced abortion (if one ignores breast cancer and suicide from abortion ).Infection is often mentioned as a risk factor for premature birth. In 1992
Dr. Janet Daling and colleagues reported that if the previous pregnancy
ended in induced abortion, the risk of intra-amniotic infection increased by
140%.(7) "One possible mechanism is that cervical instrumentation can
facilitate the passage of organisms into the upper part of the uterus,
increasing the probability of inapparent infection and subsequent preterm
birth", wrote Judith Lumley in 1998.8
Informed Medical Consent is a must
Over the past two decades the rate of Cerebral Palsy has been increasing in
the United States and other developed countries. If there is an elective
medical procedure that increases prematurity risk, then potential patients
of that procedure must be made aware of subsequent preterm birth risk and
the associated Cerebral Palsy risk.
Since it is conceded by abortion practitioners that induced abortion is normally
an elective procedure, full information about serious possible risks must appear
on consent forms.
Informed medical consent is a legal right of all women. Let's stop denying
them this right at abortion clinics. "We need to let the truth take us where
it will."(1)
Brent Rooney,
Reduce Preterm Risk Coalition
3456 Dunbar St. (146)
Vancouver, Canada V6S 2C2
[Letter: European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology2001;96:239-240]
[email protected]
References
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