Friday, August 14, 2009

Alarming surge in maternal deaths in South Africa


We have published a number of BLOG posts on the issue of maternal mortality and the great lie that the introduction of legalised abortion will reduce the incidence of maternal mortality. Developing countries have been plagued in recent years by United Nations agencies and pro-abortion NGOs, such as International Planned Parenthood (IPPF), the world's largest abortion provider, to decriminalize and then legalise abortion as a measure they claim will reduce maternal mortality rates.

C.Fam in its Friday Fax, report that IPPF has acknowledged an alarming "surge" in maternal deaths in South Africa, challenging the pro-abortion mantra that liberal abortion laws decrease maternal mortality. Maternal deaths increased by twenty percent in the period 2005-2007 in South Africa, a country that since 1996 has had one of the most permissive abortion laws on the African continent.

While deaths attributable to HIV/AIDS account for the biggest portion of maternal deaths in South Africa, IPPF acknowledges that a portion of deaths are "due to complications of abortion" in a country where the procedure is legal and widely available. This revelation is the latest fact in a growing body of evidence showing the opposite relationship in which legal abortion and high maternal deaths coincide. To illustrate, the nation with the lowest African maternal mortality rate is Mauritius, according to a 2009 World Health Organization (WHO) report. Mauritius' laws are among the continent's most protective of the unborn