Abortion in New York City: The First Nine Months

Spontaneous fetal death in man

“…The average gestation time for the first visit should have dropped precipitously, as indicated by more women presenting themselves, for a specific level of live births, than previously (see Pacter and Nelson, 1971). fetal death partially determines the pattern of pregnancy ascertainment.…”

Controversies in family planning: postabortal pelvic inflammatory disease

“…The incidence of infection after surgical abortion is 0.5% as determined by meta-analysis of data from large studies of abortion complications [14, 40–53]. For medical abortion, existing meta-analyses and reviews reported uterine infection in 0.01–0.21% of mifepristone and misoprostol medical abortion regimens [54, 55], 0.21% of mifepristone and another prostaglandin medical abortion regimens [54], 0.45% of vaginal misoprostol regimens[55], and 0% of methotrexate and misoprostol medical abortion regimens [54].…”

Abortion, Personal Freedom, and Public Policy

“…Pakter and Nelson (1971) report a short term complication rate of ten percent (which they admit is under-reported) in New York City's first nine month's experience with its permissive law. Tietze and Lewit (1971), reporting on 42,598 abortions performed in 64 institutions in twelve states, also report a similar 10.1 percent complication rate over-all, and a more conservative 1.2 percent for major complications.…”

“…Some authors favorable to a permissive policy do report that legal abortions have replaced illegal ones, at least in New York City. Pakter and Nelson (1971) report that only one maternal death from illegal abortion was recorded in New York City in the first six months of 1971, and "all hospitals report a sharp decline in incomplete or 'septic' abortions since the liberalization of the law." Their data indicate, however, that the percent of maternal deaths due to abortions (both legal and illegal) had been declining steadily since 1964, increased in 1970 (actually being higher in the latter half of the year when a permissive law first went into effect), and again decreased in the first four months of 1971.…”

“…"Love is Hate," "War is Peace," "Destrov to Save," all seem quite similar in their reasoning. The same logic leads proabortionists to declare that infant mortality has declined since the inception of New York's abortion law (Pakter and Nelson, 1971) and that pro-abortion policy improves child health (Commission on Population Growth and the American Future, 1972, 102)! Presumably we could also improve the health and lower the death rates of our over-65 population if we undertook a policy of selective termination of 64 yearolds.…”