Another extremely common lie told by pro-choice organiztions like Planned Parenthood is that thousands of women died of illegal abortions before Roe V. Wade.  For example:

Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman recently wrote, "After all, those of us who remember when birth control was illegal and when 10,000 American women a year died from illegal abortions don't have to imagine a world without choices. We were there."

I don't know what world Ellen Goodman was living in. Let's look at some real statistics and facts:

In the year prior to Roe v. Wade (1972), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports in their Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (Sept. 4, 1992, Vol. 41, No. SS-5) that 39 women died from illegal abortion in the U.S. (41 died that year from legal abortions). That is a far cry from 10,000. And note that more women died from legal abortions- something no one on the pro-choice sides ever admits to.

Mary Calderone, former director of Planned Parenthood, estimated in a July 1960 article from the American Journal of Public Health that 90% of all illegal abortions were performed by licensed physicians in good standing. She writes the following:

"Abortion is no longer a dangerous procedure. This applies not just to therapeutic abortions as performed in hospitals but also to so-called illegal abortions as done by physicians. In 1957 there were only 260 deaths in the whole country attributed to abortions of any kind. In New York City in 1921 there were 144 abortion deaths, In 1951 there were only 15; and, while the abortion death rate was going down so strikingly in that 30-year period, we know what happened to the population and the birth rate. Two corollary factors must be mentioned here: first, chemotherapy and antibiotics have come in, benefiting all surgical procedures as well as abortion. Second, and even more important, the conference estimated that 90 percent of all illegal abortions are presently being done by physicians. Call them what you will, abortionists or anything else, they are still physicians, trained as such; and many of them are in good standing in their communities. They must do a pretty good job if the death rate is as low as it is...abortion, whether therapeutic or illegal, is in the main no longer dangerous."

Yes, this was written by the director of Planned Parenthood. Now here is another quote by Dr. Bernard Nathanson, the co-founder of N.A.R.A.L. (now the National Abortion Rights Action League) and instrumental in lobbying for legal abortion.

"How many deaths were we talking about when abortion was illegal? In N.A.R.A.L., we generally emphasized the drama of the individual case, not the mass statistics, but when we spoke of the latter it was always "5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year." I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose the others did too if they stopped to think of it. But in the "morality" of our revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics? The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason that had to be done was permissible."

This was quoted in Dr. Nathanson's book Aborting America

Interestingly,

"Between 1967 and 1970 sixteen states legalized abortion. In most it was limited, only for rape, incest and severe fetal handicaps or deformities, and when the pregnancy jeopardized the life of the mother (all of which constitute only 5% of the abortion cases today). There were two notable exceptions - California in 1967 and New York in 1970 legalized abortion on demand.

Legalizing abortion should have eliminated some deaths related to illegal abortions. That is not the case. In the years from 1963-1969, there were an average of approximately 55 deaths per year due to illegal abortions. In 1970, after this initial wave of laws legalizing abortions, there were 109. Deaths from abortions increased.

By the year before the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision allowing legal abortion on demand in all fifty states.  Now abortion was legal in all fifty states and back alley abortions eliminated with their alleged total of maternal deaths. In 1973 there should have been a sharp drop in abortion-related deaths if abortion advocates were right that legalizing abortion would make abortion safe.

There were 25 deaths resulting from legal abortion in 1973, 26 in 1974 and 29 in 1975.

Some have claimed that the number of illegal abortion-related deaths were not reported accurately or underreported. Yet, when a woman was seriously injured by an abortion, she went to another doctor for care. The abortion practitioner was rarely involved at that point. The new doctor in many cases had to attempt to save the mother's life. In cases of maternal death, this new doctor was required to report, and falsification of the death certificate was a felony. Therefore, prior to legalization of abortion, it's safe to say deaths from illegal abortions were rarely covered up. 

 From "The Myth of Mass Back-Alley Abortion Deaths"  at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/sfl/illeg.htm which cited:

Abortion Surveillance 1985, Center for Disease Control, Table #18.

Induced Abortion: World Review 1983, by Christopher Tietze, The Population Council, p 103

Maternal Mortality Surveillance 1979-1986, Centers for Disease Control, M&M Weekly report July 1991, Vol. 40, No. SS-1.

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