Myth: Abortion is More Dangerous than Natural Child Birth
Fact: Abortion is one of the most common medical procedures performed in the United States, and one of the safest. The risk of complications such as heavy bleeding or infection is less than 1 percent. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, 88 percent of women who seek an abortion do so before 13 weeks of gestation. Of these women, 97 percent have no complications, 2.5 percent have minor complications that can easily be treated in the office, and less than 0.5 percent experience serious complications that require surgery or hospitalization. The risk of death is very small: one death per 500,000 legal abortions before 8 weeks. The risk of death associated with childbirth is actually eleven times higher than the risk associated with abortion.
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