The World Health Organization has conducted a new study claiming abortions are just as frequent in nations where they are prohibited as those that legalize them. . . .
Dr. Randy O’Bannon, Education Director for National Right to Life, has said that the number of illegal abortions in developing countries is likely inflated. . . .
In Uruguay, for example, the WHO relies on studies with samples sizes of 5, 14, and 23 individuals to extrapolate the number of deaths due to illegal abortions for the entire country. In addition, the studies were done in the 1970s and 1980s and are not current.
The data may provide anecdotal evidence of abortion-related deaths but does not validate the claims of thousands of such deaths, O’Bannon concludes.
I suspect that poor countries have higher number of abortions and a greater propensity to ban abortions because they’re poor. That doesn’t mean that, correcting for that relationship, legal protections for the unborn are ineffective.