Whenever a study like the one that recently showed that legal abortion is safer than carrying a pregnancy to term comes out, you can expect a lot of anti-choice spin trying to dismiss the claims.

Hence, this piece from Catholic Culture explains how the study is “wrong.”

The fact that abortion is safer than childbirth (for the mother) does not mean that abortion is a safe procedure. We know that childbirth entails some medical risks. Even if the risks of abortion are lesser, they are not negligible. Some state laws, designed to protect pregnant women, have required abortionists to provide accurate information about the health risks involved in the procedure. Those risks remain, even if other medical options involve their own risks. The study, published in Obstetrics & Gynecology, compared only the deaths from complications of childbirths and abortions. It apparently did not look into the lingering effects of abortion. Studies have shown that women who procure abortions suffer higher rates of breast cancer, depression, drug abuse, and suicide. Also, women who procure abortions may encounter complications when they eventually seek to bear children–and thus contribute to the elevated rates of death in childbirth.

Thank goodness for David Reardon, or otherwise the anti-choice advocates might have no “facts” to spin with at all.