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| An inconvenient analysis |
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News ReleaseAn Inconvenient AnalysisNew report discusses wide-ranging effects of abortionThe London-based Pension and Population Research Institute today (25 October) launched ‘Assessing the Damage’, a 32-page report by its Director of Research, Patrick Carroll, into the demographic impact on society, and the consequences for women’s health, of the 1967 Abortion Act. Speaking at the launch, which took place at the Royal Society of Medicine in Wimpole Street, London, Mr Carroll said that the report discusses how national statistical data can be used to assess the effect of the 1967 Act. “The 40th anniversary of the passing of the Abortion Act is a significant opportunity to re-access the such a politically correct age, for many my report is probably a rather inconvenient impact on society that has resulted from this legal and cultural change. Given that we live in analysis, but it could however be a first step towards a restoration of the situation that will benefit many,” Mr Carroll said. Through statistical analysis and comparison Mr Carroll, who is an actuary and statistician by profession, looks at the impact of nearly seven million legally induced abortions over the last 40 years, abortion’s bearing on family structure and its adverse health consequences. “Statistics on abortion in England and Wales are unusually comprehensive and detailed by international standards and when combined with information from live birth data and mortality it is possible to estimate what I have called the ‘Lost Generations’ that are missing as a result of this legislation,” Mr Carroll said. The ‘Lost Generations’ are those who might have been born had they not been terminated as a result of the 1967 Act, some of whom could now be grandparents. At a time of low birth rates and increasing infertility Mr Carroll says that the impact on actual population today of a still increasing abortion rate is serious. The implied economic decline when there are fewer young consumers is now more clearly in focus. In his report he estimates that the United Kingdom’s working age population has been reduced by nearly 7% since 1967. This figure is set to rise to 10.9% by 2017, or 7.5 million people, and 11.3% by 2027. Had the Lost Generations been included in the working age population today, for example, National Insurance Contributions for men might on average be reduced by nearly £290.00 a year (£5.56 per week) or nearly £210.00 (£4.01 per week) for women. “In the UK and Ireland there is good reason to be concerned about abortion and its impact in the continuing demographic context of late marriage and late childbearing. Our abortions are more damaging to health because so many are carried out on women before they give birth to live children,” Mr Carroll said. In the United Kingdom 208,4751 abortions were carried out in 2006. The National Health Service funded 87% of abortions and over half (53%) were on women who did not have children. On an individual level, abortions are a greater threat to fertility and the physical and mental health of a woman who has yet to have children, than those that occur in a mother who has had a full-term pregnancy. Patrick Carroll argues that there are national implications too, as live birth rates fall below replacement levels. In England, Wales and Scotland he argues that the abortion rate has contributed to the decline in Great Britain’s birth rate. “If the Lost Generations in Scotland had been born, the threat of a decline in population could have been averted,” Mr Carroll says. However in Northern Ireland, where the 1967 Act does not apply, there has also been a considerable decline in the birth rate since 1968, but the prohibition on abortion has maintained fertility at a higher level than in Great Britain. The Report also looks at the interaction between abortion and the decline of marriage, fertility, family size, family life and parenting. This includes its effect on women’s health in relation to breast cancer. In his research Mr Carroll found abortion to be the best predictor of modern breast cancer trends. Dr Joel Brind, Professor of Human Biology and Endocrinology at Baruch College of the City University of New York, came across the link between abortion and breast cancer in 1992. He was in London to support Mr Carroll at the launch of the report. Dr Brind said that the predictive accuracy of Mr Carroll’s ‘impeccable methodology’ made the reality of abortion’s causal link to breast cancer all the more undeniable. “While many are quick to criticize his ‘ecological’ or correlational methodology, the ‘correlation does not equal causation’ argument has been repeatedly ruled out by half a century’s worth of record-linked epidemiological data, and the elucidation of the biology of breast development and carcinogenesis,” Dr Brind argued. He also said that it was also particularly noteworthy that scientific and medical opinion were quite comfortable relying on such data when the results were not so ‘politically incorrect’. The sharp drop in the United States in the use of postmenopausal Hormone Replacement Therapy that was followed by a precipitous fall in breast cancer incidence rates was a good example of this. “No serious scientist doubts the causal link between HRT and breast cancer as the only likely explanation. Clearly, it is only hardcore political correctness that could ignore or minimise the compelling correlations Patrick has uncovered, in the light of all that is known,” Dr Brind said. Mr Carroll concluded by saying, “In this 40th anniversary year of the passing of the 1967 Abortion Act, aside from the immediate and long term physical and psychological effects abortion has on women, there needs to be an open and honest debate that looks rationally at the Act and its ongoing implications for society. “That debate needs to be unfettered by the confines of political correctness as there are many social and economic consequences to abortion and I hope that this report contributes to the debate.” Ends For further information and copies of the report, please contact Terry McErlane on +44 (0)7860 862231 or +44 (0)7736 230585Notes to Editors
The Report will be posted on the Pension and Population Research Institute’s website and the website of the Medical Education Trust at 11 am 25 October 2007 where it can be downloaded. Their respective addresses are: http://home.btconnect.com/papri and www.mededtrust.org.uk
Patrick Carroll is Director of Research at the Pension and Population Research Institute and an actuary and statistician by profession. He has contributed several papers to actuarial literature that include Pension Age in a Changing Society (1990), Abortion and other Pregnancy-Related Risk Factors in Female Breast Cancer (2001). Mr Carroll is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries.
Joel Brind PhD is a biochemist who has specialised in reproductive steroid hormones and their links to human diseases since 1972. A graduate of Yale College, he earned his PhD in basic medical science from New York University in 1981 becoming a Professor of Human Biology and Endocrinology at Baruch College of the City University of New York in 1986. Published widely, from 2003-2006, he served as a member of the Federal Advisory Committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the early detection and control of breast and cervical cancer. In 1999 Dr Brind co-founded the non-profit Breast Cancer Prevention Institute in Poughkeepsie, New York.
The PAPRI is a charitable trust with educational aims that includes research into Pensions, Demography, Insurance and Investment. The publication has been funded by the Medical Education Trust, a registered as a charity set up to promote a better understanding of the nature of man and of the nature of health. It also seeks to develop a better understanding between the public and the medical profession.
Lost Generations have been computed to illustrate what the population might have been had there not been legalised abortion. The First Lost Generation is based on abortion numbers, assuming that 90% of abortions could have been live births six months later. The Second Lost Generation is the children of the First Lost Generation whose fertility follows a birth rate augmented by 90% of the abortion rate. The Third Lost Generation is the children of the Second and grandchildren of the First. The 10% of abortions assumed not to have been possible live births are assumed to have been miscarriages or stillbirths, legal abortions on limited grounds or illegal abortions under the old law had it been enforced after 1968. Notes to Editors Ends 1Includes 1,295 abortions carried out in Great Britain on women who are resident in Northern Ireland. In addition (and not included) are the 5,779 abortions carried out on other women from overseas, of whom more than 5,000 were from the Republic of Ireland. |
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