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1,100 Excess Brain Damaged Babies are Born Yearly in US Due to Previous Abortions

April 22, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Recently, Australian Justice Michael Grove ruled that a Sydney girl, Kristy Bruce, was born with brain damage as a result of her mother's uterine rupture -- an apparent complication from a previous abortion. As a result, the girl's family has lost their bid to sue the mother's obstetrician for negligence. Kristy, now 15, was born at least 2 1/2 weeks overdue and has cerebral palsy.

Most babies with cerebral palsy due to their mother's prior induced abortions are not overdue but are born prematurely, less than 37 weeks gestation, according to Brent Rooney of the Reduce Preterm Risk Coalition. Most abortion cerebral palsy victims are, in fact, "early preemies," born before 32 weeks' gestation, he claims.

Currently in the U.S. there are about 4 million births per year, with 11.6 percent of them born pre-term; about 17 percent of these pre-term babies are "early pre-term" babies.

Using data from a 1998 study of German women, Rooney contends that 35 percent of early preemies are in excess of what the total would be if no women had prior elective abortions. All this math means about 27,608 additional babies are born 'early pre-term' yearly to U.S. women, based on the estimate that 11 percent of U.S. women have had one abortion, and nine percent have had two or more abortions.

Of these 27,608 pre-term babies, roughly four percent will be born with cerebral palsy, Rooney argues. This translates to an extra 1,100 cases of children born with cerebral palsy in the U.S. annually.

Rooney concludes that, if it were not for abortion's affect of increasing a woman's tendency to have premature labour, 1,100 cases of cerebral palsy in newborns would not otherwise have occurred.

Rooney warns that the vast bulk of American women are never warned about the higher future risk of premature deliveries resulting from prior induced abortions.

The only state Rooney is aware of that gives full informed consent by warning women of this danger is Texas.

See the Texas Department of Health's Women's Right to Know booklet at: http://www.tdh.state.tx.us/wrtk

Read a full PDF version of the above including references at: http://www.jpands.org/vol8no2/rooney.pdf

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