News

By Hilary White

March 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A newly published meta-analysis (a study comprised of data from numerous other research studies) has shown a strong link between induced abortion and subsequent pre-term births.

Published in the February edition of the prestigious Journal of Reproductive Medicine, the study reviewed international data from 21 studies from 1995 to 2007 on preterm births related to induced abortion and spontaneous miscarriage. It concluded that “induced and spontaneous abortion are associated with similarly increased instances of preterm birth in subsequent pregnancies.”

The researchers found that prior induced abortions increased a woman’s odds of having a preterm delivery by 64 percent.

Although most abortionist organisations strongly deny a strong risk of preterm birth abortion, last month’s study supports the findings of much previous research. A study of South Australian first singleton births in the period 1998-2003, published in the Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine in January this year, also linked abortion with preterm births.

The researchers in that study found, “A previous induced abortion and smoking during pregnancy (particularly among indigenous women) are preventable risk factors for pre-term birth.”

Another study published in 2007 in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found that abortions increase the risk of low birth weight in future pregnancies by a factor of three, and of premature birth by a factor of two.