Doctor Has "Proof" Abortion Causes Prematurity In Future Pregnancies
by Robin Marty, RH Reality Check
March 14, 2011 - 9:19pm (Print)
A physician in Michigan believes he has come up with the link that proves abortion causes prematurity in future pregnancies: African American women.
Dr. Joseph Kincaid explains his "discovery" in a letter to the editor.
The CHRT brief goes on to state black infants are 70 percent more likely to be born prematurely than white infants. Eleven percent of white infants are born prematurely while almost 19 percent of black babies are premature. Black pre-term babies are more apt to die soon after birth.
The CHRT [Center for Healthcare Research and Transformation] report says this difference is poorly understood but suggests such factors as smoking, teen pregnancies and the possibility that black pregnant women are under more stress than other ethnic groups. The CHRT brief ends the discussion saying more studies are needed to understand this difference between black women and others.
Blacks make up 12 percent of the population but about 42.5 percent of abortions in Michigan in 2009 were done on black women. The Centers for Disease Control states the abortion rate for black women is 2.9 times then for white women. Could abortion be one of the missing factors that the CHRT is searching for to explain the difference between blacks and whites and prematurity?
Dr. Kincaid also goes on to proclaim the repeatedly disproven claim that abortion causes breast cancer, as well, providing a clear picture of just how scientifically valid his medical views are.
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"Actually, speaking as a researcher in reproductive health (including abortion), I can answer the author's questions. Almost all studies on this topic do record the number of induced abortions, the number of spontaneous abortions (AKA miscarriages) + stillbirths, and the number of live births that each subject has had, so that the researchers can compare women who have had similar reproductive histories up til that point. So if they are still finding a discrepancy, and not stating that it is related to an element of the reproductive history, it's likely that the discrepancy is not explained by that element.
(Terminology: the author of this post is suggesting that induced abortion could be a confounding factor in the relationship between race and preterm birth; comparing between women who have similar induced abortion histories would be called controlling or adjusting for the potential confounder. If a discrepancy still exists between race and preterm birth after adjusting for all suspected confounders on which you gathered data, you'd say race appears to have an independent effect on preterm birth.)
In fact, historically in this field there have been studies hypothesizing a relationship between abortion and preterm birth, and in those cases it was found that the stronger links (and the more commonly overlooked confounders, in studies that didn't include these variables) were to maternal smoking, the child in question being a woman's first born (not necessarily the same as her first pregnancy), and in some cases income or insured status.
Hope this helps clear up the matter. "
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