Yes, lots to think about here. We must make women's health and children's health of equal concern. Period.

But debate over making abortion illegal *today* must focus on our current context...which is quite different from what this article considers. 1/ https://twitter.com/emmaogreen/status/1194276769978896386?s=19

Data on illegal abortion before Roe is sparse, but it suggests something quite different from what the above article suggests. In 1960, Mary S. Calderone did research which showed abortion, whether legal or illegal, “is no longer a dangerous procedure” 2/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1373382/

Today, the New York Times reports that women who are denied abortions in the United States almost never have illegal abortions. Indeed, only 5 percent even end up regretting not having the abortion later in the life. 3/ https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/magazine/study-women-denied-abortions.html

This is what we find with other countries with a developed health care infrastructure which have made abortion broadly illegal. Ireland, which until recently banned almost all abortions, has had outstanding maternal health outcomes, for instance. 4/ https://www.thejournal.ie/maternal-deaths-mortality-rate-ireland-pro-life-campaign-statistics-2921139-Aug2016/

Chile, which recently moved from abortion permissive to banning most abortions, actually saw maternal health outcomes improve after abortion-restrictive laws were passed. 5/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29189859 

Especially in light of this contemporary data, we should be wary of estimates, memories, and stories from a very different historical context. Not least because folks like Dr. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of @NARAL, said they just made up the numbers. 6/ https://www.amazon.com/Aborting-America-Bernard-N-Nathanson/dp/0919225004

A new phase of the US abortion debate is upon us. And it will be bad enough based on what is at stake with the competing visions of the good. All the more reason to foster disciplined commitment to working with the best data and facts possible. /fin