Induced Abortion, Mortality, and the Conduct of Science

There is no credible scientific opposition to the fact that a genetically distinct human life begins at conception and that an induced abortion is a death. Yet, abortion is not reported as a cause of death in the U.S. vital statistics system. Mortality patterns have profound implications for public policy. As a cause of death, we found abortion to be highly consequential, with large racial and ethnic disparities. Abortion represented 16.4% of non-Hispanic White deaths, but 61.1% and 64.0% of non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic deaths respectively. For Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL), the ubiquitous measure of premature death, abortion accumulated 63.1% of non-Hispanic White YPLL and 86.5% and 87.4% of non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic YPLL respectively. Further, as measured by the availability of valid data and resources allocated for research, there is evidence that the science community is not appropriately engaged on this crucial public health problem.