Social results of abortion “good”

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33612, 14 August 1974, Page 1

Social results of abortion “good”

Since abortion was legalised in the United States, the social results have all been good, according to Professor I. Gusheer, of the University of California, Los Angeles, in Christchurch yesterday.

Professor Cusheer, associate professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the university, and chief of the family-planning division, is visiting Christchurch for two days, after a week-long trip throughout New Zealand.

He said that the risk of death from an abortion, now that it had been incorporated into the American Health Service, was five per 100,000 compared to the risk of death in child birth, which was 15 per 100,000. Before abortion had been legalised in some states in 1972, there were more than a million illegal abortions performed in the United States, Professor Cusheer said. In January, 1973, the United States Supreme Court had repealed abortion laws. The court’s law had then become the law of the United States — that a state was not allowed to interfere in a decision by a patient to have an abortion up to the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy. “HEALTH SERVICE” The court said that the abortion must be done by a physician, and must be done in the second 12 weeks of pregnancy as the risk of death was not as high.

“If a woman in the United States wants her pregnancy terminated, she may make that request without the encumbrance of law. The results have been all good,” said Professor Cusheer.

“It is important to point out that when the other situation prevailed, there were no means of collecting statistics; but now we have a body of information.

“We are proving that the abortion service with ski'led persons is an appropriate health service,” he said.

Abortions had reduced the number of maternal deaths, more people were seeking the advice of family-planning

clinics, and the number of babies born out of wedlock had fallen. Professor Cusheer said he knew that the abortion issue in New Zealand was a national debate, but he was not prepared to comment on the abortion system except to say that the law should be reformed in some way and that abortions should be available to women who require them without them

having to travel long distances. Professor Cusheer was invited to come to New Zealand by the Association of Study of Abortion in America, which received an invitation from the New Zealand Abortion Law Reform Council. He is in New Zealand to speak about the American experience of abortion to various groups associated with abortion. He spoke yesterday to the obstetrics and gynaecology staff of the Christchurch Women’s Hospital, and today will attend a conference at The Princess Margaret Hospital before flying to Australia..