Sir, – Readers were fortunate to be enlightened by a letter from the eminent retired consultant obstetrician John Murphy, who recounted accurate statistics that there were 74,317 births in the National Maternity Hospital in the 1970s but not a single case in which a maternal death resulted from any prohibition on an abortion (January 17th).
Inevitably these statistics would not include any suicides of pregnant women. Official national statistics for 2010 show that 386 men died by suicide but only 100 women, of whom only about 50 were of child-bearing age. The statistics are compiled by age, county, method and many other parameters but not by the underlying reason.
I do not know how many of these 50 women were pregnant, and if so whether any suicides were provoked by pregnancy.
Perhaps some expert could further enlighten readers by clarifying these suicide statistics.
Unless it can be shown that unwanted pregnancy is a significant factor in suicides it would appear that Mr Murphy’s basic conclusion is correct and that “preventing maternal death” is an entirely spurious argument for changing the law on abortion as it lacks any factual support.
In a democracy “pro-choice” adherents are entitled to voice their views, but should be honest enough to say that their objective is to pursue their “choice”, and not an altruistic reform of the law to save the lives of mothers – unless there are supporting statistics. – Yours, etc,