nathans 
Republican States Claim Zero Abortions. A Red-State Doctor Calls That ‘Ludicrous.’
In Arkansas, state health officials announced a stunning statistic for 2023: The total number of abortions in the state, where some 1.5 million women live, was zero.
In South Dakota, too, official records show zero abortions that year.
And in Idaho, home to abortion battles that have recently made their way to the U.S. Supreme Court, the official number of recorded abortions was just five.
In nearly a dozen states with total or near-total abortion bans, government officials claimed that zero or very few abortions occurred in 2023, the first full year after the Supreme Court eliminated federal abortion rights.
Those statistics, the most recent available and published in government records, have been celebrated by anti-abortion activists. Medical professionals say such accounts are not only untrue but fundamentally dishonest.
“To say there are no abortions going on in South Dakota is ludicrous,” said Amy Kelley, an OB-GYN in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, citing female patients who have come to her hospital after taking abortion pills or to have medical procedures meant to prevent death or end nonviable pregnancies. “I can think of five off the top of my head that I dealt with,” she said, “and I have 15 partners.”
For some data scientists, these statistics also suggest a troubling trend: the potential politicization of vital statistics.
#Politics #USPol #Abortion #Pregnancy #News #USNews #ReproductiveRights #HumanRights #MichiganAdvance #GOP #Republicans
Peter Link Has Moved
bobchauvin
