book points out data manipulation

The number of clandestine abortions is overestimated by activist NGOs to favor the abortion industry. This statement was made by pro-life researcher and specialist in Bioethics, Marlon Derosa, who has just published the book “Aborted numbers: the manipulation of estimates of abortions in the world” (Pius Edições, 2023).

Launched this year, the work exposes the distortions in the surveys of these organizations, which try to force authorities to change public policies.

“These are gigantic scientific frauds or gross mistakes, which have as an aggravating factor the fact that they influence debates on the subject in the United Nations, the World Health Organization, congresses and superior courts, as is the case, including the Federal Supreme Court (STF), in the Brazil”, says one of the excerpts from the book.

In an interview with People’s Gazette, Derosa explains some of these misrepresentations. In Brazil, for example, a common maneuver is to use data from the Public Health System (SUS) that include spontaneous abortions, relatively common, as if they were clandestine abortions, inflating the numbers.

Check out the full interview:

Why did you decide to write about abortion?

Marlon Derosa: I started researching this subject, 18 years ago or so, when I saw people discussing it on social networks with very fragile arguments. My initial idea was to research to give more reasoned answers, making summaries, and when I saw it, it had 30 pages with bibliographical references, with scientific data. First, I decided to tackle other topics, especially about early life in another book. Then, in 2016, I started to study abortion numbers in the world and in Brazil and deepened the methodology to understand how they were produced, and this book is the result of that work.

What would you highlight about the weaknesses, scientific fraud and gross misconceptions about abortion numbers?

Marlon Derosa: I was very careful to be technical so as not to be frivolous. The book takes a technical analysis route so that the reader is not persuaded by me, but understands how the analysis was carried out and, in the end, comes to understand that we are facing a very crude manipulation.

The abortion estimates that are used in worldwide scientific research, such as the AGI methodology developed by the Guttmacher Institute, analyze all sets of countries where abortion is criminalized or legalized and are based on the same methodology, all using a single methodology. You see that it is based on the indicators of a California regional study done in the 70’s with a biased cut. The survey took this data and extrapolated it to places where abortion is criminalized; took the numbers because they are convenient and started using them for other cases.

These are contradictory numbers and in a technical analysis contradictions appear, in addition to the use of outdated and completely out of context references. So, as it is a very polarized debate, I was careful to show a technical analysis to arrive at this conclusion.

I reinforce that this is not a criticism of a pro-lifer who wants to take the debate elsewhere, regardless of the position that the person has on abortion, they have to be concerned about solid data.

Does the book provide actual estimates of abortion or maternal mortality?

Marlon Derosa: The book does not deal with death records, but is focused on estimating the number of abortions. Estimating the number of abortions is used in thousands of theses and dissertations in Brazil and around the world, and it is always the same data. They say that there are 40 or 50 million abortions a year in the world, or the number of abortions in countries where it is legal has fallen, as if the legalization of abortion causes a reduction in numbers. But the study they cite, doesn’t claim that, it really is a complete misinterpretation of things.

All world studies, including those from the UN and WHO, are based on the Guttmacher Institute, which uses inadequate and outdated statistics that increase the estimates of abortion where it is clandestine, and then compare it with countries where it is legal. It’s an unrealistic comparison.

In the STF, they used this data in their arguments to reach the conclusion that it is better to allow abortion, and ended up using phrases such as: “if the incidence of abortion is not affected by the law or is lower where they have legalized it, although I am against it I am in favor of legalization”.

To mature the debate and before changing a law, we need to know where this data comes from. It is not because a scientific study points out a fact that is true, it is necessary to analyze the methodology and my book shows that.

Are there official numbers on abortion in Brazil?

Marlon Derosa: It will always be unofficial statistics and estimates, activists tend to use world statistics because that’s what has based the debate. Not even when countries legalize do they have official and reliable statistics. In the US, about 55% of clinics and hospitals that perform abortions report to the CDC, but even then, they cannot know how many abortions are legally performed.

The National Abortion Survey (PNA2016) itself was analyzed in depth and compared with bibliographies that conflict with its results. The researchers overestimated clandestine abortions, projecting 503 thousand abortions in Brazil. More likely numbers of clandestine abortions are in the range of 48 to 150 thousand a year, because you can’t mix miscarriage with induced abortion.

In Canada, they provide numbers, but with incomplete records, and you don’t know the weeks the abortion was performed, with the risk even of the procedure being done in weeks, which is not legal. This is very serious.