Washington D.C., May 4, 2006 / 22:00 pm

The U.S. bishops’ pro-life office and Concerned Women for America each commented on the Guttmacher report issued yesterday, titled “Abortion in Women’s Lives,” pointing out inherent contradictions and raising questions about its reliability.

“The report tries to maintain an impossible balancing act: claiming the goal of reducing abortions, while at the same time calling for more aggressive promotion of abortion services,” said Deirdre McQuade, director of planning and information at the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities.

And while the report claims that widespread access to contraception leads to lower abortion rates, the report’s own data show there is no correlation between the two, McQuade said.

“States ranking highest for access to contraceptive services, including California and New York, also rank highest in abortion rates,” McQuade noted. “Others that Guttmacher considers weak in contraceptive services, such as Kansas and the Dakotas, have among the lowest abortion rates in the country.”

“Those states have reduced their abortion rates, in part, by choosing not to subsidize abortion, and ensuring informed consent for women and parental involvement for minors seeking abortions – policies which the Guttmacher report demands be rescinded,” she explained.

According to Concerned Women for America (CWA), the report also attempts to deny the increasing evidence that abortion harms women physically and psychologically.

“A study by Guttmacher Institute on abortion should be taken with as much seriousness as a tobacco industry study on nicotine,” said CWA president Wendy Wright. “True to form, Guttmacher asserts that abortion is safe, then claims abortion providers have the solution for reducing what it says is harmless.”

According to Wright, a New Zealand study of 500 girls from birth to age 25 found a definitive link between abortion and depression.

“Clearly, abortion carries numerous medical risks— even death, as we have seen with the abortion pill RU-486,” she said, urging women and policymakers to read the report and recognize the research that reveals abortion is a dangerous medical risk.

The report also asserts that a woman with an unintended pregnancy should have the right to decide whether or not she is ‘ready’ to be a mother,” said Wright.

“The fact is she already is a mother; the question is whether she will be the mother of a living child or a dead child. It is absurd to suggest that a human being’s life is not worthwhile or valuable because the woman did not pre-plan her pregnancy,” she stated.