PRI Criticizes Today’s Guttmacher Institute Report On World Abortion Rates

The Population Research Institute (PRI) was founded in 1989 and is dedicated to: (1) ending human rights abuses committed in the name of "family planning", (2) opposing outdated social and economic paradigms premised on the myth of overpopulation, (3) informing the public about the social and economic benefits of moderate population growth, and (4) promoting pro-natal and pro-family attitudes and policies worldwide.

We have often blogged their news alerts and briefings. Today they released this statement, criticizing the Guttmacher Institute's latest report on world abortion rates. There are no other links to the report online at this point so I presume PRI had a sneak look at the report. Here’s what they had to say.

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PRI Criticizes Guttmacher Report

FRONT ROYAL, Va., Oct. 11 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Guttmacher Institute's latest report on world abortion rates is a self-serving fantasy, says Population Research Institute President Steven W. Mosher. The study, just released today, argues that 42 million abortions were performed in 2003, most in developing countries.

Accurate numbers are impossible to glean from developing countries, however, where abortion is generally illegal. Says Mosher: "Neither Guttmacher nor anyone else knows how many abortions have been performed worldwide in this year or any other year."

"In Columbia, Guttmacher reports hundreds of thousands of abortions," Mosher says. "Yet PRI was recently informed by the Columbian Vice Minister for Health that the Ministry has performed only about 50 abortions since the legalization of abortion last May. This is several orders of magnitude smaller than Guttmacher claims."

According to Mosher, Guttmacher "deliberately exaggerates the magnitude of the problem in order to create the impression of a 'health crisis.' After all, the more women they can claim have 'unsafe' abortions, the more women they can claim die as a result."

"As the research arm of Planned Parenthood, the Alan Guttmacher Institute necessarily reflects the agenda of its parent organization, which is to impose abortion on demand on countries around the world."

[Source]

PRI has recently made available two very informative videos outlining some of the work they do. Videos are available on YouTube, here and here.