From the Ministry of Truth files.

Pro-abortion groups pressure "The Lancet" not to publish report on decline of maternal death rates in pregnancy.

Pro-abortion groups applied pressure to the world’s leading medical journal to suppress a report into maternal death rates, it has been claimed.


Dr Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, told the New York Times he was pressured “by advocacy groups” to delay publication of the report until later this year. Dr Horton said the organisations – which he refused to name – wanted the information withheld until after the UN Commission on Population and Development (CPD), the Women Deliver Conference scheduled for June in Washington and the next UN General Assembly, which is also scheduled to address maternal mortality.

The Lancet study found that maternal mortality rates have been significantly inflated by UN agencies. The medical journal reported a 2008 worldwide maternal death rate of 342,900, rather than the more than 500,000 used by the World Bank, World Health Organisation and the UN Children’s Fund.

The Lancet found that progress had been made in preventing deaths in pregnancy and cited four main reasons: declining pregnancy rates in some countries, higher per capita income, higher education rates for women and increasing availability of basic medical care, including “skilled birth attendants”.

The report also found that HIV/Aids killed 60,000 pregnant women a year and that more antiretroviral drugs would have lowered this, contradicting the policy of both the UN and the US, which divert funding from HIV/Aids to family planning as a way to reduce maternal deaths.

They also found increases in maternal mortality in the US, Canada, Denmark and Norway, countries with the most liberal abortion laws in the world.

Because it is not good news if it doesn't let the Left depict their issues as a crisis that has to be addressed now.