Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: Few Issues Are More Crucial to the Fate of Poor Families Around the World Than Women's Access to Contraception

In response to Phyllis Zagano's National Catholic Reporter article noting that women's lives matter, and opening with the disclaimer that, no, Zagano is not writing about Donald Trump as we may have assumed, Betty Clermont replies,

No, I thought you were going to write about the pope. Annually: 47,000 women die from complications of unsafe abortion. 

"8.5 million women experience complications from unsafe abortion that require medical attention, and three million do not receive the care they need." "If every woman who wanted birth control had access to it, annually there would be 150,000 fewer maternal deaths. 640,000 fewer newborn deaths, 600,000 fewer children becoming motherless." "For the global poor, access to contraception can mean the difference between starvation and nourishment, poverty and stability, illness and health, death and life. Few issues are more crucial to the fate of poor families around the world."

Since Betty places her statements in quotation marks, I think she may be citing published sources. One of thse appears to be this Fact Sheet from the Guttmacher Institute. Whatever the source of Betty's analysis here, it's very valuable and right on the mark, it seems to me, and I'm happy to see Betty making these points.

Though many abortion-fixated centrist Catholic media gurus and academics refuse to admit this or even to discuss it, widespread access to contraception prevents abortions. It serves a pro-life ethic.