Posted on 11/09/2006 10:15:03 PM PST by Coleus
In Canada, having an abortion is supposed to be all about "choice." A woman's health after she exercises that choice is a subject no one wants to talk about. But things are different in other countries. On Oct. 27, 15 prominent signatories wrote a letter to the editor of the Times of London. The group included a past president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Others were some of the top general practitioners, psychiatrists and obstetricians and gynecologists in the country. They asked the official bodies regulating obstetricians and psychiatrists to revise their guidance on abortion as it pertains to mental health in young women.
Why? The group referenced a longitudinal study done in New Zealand and published in the January edition of the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry indicating that young women who have had abortions exhibit twice the level of mental health problems, and three times the risk of depression, as those who had given birth or never been pregnant. According to the letter in the Times, "Since women having abortions can no longer be said to have a low risk of suffering from psychiatric conditions such as depression, doctors have a duty to advise about long-term adverse psychological consequences of abortion."
The author of the cited research, New Zealand psychologist David Fergusson, intended to correct design flaws in previous studies in the field. He tracked women from birth to age 25, and found that those who had abortions exhibited elevated tendencies toward suicidal thoughts, depression, drug dependence and other mental health problems even after controlling for prior mental health problems and other causative factors. Accepted wisdom in Canada is that abortion is benign. So too in the U.K., where the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' Web site tells women of limited to no harm from having an abortion. They write that "for most women, an abortion is safer than carrying a pregnancy and having a baby."
In the United States, however, the American Psychological Association had to withdraw their statement on the subject, which cited no evidence of psychological harm to women as a result of abortion, after the New Zealand study was published. In Canada, there's no statement to withdraw: Since the issue is never even broached, the Canadian Psychological Association has never felt compelled to pronounce on the issue. As a result, we are in an unusual situation vis-a-vis other developed nations: We provide women considering abortion with little health-related research. (On the other hand, perhaps such an anomaly is to be expected: Canada is unique among liberal democracies in that we have no law regulating abortion either.) The result is that Canadians have no public forum in which to raise legitimate abortion-related concerns, despite the fact abortion affects a large number of women. Canada reports approximately 105,000 abortions annually. Just less than half of all abortions are performed on the age group the New Zealand researcher tracked, or about 50,000 abortions annually. How many of these women have health problems thanks to their abortions? We have no idea.
Canada discusses abortion only in terms of access, funding or choice, as if no women were actually involved. When the New Zealand study came out, no media report were filed, even as the media did report on the class action lawsuit launched by the Association for Access to Abortion over private payment required by the Quebec government for abortion. There should be an open forum for discussion of women's health after abortion. En route to the abortion clinic, or while sitting for counseling in the nearest agency's office, is not the right moment for a young, already distressed woman to learn that depressive episodes and suicide ideation may be the result of her decision to kill her fetus. Bad health news on abortion must not be hidden as if it were always a pro-life ploy to thwart women's freedom. Doctors in the U.K. took note of the New Zealand study and are asking for changes. Will Canadian doctors do the same?
Choice. What you have before you decide whether or not to have sex.
And then there's the great big elephant in the room that liberals always pretend not to see when they talk about abortion. It's the dead child. Or, in their terminology, dead fetus. Whatever term you use, it's unquestionable that a human life at some stage has been destroyed. But the abortionists don't care, do they?
Thanks so much for posting.
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There now have been numerous studies indicating that abortion can lead to depression and other mental health problems.
But Planned Parenthood and the others will just ignore the studies and keep selling abortion like it's a day at the beach. The abortionists don't care about women; they only care about their hefty paycheck (about $400 per abortion).
Amen sage. What i've attempted to drill into people's heads... the connection of immigration due to the 44 million abortions, is never recognized. If anyone goes to World mapping and graph the depopulating areas and then graph by migration. In Europe that are not meeting replacement through abortion, you see a huge amount of elderly... since there aren't enough children born to grow and contribute to their countries... hence migration.
This is also part of our problem with Social Security and taxes paid (whether for 'private' choices like someone else's abortion, or social services, law enforcement, jails hospitals, education and housing costs of illegal immigration... as well as sex ed and alternate lifestyles taught in the schools... I don't have to tell you, they who have the kids, rule the world. Think about who exactly are having the kids).
Not xenophobic, just a fact.
The feminists have yet to tackle what women go through after an abortion, yet they'll pull the mental health issue quick for a third trimester one. They're so concerned for women's health... common sense would tell you an abortion can't contribute to any form of health.
thanks, bfl
I believe the term used this week before the Supreme Court was "fetal demise."
Yeah, that makes it all better, because no one knows what you're talking about...../s
Yes - that's the strange thing. Sometimes I wonder if people who talk like that are trying to fool themselves or the rest of us.
By the way, I like your tagline...who's Libanus?
BTTT
I take it you are referring to the schools having the kids. We can't let their parents off the hook. They have mouths and they can assemble themselves and demand the school board put an immediate end to these practices. Parents have all the rights on their side...they pay the bills for everyone.
And the Democrats accuse the Republicans of being the ones who ignore objective science for political reasons!
The Pro-Choicers demand that nobody say anything negative about their favorite procedure, and the American Psychological Association is only too happy to bury it's head in the sand and agree that Abortion is completely benign. Well, objective reality is catching up with them.
There is a heck of a lot more real evidence linking Abortion to Depression than there is linking Carbon Dioxide to Global Warming.
People refuse to recognize that there are pro-abortion -- not pro choice-- forces at work.
A Roman patrician in the earliest days of the Church. He and his wife have a funeral crypt somewhere is Vatican City.
And that's all I know :)
Read it again. They controlled for prior mental health problems.
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