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Abortion may impact mental health: study
AAP November 4, 2009
New Zealand researchers who examined the medical history of
more than 500 women have concluded abortion "leads to
significant distress in some".
Women reporting adverse reactions were up to 80 per cent
more likely than women not exposed to abortion to have
mental health problems, the Otago University study found.
That finding has raised questions about justifying abortions
on the basis of mental health.
The study, reported in the British Journal of Psychiatry,
found the risk of mental illness was "proportional to the
degree of distress" associated with the abortion.
Professor David Fergusson, of the department of
Psychological Medicine, and his team studied data from women
who had been interviewed six times between the ages of 15
and 30, each time being asked whether they had been pregnant
and, if so, what the outcome of that pregnancy had been.
More than 85 per cent of women reported a least one negative
emotional reaction, including sorrow, sadness, guilt,
regret, grief and disappointment.
A similar number reported at least one positive reaction,
including relief, happiness and satisfaction.
The study found that women who reported at least one
negative reaction had rates of mental health problems
"approximately 1.4 to 1.8 times higher than women not
exposed to abortion".
The report concluded: "This evidence raises important
questions about the practice of justifying termination of
pregnancy on the grounds that this procedure will reduce
risks of mental health problems in women having unwanted
pregnancy.
"Currently there is no evidence to support the assumptions
underlying this practice, and the findings of the present
study suggest that abortion may, in fact, increase mental
health risks among those women who find seeking and
obtaining an abortion a distressing experience."
It said the findings did not support the extremes of either
the pro-abortion, or pro-life camps.
They were "not consistent with strong pro life positions
that depict unwanted pregnancy terminated by abortion as
having devastating consequences for women's mental health".
Nor did they "support strong pro-choice positions that claim
unwanted pregnancy terminated by abortion is without mental
health risks".
Earlier findings from the same study, when the women were
aged up to 25, found more than 40 per cent of those who had
an abortion suffered depression afterwards, nearly double
the rate of those who had never been pregnant.
Prof Fergusson, carried out the study with John Horwood, and
Dr Joseph Boden, at Otago's Christchurch Health and
Development Study to document emotional reactions to
abortion, and to examine the links between reactions to
abortion and mental health outcomes.
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/6427343/abortion-may-impact-mental-health-study/
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But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light:
for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. The light shineth in darkness;
and the darkness comprehended it not. The light of the body is the eye:
if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.
If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead,
and Christ shall give thee light. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. |
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