The Daily Telegraph reports that New Zealand researchers have found that women who had an abortion suffered mental illness and depression in “proportion to the degree of distress” associated with their abortion. That doesn’t sound significant but as David Fergusson, of the department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Otago, says:
“Collectively, 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.”
In other words, one reason given for having an abortion — protection of a woman’s mental health — is highly questionable. There are clinical repercussions to such research that will no doubt be ignored because within large swatches of the medical establishment, abortion can never be questioned.
