92% of women and 82% of men are depressed after selective abortions

“Depression after a selective abortion may be as high as 92% among women and 82% among men.”

Blumberg BD, Golbus MS, Hanson KH. The Psychological Sequelae Of Abortion Performed for a Genetic Indication. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 1975; 122; 799 – 808, P806

In this quote, “selective abortion” means an abortion that is done because the baby is handicapped. These are wanted pregnancies where a fetal anomaly (such as down syndrome) is discovered and the parents choose to abort.

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Study shows 73.1% of Japanese women felt “anguish” after abortion

“According to one survey, 73.1% of Japanese women who have had abortions report “anguish” about what they have done. 59% felt that abortion is something “very bad” 16% felt it was considerably bad, 17% felt it was somewhat bad, and only 8% thought it could not be considered bad.”

David C Reardon Aborted Women: Silent No More (Westchester, Illinois: Crossway books, 1987) 122

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The World Health Organization on abortion and psychiatric disease

Official statement from the World Health Organization on abortion:

“[Abortion] is a bad way of treating psychiatric disease… Investigation shows that there is less psychological trauma associated with normal birth, and there is with a legal abortion.”

Quoted in Ann Saltenberger Every Woman Has a Right to Know the Dangers of Legal Abortion (Glassboro, New Jersey: Air Plus Enterprises, 1982) 134

Read  about abortion’s emotional and psychological effects here

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Abortion grief at 50-60

Ann Saltenberger presented the following quote, attributed to a textbook on psychology in her book  Every Woman Has a Right to Know the Dangers of Legal Abortion (Glassboro, New Jersey: Air Plus Enterprises, 1982)136

“The significance of abortions may not be revealed until later periods of emotional depression. During depressions occurring in the 5th or 6th decade of the patient’s life, the psychiatrist frequently hears expressions of remorse and guilt concerning abortions that occurred twenty or more years earlier.”

 

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Two studies show that “therapeutic” abortion is traumatic

Sometimes women abort because there is something wrong with their unborn baby such as down syndrome. In fact, 80% to 90% of down syndrome pregnancies are aborted. Sometimes the baby has a more serious defect and is not expected to survive long after birth. Women may decide to have an abortion, thinking that the violent procedure will ease the suffering of the infant – when in fact, the opposite is often true. These abortions usually take place in the second or third trimester and involve poisonous injections, skull crushing, or dismemberment. Not surprisingly, women find these abortions to be very emotionally devastating. Here are two studies that found that women suffer after abortions for fetal anomaly.

White – Van Mourik MCA, ConnorJM, Ferguson–Smith MA The Psychological Sequelae Of a Second Trimester Termination of Pregnancy for Fetal Abnormality Over A Two-Year Period. Birth Defects: Original Articles Series 1992; 28:61 – 74, P 71

And

Zeanah CH, Dailey JB, Rosenblatt MJ, Saller DN Jr Do Women Grieve after Terminating Pregnancies Because of Fetal Abnormalities? A Controlled Investigation. Obstetrics & Gynecology 1993; 82; 272 – 275, P 275

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Link with alcoholism in the American Midwest

Among 917 women in the US Midwest, 26% of those who described themselves as moderate to heavy drinkers have had an abortion

Klassen AD, Wilsnack SC. Sexual Experience and Drinking among Women in a US National Survey. Archives of Sexual Behavior 1986 October; 15 (5): 363 – 92

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Abortion studies can be misleading

Pro-life researchers Elizabeth Ring-Cassidy and Ian Gentles revealed that the conclusions of many abortion studies are misleading:

“There are often glaring inconsistencies between the actual research results and the summaries and conclusions of articles… Attempts to minimize negative results and to explain away findings that are not consistent with accepted opinion exist throughout the literature on abortion sequelae. A medical practitioner or family counselor is then left to wonder: Whose finding should be accepted?”

They cited, for example: Taylor VM, Kramer M.D., Vaughan TL, Peacock S. Placenta previa in relation to induced and spontaneous abortion: a population-based study. Obstetrics and Gynecology 1993 July; 82 (1) 88 – 91; P91

In this study, they found that women who have abortions are 28% more likely to have placenta previa. However, they discounted this finding as insignificant. Also, the excluded from consideration the women who had no live births after abortion. Had they included these women, the risks would’ve been increased by 50%.

“Taylor’s conclusion provides a useful illustration of a fact noted elsewhere ….that the conclusions of research studies on abortion after affects often minimize the significance of the data gathered.”

They give another example: Daling, JR, Chow WH, Weiss NS, Metch, BJ, Soderstrom, R. Ectopic Pregnancy in Relation to Previous Induced Abortion, Journal of the American Medical Association 1985 February; 253 (7): 1005 – 8

“women who had two or more induced abortions increased their risk of ectopic pregnancy 2.6 times. While admitting that this finding is “worrisome”, they nonetheless concluded that “it remains unresolved whether having a legal induced abortion in the United States imparts an excess risk of EP [ectopic pregnancy].” The abstract of the study states that the research shows that abortion “does not carry a large excess risk.” Here again, the conclusion is at odds with the data.

Elizabeth Ring-Cassidy and Ian Gentles. Women’s Health after Abortion: The Medical and Psychological Evidence Second Edition (Toronto, Canada: The deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research, 2003) 8, 43-45, 52

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Complications of abortions higher than doctor’s estimates

A study of 6408 first trimester abortions found that the rate of uterine perforation was seven times higher than practitioners estimated it to be.

Kaali SG, Szeigetvari IA, Bartfai GS. The Frequency and Management of Uterine Perforations During First Trimester Abortions. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 1989 August; 161 (2): 406 – 8

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Statistics on African-Americans and breast cancer

An African-American U.S. woman has about a 10% risk of contracting breast cancer during her lifetime. In December 1993 the Journal of the National Medical Association reported (pp. 931-939):

Black women of age 50 and above who had at least one induced abortion have an increased risk of breast cancer of 370% (95% CI=2.6,8.4). (I.E. they have a 47% lifetime risk of contracting breast cancer.) JNMA is a publication of African-American medical professionals concerned with African-American health problems and has published for over 100 years.

Breast Cancer Risk Factors In African-American Women: The Howard University Registry Experience, JNation Medical Association, A E Laing et al., 1993, 85:931-939

read more about the physical risks of abortion here.

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Women’s Health after Abortion: The Medical and Psychological Evidence

Here are some studies about abortion’s dangers from the book “Women’s Health after Abortion: The Medical and Psychological Evidence”

Elizabeth Ring-Cassidy and Ian Gentles. Women’s Health after Abortion: The Medical and Psychological Evidence Second Edition (Toronto, Canada: The deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research, 2003)

(43)

A study found that “most dramatic uterine perforations during first trimester abortions are unreported or even unsuspected.”

Kaali SG, Szigetvari, IA, and Bartfai GS. The Frequency and Management of Uterine Perforations During First Trimester Abortions. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 1989 August; 161 (2): 406 – 8 P407

A perforation is a cut on the uterine wall. These injuries can cause bleeding and infection.

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(18)

“The observed association between induced abortion and an increased risk of the later development of breast cancer is congruent with our understanding of the hormonal effects of pregnancy on a woman’s breast tissue. Prior to her first pregnancy, a woman’s breast is composed largely of connective tissue linking ducts which contain few milk producing cells. Upon conception, a surge of oestradiol reaches twentyfold in the first trimester, triggering an explosive growth of breast tissue, a period when breast cells are most likely to be affected by carcinogens. When a woman completes her first full pregnancy, further hormonal changes propel these newly produced breast cells through a state of differentiation, a natural maturing process which greatly reduces the risk of future breast cancer.

An abrupt, premature termination of the first pregnancy by abortion arrests this process before the cancer reducing evolution of hormone release later in pregnancy can occur, leaving a large population of dangerously stimulated breast tissue cells in place, greatly raising future cancer risk.”

Kelsey, JL, “A Review of the Epidemiology Of Human Breast Cancer” Epidemiologic Reviews, 1979, 1: 74 – 109

***

18 to 19

“Animal studies support this model. Russo and Russo exposed two groups of rats to a chemical carcinogen. One group, who mated and carried a first pregnancy to term, developed mammary tumors at a rate of 6%. The other group, who mated, became pregnant, then were aborted (via hysterectomy) developed mammary tumors at an incidence of 78%; virgin rats also developed tumors at a high rate, but not as high as those that were aborted.”

Russo J, Russo IH. Susceptibility of the Mammary Gland to Carcinogenesis. Pregnancy Interruption As a Risk Factor in Tumor Incidence. American Journal of Pathology 1980 August; 100 (2); 497 – 512

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44

“dilation and evacuation between 12 and 16 weeks… have the potential to cause significant morbidity and mortality.” Because of possible uterine complications, the researchers conclude that such procedures should only be used where intensive emergency treatment can be initiated immediately.”

Trott E., Ziegler W, Levey J. Major Complications Associated with Termination of a Second Trimester Pregnancy; a Case Report. Delaware Medical Journal 1995 May; 67 (5): 294 – 296

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53

“The greatest consequence of induced abortion for future pregnancy is a rise in the rate of premature births ranging from 30 to 700% Preterm babies weighing less than 1500 grams suffer an incidence of cerebral palsy over 38 times greater than full-term babies. Thus induced abortion tremendously increases a woman’s risk of later bearing a child with cerebral palsy.”

***

66

“The abortion procedure can trigger an episode of PID [pelvic inflammatory disorder] in any woman, but those postabortion women who already have chlamydia are at far higher risk of PID than women who do not carry the organism. Women can be asymptomatic and still harbor chlamydia trachomatis in the lower genital tract. If the abortion clinic does not test for this and prescribe the appropriate antibiotic regime, the woman may only discover the chlamydia while being treated for postabortion PID. By then it may be too late to avoid later fertility problems.”

***

“Delay in the onset of symptoms is a critical factor when considering PID caused by chlamydia following abortion. Blackwell and colleagues found from their patient records that women continued to develop symptoms at 11 weeks, 24 weeks, and 36 weeks post abortion. Osser and Persson found it to be variable: if the woman was positive for chlamydia before the abortion, the time of onset for salpingitis (infection of the fallopian tubes) was 14.1 days and for endometritis (infection of the uterus) 8.2 days.… Such complications would not be identified by abortion clinics as immediate sequelae or coded as being related to abortion at all.”

Blackwell AL, Thomas PD,Wareham K, Emery SJ. Health Gains from Screening for Infection of the Lower Genital Tract in Women Attending for Termination of Pregnancy. The Lancet 1993 July 24; 342 (8865): 206 – 10, P209

Osser S., Persson K. Post-Abortive Pelvic Infection Associated with Chlamydia Trachomatis and the Influence of Humoral Immunity. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 1984 (November 15; 150 (6): 699 – 703

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