By Hilary
White
LONDON,
March 17, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - While doctors and researchers continue to
track the long term psychological harms of abortion, political advocates of
legal abortion have continued to insist that the only psychological reaction to
abortion in women is "relief". Now one of the most prestigious
psychiatric bodies in the world has issued a warning that women are not being
sufficiently warned of abortion's potentially devastating psychological
effects.
The UK's
Royal College of Psychiatrists recommends, not the abolition of abortion or
even taking any legal measures to reduce it, but updating the information
pamphlets given to women considering abortion to include details of the risks
of depression. "Consent cannot be informed without the provision of
adequate and appropriate information," the report says.
The college
rejected any suggestion that the findings mean abortion should be considered
generally harmful to women. "The specific issue of whether or not induced
abortion has harmful effects on women's mental health remains to be fully
resolved. The current research evidence base is inconclusive - some studies
indicate no evidence of harm, whilst other studies specify a range of mental
disorders following abortion."
It
recommended instead that "women with pre-existing psychiatric disorders
who continue with their pregnancy, as well as those with psychiatric disorders
who undergo abortion, will need appropriate support and care".
Doctors
should assess a woman asking for abortions for pre-existing mental disorders
and risk factors. If these are identified, the doctor should ensure that
"a clearly identified care pathway" should be provided for her.
Ironically,
the statistics show that more than 90 percent of the 200,000 abortions carried
out in Britain every year are allowed on the grounds of the woman's
"mental health". It has been one of the abortion lobby's most common
claims that "unwanted" pregnancy can cause enormous psychological
strain for women, up to and including being a precursor to suicide. In the
famous "X case" in Ireland, the threat of suicide by a teenage girl
was used as a political wedge against that country's laws protecting unborn
life.
The Royal
College findings are not the first to show a connection between abortion and
severe mental illness. They support a multitude of studies that show severe
long term effects of abortion. To take only one example, in 2002, the American
Journal of Orthopsychiatry published a study based on information on 173,000
low-income California women. That study showed women were 63 percent more
likely to receive mental care within 90 days of an abortion, compared to
delivery. It found that higher rates of mental health treatment persisted over
the entire four years of data examined. Complaints included neurotic
depression, bipolar disorder, adjustment reactions, and schizophrenic
disorders.
In the same
year, the director of the Elliot Institute in Springfield, Illinois, Dr. David
Reardon, published research in the British Medical Journal showing that women
who abort are at higher risk of severe clinical depression than women who
carried unintended pregnancies to term.
The report
from the Royal College comes at a time when Britain has heard from Emma Beck, a
30 year-old artist, who said "Living is hell for me" after aborting
her twins. Beck hanged herself February 1st.
"I
should never have had an abortion. I see now I would have been a good mum. I
want to be with my babies; they need me, no one else does."
Emma Beck's
suicide note continued, "I told everyone I didn't want to do it, even at
the hospital. I was frightened, now it is too late. I died when my babies died.
I want to be with my babies: they need me, no-one else does."
Records
show that the doctor who attended Beck's case told an inquest that it was known
she was being pressured into an abortion by her boyfriend and that she had
"no support". Beck was given the telephone number of a pregnancy
counselling service, but it is not the policy of the British medical community
to refer women to pro-life counselling services.