Doctors Warning

by Tom Strode                                                                                           Vol. XIX, No. 1, January 2007

Some leading British doctors have called for women seeking abortions to be informed of the procedure’s long-term psychological risks.

The Times of London published a letter Oct. 27 from 15 psychiatrists and obstetricians-gynecologists encouraging the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Royal College of Psychiatrists to change their guidelines and “future abortion notifications to clearly distinguish between physical and mental health grounds for abortion.”

The doctors cited a New Zealand study published in January in The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry that showed “even women without past mental health problems are at risk of psychological ill effects after abortion. Women who had had abortions had twice the level of mental health problems and three times the risk of major depressive illness as those who had given birth or never been pregnant.”

As a result of that research, the American Psychological Association withdrew its official statement rejecting a link between abortion and psychological damage, the doctors said. [BP]