Editor’s Note: Liz Suarez, a PRI supporter from Florida, has written a brilliant op-ed telling the downside of abortion for women’s health. We reprint it here not only because it is informative, but because such pieces published in local papers have real impact. Go and do likewise.
On January 22 I participated in my first anti-abortion march along Creech and Goodlette-Frank roads in Naples on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade with my children Johnny, I, and Victoria, 3.
Pink T-shirted Planned Parenthood people joined my family with signs that read: “Protect Women’s Health.”
I wished I had engaged one or two in honest discussion, but I was quiet.
And so now, I remain honestly befuddled. What could they possibly mean?
In all of my research, I’ve yet to find a shred of scientific evidence showing women’s health is enhanced by abortion. Yet, since 2000 there have been at least IT studies published in leading medical journals that indicate a significant correlation between abortion and mental and physical problems.
In October 2006, some 15 of Great Britain’s leading obstetricians and gynecologists penned an open letter to the London Times acknowledging the psychological consequences of abortion. Done dragging its heels, the American Psychological Association is convening a task force to study abortion and mental health, following criticism from even the pro-choice researchers.
Consider: If you have aborted:
- You run a 65 percent higher risk of clinical depression.1
- You’re 3 1/2 times more likely to die from suicide, accidents or homicides in the following year.2
- You’re likely to have trouble bonding with subsequent children and experience impaired mothering skills.3
- You’re five times more likely to report subsequent drug or alcohol abuse than if you deliver.4
- You’re 160 percent more likely to be hospitalized for psychiatric treatment than if you had delivered.5
While it’s commonly accepted among medical professionals that childbirth protects against cancer of the reproductive system, abortion is turning out to be one of the best predictors of breast cancer, according to Patrick Carroll, director of research at Britain’s Pension and Population Institute. Using a mathematical formula, the statistician was able to almost perfectly predict rates of breast cancer in England, Wales, Ireland and other countries based on their varying incidences of abortion! The study came out in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons last October.6
This is no news to scientists like pro-choice researcher Janet Daling. She tried to publicize the abortion/breast cancer link back in 1994, only to see it wiped off the National Cancer Institute’s Web site. She was quoted in the Los Angeles Daily News as saying, “I have three sisters with breast cancer, and I resent people messing around with scientific data to further their own agenda, be they pro-choice or pro-life. I would have loved to have found no association between breast cancer and abortion, but our research is rock solid, and our data is accurate. It’s not a matter of believing. It’s a matter of what is.”
Post-abortive teens with a family history of breast cancer are the biggest losers, acknowledges Daling and others. They can just plain expect to get it in their later years.
If you abort you can also expect:
- A death rate that is three times higher in future pregnancies than that associated with childbirth.7
- A 60 percent higher risk of miscarriage during a subsequent pregnancy.8
- And, of course, you can expect that not-for-profit Planned Parenthood, which sucked in close to $900 million in revenues in 2006 (a third was in taxpayer-funded subsidies) and made upwards of $50 million in profits, will not level with you about any of the above.
Elizabeth Ann Suarez has lived in Naples for six years. She has worked as editor of a small Ohio community newspaper and been a teacher of dance and English. She is now a full-time mother and substitute teacher. Abortion, she believes, is “the premier civil rights issue of our time.”
This editorial was originally published in the Naples Daily News and can be found at: http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2008/feb/09/guest-commentary-contrary-evidence-shows-abortion-/
Endnotes
1 JR Cougle, DC Reardon &PK Coleman, “Depression Associated With Abortion and Childbirth: A Long-Term Analysis of the NLSY Cohort,” Medical Science Monitor 9(4): CR105-112, 2003.
2 M. Gissler et al., “Injury deaths, suicides and homicides associated with pregnancy, Finland 1987–2000,” European Journal of Public Health 15(5):459–63, 2005.
3 PK Coleman, DC Reardon, & JR Cougle, “The Quality of the Caregiving Environment and Child Developmental Outcomes Associated with Maternal History of Abortion Using the NLSY Data,” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 43(6): 743–57, 2002.
4 DC Reardon, PG Ney, “Abortion and Subsequent Substance Abuse,” American Journal of Drugs and Alcohol Abuse 26(1):61–75, 2000.
5 Dc Reardon et. Al., “Psychiatric Admissions of Low-Income Women Following Abortions and Childbirth,” Canadian Medical Association Journal 168(10): May 13, 2003.
6 Patrick S. Carroll, M.A., “The Breast Cancer Epidemic: Modeling and Forecasts Based on Abortion and Other Risk Factors,” Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 12 Number 3 Fall 2007, http://www.jpands.org/vol12no3/carroll.pdf.
7 M. Gissler et al., “Methods for identifying pregnancy associated deaths: population based data form Finland 1987–2000,” Paediatric Perinatal Epidemiology 18(6): 44855, Nov. 2004.
8 N. Maconochie, P. Doyle, S. Prior, R. Simmons, “Risk factors for first trimester miscarriage-results form a UK-population-based case control study,” BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Dec 2006. Abstract available at www.blackwell-synergy.com
