Abortion link to mental illness

Researchers who examined the medical history of more than 500 women have concluded abortion "leads to significant distress in some".

Women reporting adverse reactions were up to 80 per cent more likely than women not exposed to abortion to have mental health problems, the Otago University study found.

That finding has raised questions about justifying abortions on the basis of mental health.

The study, reported in the British Journal of Psychiatry, found the risk of mental illness was "proportional to the degree of distress" associated with the abortion.

Professor David Fergusson, of the department of Psychological Medicine, and his team studied data from women who had been interviewed six times between the ages of 15 and 30, each time being asked whether they had been pregnant and, if so, what the outcome of that pregnancy had been.

More than 85 per cent of women reported a least one negative emotional reaction, including sorrow, sadness, guilt, regret, grief and disappointment.

A similar number reported at least one positive reaction, including relief, happiness and satisfaction.

The study found that women who reported at least one negative reaction had rates of mental health problems "approximately 1.4 to 1.8 times higher than women not exposed to abortion".

The report concluded: "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.

"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."

It said the findings did not support the extremes of either the pro-abortion, or pro-life camps. They were "not consistent with strong pro-life positions that depict unwanted pregnancy terminated by abortion as having devastating consequences for women's mental health".

Nor did they "support strong pro-choice positions that claim unwanted pregnancy terminated by abortion is without mental health risks".

Earlier findings from the same study, when the women were aged up to 25, found more than 40 per cent of those who had an abortion suffered depression afterwards, nearly double the rate of those who had never been pregnant.

Professor Fergusson carried out the study with John Horwood and Dr Joseph Boden at Otago's Christchurch Health and Development Study to document emotional reactions to abortion, and to examine the links between reactions to abortion and mental health outcomes.

- NZPA