1

I think folks in the pro-life camp are often disingenuous about claims like the one made here. If you think that abortion is always or almost always a serious moral evil, but many others disagree, it's easy to seize upon real, unproven, or imaginary practical problems arising out of abortions, either as a deterrent or a rationale for government restricting the practice.

If it turned out that some women who had abortions were MORE mentally healthy than those who didn't, you'd still be opposed on moral grounds, a position certainly deserving of respect, but in your case, as I understand it, justified by scripture, not by epidemiology.

When Hindus argue that eating red meat is unhealthy, or Jews rationalize the prohibition on pork by pointing to trichinosis, they are rationalizing. The prohibition arises in the tradition, based upon faith. The health reasons are a rationalizing afterthought.

It is true, however, that medicine seems to spend a lot more time investigating the risks of Vioxx or cell-phone radiation than the true facts about abortions and their aftermath. As of now, as far as I know, we don't have conclusive data either way.

2

Grumpy If it turned out that some women who had abortions were MORE mentally healthy than those who didn't, you'd still be opposed on moral grounds, a position certainly deserving of respect, but in your case, as I understand it, justified by scripture, not by epidemiology.

Quite right. That’s why I pointed out that this issue must be separated from the morality of abortion.

While I appreciate the way you made your point, I expect that this will become the dominant theme presented in this thread. Rather than expressing horror that woman are being denied the right to make informed decisions about their health, the critics of this post will claim that pro-lifers are being “disingenuous” and that we have ulterior motives since we can’t possibly really care about women (at least after they are born).

(Note: While it is pointing out the obvious, I predict that Mumon will be the first to make such an assertion. He simply wouldn’t know what to think if he didn’t have me around. There is, in fact, a logical relationship between what I write and his opinion. It can even even be expressed in the simple form: Mumon’s opinion = ~ Joe’s opinion)

The prohibition arises in the tradition, based upon faith. The health reasons are a rationalizing afterthought.

My opposition to abortion rests on my belief, admittedly rooted in my faith, that all human beings in every stage of development have an intrinsic dignity. I consider this belief to have enough epistemic warrant that I can consider it to be a “fact”, knowledge that corresponds to reality. In other words, I believe that it is objectively the case that humans have intrinsic dignity and that we recognize this (at least subconsciously).

For the fetal human, the recognition of their dignity means that they have a right not to be killed. But for the woman who would kill her child, it means that we can expect her to have some psychic damage caused by the destruction of another human life. Most women aren’t psychopaths so it is not surprising that the taking of a life would cause some form of emotional distress. This isn’t a rationalizing afterthought, in my opinion, but a simple recognition of the reality of human nature: killing is unnatural, therefore killing has harmful personal consequences.

As of now, as far as I know, we don't have conclusive data either way.

I’m not sure if we can ever have “conclusive” data on matters dealing with the causation of mental illness. But even in the absence of certainty, I think we owe it to women to present the research and allow them to judge its merits for themselves.

The APA trumpeted the claims that there was no link between abortions and mental illness based on far less conclusive evidence. Now that the evidence proves them wrong, is it ethical for them to ignore it?

3

Interesting how one specific type of trauma affects women quite differently "across a series of disorders and a series of ages."

Correlation doesn't prove causation.

Abortion is a traumatic life event; that is, it involves loss, it involves grief, it involves difficulties. And the trauma may, in fact, predispose people to having mental illness.

This may well be the case. Trauma can do weird things to your head. Equally likely, though, I think, is that women suffering from mental illness, even in its early stages, don't have their act together to deal with sex and family stuff, so they wind up getting knocked up and aborting.

I agree with the assertion that we shouldn't let politics overwhelm science with regard to abortion or any other topic. If we're going to evaluate the suggestion posed by Dr. Fergusson and his team, though, there needs to be a significant horizontal (I think I understand "longitudinal" correctly, but let me know if I'm confused) study on the psychological states of women who get abortions before they get abortions. In order for us to claim that the science shows that abortions are x times more likely to cause mental illnesses we need to show that women with mental illnesses are

4

[sorry, I typed in a "less than" symbol and the program thought I was starting a tag. Should've known. My post continues:]

...less than x times more likely to get abortions in the first place than healthy women.

5

I wonder if anyone has considered that the unwanted pregnancy itself is also a very traumatic event and i suspect that there would be a very real corrolation between the mental problems of women who abort their unwanted children and those who go through the pregnancy and give them up for adoption. I d even take so far as to include women who went through their unwanted pregnancy and decide (or were forced) to raise their now unwanted children as a cause of serious mental issues.

6

A fool does not delight in understanding, But only in revealing his own mind.
(Prov 18:2) can we talk about htis issue? Joe aren't you attemtping to get some clarity here?
Ludwig how about a studing compairing women who gave their child up for adoption with those who choose abortion? Won't that be interesting? Bhey forget the what if. Have you read the lable of your pill bottle they list every wrong thing that happened in a study, even if it had nothing to do with the pill (maybe?) why not here? only one reason. It might make abortion harder to keep legal, it might make it less "acceptable"

7

We've been down this road before too many times. Hey pro-lifers, want me to take this argument seriously? Then do the following:

1. Find a woman who has had an abortion (shouldn't be so hard).

2. Find a woman who later on suffered any sort of mental problems, depression, suicidal thoughts etc.

3. As the woman if she was informed by the doctor that this was a risk of abortion. If not ask her if she would like to sue the doctor for malpractice and possibly collect thousands of dollars as a result.

Put your money where your mouth is. No special laws are needed to require doctors to give necessary information to patients no matter what procedures are being undertaken. In some cases, such as breast implants, doctors are successfully sued even though the actual evidence does not back up claims of side effects.

8

But what is causing the mental problems?
It's not the physical act of the abortion. It's the women realizing that they have murdered their own child. They look back at their situation and realize that things weren't as hopeless as they seemed and that they made a very wrong and very bad decision. Knowing that you willingly killed your own child for selfish reasons would likely cause the most mentally fit of us to suffer from some amount of depression unless you had no conscience.

This whole debate hinges on pro-choice advocates denying that there is a life involved besides the mother.

9

Rick,i must confess an incertainty as to what it is you are saying exactly there,your command of the english language being what it is...perhaps you could try that again, taking your time to fully order your thoughts before writing them down?

10

But what is causing the mental problems?
It's not the physical act of the abortion. It's the women realizing that they have murdered their own child. They look back at their situation and realize that things weren't as hopeless as they seemed and that they made a very wrong and very bad decision.

Even more relevant is what causes women to want to have abortions. The image of the 'casual sex girl' who uses abortions as mindlessly as condoms is almost certainly rare. For most abortion is a choice considered in a bad situation. As a rule people in 'bad situtations' probably end up having higher rates of mental illnesses like depression than people who do not end up in 'bad situations'.

In order to really study the impact abortion has one would have to look at pregnant women in 'bad situtation' who did not have abortions and see if they experience higher rates of depression 5, 10, 15 years later. But there's the problem, there's no easy way to quantify 'bad situations' therefore there's no easy way to get a control sample. Scientifically it's like tryint to seperate the milk from the coffee after the two have been mixed together.

11

I think it should be pointed out that the reticence shown abortion rights supporters and some members of the medical profession in pushing for such information is indicative of a "bunker mentality" for which we can hold responsible the numerous, organized, and vocal opponents of abortion rights. However, that doesn't justify silence in the face of overwhelming evidence that abortion leads to a greater incidence of mental health problems. If follow-up studies confirm the results of Fergusson's study, then clearly the ethical and responsible action would be to provide the information to abortion clients.

12

Boonton,
I am very close to someone who fits your request, except for the suing for malpractice part. She's familiar with dozens of additional women who've been through the same stuff, too. I don't need to see the results of this study to know that abortion has some serious unadvertised side effects, since I've seen them in action. With that said, my first response to the description of the study was also to wonder how in the world you could come up with an adequate control group for something like this.

13

I just looked at the abstract of the article. If the researcher is competent, then he has controlled for "the trauma of being pregnant." He states that the association persists after looking at possible confounding factors. It is unlikely that we can come up with any "confounding factors" here that he did not think of. Further, we should recall that he is prochoice and nonreligious.

A young woman, pregnant out of wedlock, is in a difficult position. She faces bad choices: give up the baby for adoption (and look longingly at every child of about the right age for the rest of her life;) have the baby and be economically marginalized; or have an abortion, kill the baby. The utilitarians have a deceptively easy answer: kill the baby, maximize the happiness in the world. (Of course, by the utilitarian calculus, why does the baby's future potential happiness not count? but I digress.)

Despite decades of propaganda, which I used to believe, women still feel guilt about abortions. I wonder if the Natural Law crowd is right, that there are things written on our hearts that we cannot avoid knowing. (note that I do NOT hypothesize anythign religious here. Natural law could easily be an evolutionary construct and my argument does not change.) And the taking of innocent human life is surely one of those things. If that hypothesis is true, guilt is inevitable, and its consequences will include depression and suicide.

Abortion is a surgical procedure with a nonzero (small, but nonzero) death rate and possible long term psychiatric effects. And yet it stands unique among medical procedures. You have to have parental permission to remove a hangnail from a child under 18, and give informed consent to do a simple needle biopsy with a near-zero complication rate. If abortion is just a medical procedure, why do I not have to get parental permission just like I do to do a physical exam on a child? Why was RU486 rushed through the FDA on the fast track reserved for drugs that had special life-saving potential? The answer is obvious: abortion is politically special, has nothing to do with medicine. (and that, by the way, is the answer to the malpractice case proposed above. Abortion is special.)

Jim MD

14

Ludwig

Yeah you are right my typing skills are not too great. I needed to edit that more carefully. thanks

p.s. what I was suggesting was that we have a sue happy culture here, products have silly warnings on them like don't use the hair dryer in the shower... all for risk of being sued. why in this world do abortion dr's risk not telling all the possible problems with this? They don't want to scare away customers and they don't want to damage their legal status.

Boonton suggests this would be great free money for those injured by this process. (Just sue). I can tell you I have worked with many women suffering with PTSD from this process, there is nothing free or cheap about their real pain. Most of the people I have seen are riddled with shame and guilt and the last thing they want is a public hearing.

15

Boonton,
I believe you are making the false assumption that most abortions are done by women who are are dire straits, when in fact, by planned parenthood's own stats, most abortions are sought by women for reasons of inconvenience rather than necessity. Not that those reasons are sufficient for having an abortion but that most people have this false idea that the typical woman who gets an abortion is poor and single and cannot take care of a baby or some other similar reason. That's just not the case. Most are more than able to take care of the baby or at least put the child up for adoption. They would rather not go through the "hassle" of being pregnant. It's "inconvenient" for them.

We need to show the same regard for life to those who are the smallest and weakest in our society as we do for the rest of us.

16

I am very close to someone who fits your request, except for the suing for malpractice part. She's familiar with dozens of additional women who've been through the same stuff, too. I don't need to see the results of this study to know that abortion has some serious unadvertised side effects, since I've seen them in action

Honestly, though, what is causing the side effects. What is being implied here by the 'informed consent' idea is that abortion itself as a procedure somehow induces mental problems. But Joe later on admits the problem is that the woman feels guilty about killing an unborn baby.

Here's an analogy. People who shoot and kill others with a gun (legal or not) probably have higher rates of mental problems years down the line. In fact I believe some police forces mandate that officers involved in any fatal gunfire have at least one session with a therapist. Does this mean that guns cause mental illness or is it the minds response to the act that happened to be committed by a gun?

I don't meen to sound unsympathetic to the person you are close too but I suspect this is why she would not be willing to entertain the idea of a malpractice suit. Deep down she probably knows her mental illness was not caused by some physical change induced by the abortion but rather her response to the abortion. Just like the police officer feeling guilt over shooting someone knows it isn't caused by sniffing the gunpowder residue from his gun.

Now in pregnancy a woman's harmones change and I would imagine abruptly ending that pregnancy may cause some brain disruption as the harmones quickly shift gears. So I'm not going to say there's nothing to this theory. Perhaps a control might be to compare women who had first trimester miscarriages to women who had first trimester abortions. If they both show elevated rates of mental illness later on then perhaps there's a real link.

Jim
I just looked at the abstract of the article. If the researcher is competent, then he has controlled...

This is a mighty assumption to make. Controlling for factors such as these are very difficult even with the best researchers. The fact that abortion is so politicized hurts the objectivity immensely. Research is usually a process where preliminary results are refined by additional debate and more research until a clear consensus begins to emerge. With an emotional issue like abortion, though, non-scientists will jump on the bandwagon as soon as preliminary results are produced that show something pointing in one direction or another as is happening here.

Despite decades of propaganda, which I used to believe, women still feel guilt about abortions. I wonder if the Natural Law crowd is right, that there are things written on our hearts that we cannot avoid knowing.

Speaking of control groups what are you talking about here? For decades the pro-life crowd has been equally loud declaring that abortion is killing a baby. You would be hard pressed to find a woman, even a very young one, who could not explain the pro-life position on abortion in at least a somewhat adaquate way. To prove this assertion you'd have to find some society where abortion is widely accepted as not killing an unborn baby and the pro-life argument is so rare that it is basically unheard of. If women in that society show increased rates of guilt after an abortion then maybe you could begin to justify your assertion.

And yet it stands unique among medical procedures. You have to have parental permission to remove a hangnail from a child under 18, and give informed consent to do a simple needle biopsy with a near-zero complication rate. If abortion is just a medical procedure, why do I not have to get parental permission just like I do to do a physical exam on a child?

1. You do not have to get parental permission to remove a hangnail from a child under 18 or give them an aspirin (another favorite fallacy). Don't believe me? Give your 15 yr old $5 and send him into a drug store to buy some aspirin. This fallacy grew out of the fact that many schools insist on parental permission because they don't want to get sued if it turns out the kid has some type of unusual allogy or something. If a 15 yr old shows up in a doctors office with a hangnail he can easily have it snipped without a note from mom.

2. Patients do need to give informed consent for an abortion. If you can find a case where a doctor performed an abortion without informed consent from the woman then you'd have a huge malpractice suit on your hands as well as getting that docs license revoked and probably criminal charges against the doctor as well. (See my previous challenge)

rick:
Boonton suggests this would be great free money for those injured by this process. (Just sue). I can tell you I have worked with many women suffering with PTSD from this process, there is nothing free or cheap about their real pain. Most of the people I have seen are riddled with shame and guilt and the last thing they want is a public hearing.

I don't think you're quite getting me. If a doctor fails to properly warn you of the possible complications of an optional procedure he has committed malpractice. The legal remedy for that is thru the civil court system. No one said that money solves the problems of pain but what is being asserted here is that doctors who perform abortion without citing these studies are being negligent. Yet you seem to think it's some type of insult to suggest that the victims should seek some type of restitution in the court system.

This is bizaar. Every now and then we hear about cases where a patient goes into a hospital and they make some horrible mistake. They amputate the wrong limb, they use the wrong blood type for a transfusion etc. It is quite natural for us to expect those people to sue yet we understand that money may not fix their pain. But the lawsuit has a double function. It does try to compensate the victim but by punishing the doctor or hospital it creates the incentive for them not to repeat the mistake.

If your claims are valid and you can prove them in court then the woman you know with PTSD could prevent more cases by having doctors warn patients ahead of time. Wouldn't this be a desirable outcome?

I suspect the reason my idea is not taken seriously is that supporters of it know their assertions probably could not stand up to scrutiny in the legal arena so they would rather use the political one.

17

I believe you are making the false assumption that most abortions are done by women who are are dire straits, when in fact, by planned parenthood's own stats, most abortions are sought by women for reasons of inconvenience rather than necessity.

'Dire straits' are often in the eye of the beholder, for one thing. For another thing individuals often know more about their lives than you can tell by just looking at vital statistics. On paper a person's life may look very good. She may have a half-way decent job, be married, have no criminal record etc. In reality she may be on the verge of getting fired, be suffering an abusive husband, and is cultivating an addiction. Her abortion might, 'on paper' appear as one of simple convenience but in reality be a recognition by her mind that she is unable to handle a pregnancy.

Now this isn't to say that she really has no choice. There are always options for help & of course if you had perfect knowledge you could know what her problems really were and direct customized help directly at her. But sadly this isn't the ideal world but the real world. Help is often inconsistent and difficult to find. You seem to be under the false assumption, (one that many liberals fell victim to in the 60's and 70's), that if someone has a middle class income or better they are a-ok. Quite often they are not and in fact as society gets more prosperous it opens up more holes that people can trip over and fall into.

18

Boonton: One reason your idea is not taken seriously is that you're proposing a solution that conservatives generally disdain: increasing the litigiousness of society. Conservatives generally can't stand that anytime someone has anything go wrong their first response is to sue. (Of course, this is a correlation, not a causation.)

The fact that abortion is so politicized hurts the objectivity immensely.
Didn't you hear the part where the researcher is a pro-choice atheist??

Honestly, though, what is causing the side effects. What is being implied here by the 'informed consent' idea is that abortion itself as a procedure somehow induces mental problems. But Joe later on admits the problem is that the woman feels guilty about killing an unborn baby.
Which, from the pro-life perspective, is the same thing. Abortion as a procedure is killing an unborn baby. (By contrast, one may fire a gun without killing a person.)

19

Boonton: One reason your idea is not taken seriously is that you're proposing a solution that conservatives generally disdain: increasing the litigiousness of society. Conservatives generally can't stand that anytime someone has anything go wrong their first response is to sue. (Of course, this is a correlation, not a causation.)

Conservativies disdain frivious lawsuits but certainly not justified ones. Lawsuits are the foundation of private property and contracts. You'll note that contracts are a right protected in the original Constitution, even before the Bill of Rights. If a doctor should indeed be warning patients that surgical abortion may cause clinical depression then why shouldn't doctors who fail to do that be sued?

Your alternative is for Congress or State legislatures to decide what scientific studies are valid and then mandate that doctors 'inform' their patients based on that? Sounds like politicized science to me coupled with big gov't ("What do you mean I should have warned you that this drug from this big pharma company that donates heavily to Congress may cause strokes! The Legislature hasn't passed a law yet requiring me to warn you of that!"). The lawsuit works on the fundamental market mechanisms that conservatives love and cherish. Doctors have a contractual obligation to inform their patients of the best available knowledge about the medical procedures they propose to perform.

[BTW, comments like this are a nice companion to Joe's post about Colter and the intellectual death of conservatism]

The fact that abortion is so politicized hurts the objectivity immensely.
Didn't you hear the part where the researcher is a pro-choice atheist??

Yes I did. Did you hear the part where I stated I could see how there could be a scientific link between abortion and depression? My point remains valid, imflamed passions is bad for objective research.

Which, from the pro-life perspective, is the same thing. Abortion as a procedure is killing an unborn baby. (By contrast, one may fire a gun without killing a person.)

Not really. Let's imagine a woman is in a deep coma and has an abortion performed on her without her knowledge. When she wakes up she is never informed that she was pregnant or had an abortion. If guilt is causing so-called post-abortion syndrome then she should show no greater chances of clinical depression or mental illness than anyone else in her situation. If the procedure itself causes the increased chances of mental illness (say by disrupting brain chemistry) then her ignorance of having an abortion should be no protection against the increased risk of mental illness.

20

Boonton

You are correct in stating the law suit might have multiple purposes. I think rape trails may give some extra light into why this is so hard for post abortion victims. This is very shaming and getting "raped" again in the court is too much for most ( all or maybe the first anyway) that being said why not simply tell them ahead of time and not run the risk of there ever being that first brave women to sue for malpracice.

Bob Ryan thanks for your attempt at understanding. you once again show yourself to be fair minded.

21

Rick,

Your capacity for inventing excuses is stunning. Thousands of actual rape victims have sued their rapists yet you'll sit there and type to us that 'shame' is why not a single woman who had an abortion could be motivated to sue the doctor who performed it for malpractice despite the possible payout of thousands of dollars? You realize that nearly 43% of women will have at least one abortion by the time they reach 45? That's nearly 50%. When you walk down the street imagine every other woman you see, young or old, will have had one abortion. Much fewer will have experienced rape yet there are many women who have been very vocal about rape, going to court over it, writing books and appearing in the media to speak about it. Yet abortion is somehow so much more 'shaming' that not one of these millions of women can step forward?

Perhaps the more likely explanation is that such a lawsuit could not survive any objective scrutiny and you just don't want to admit it.

22

BTW, the 43% figure I gave is from http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0904509.html If it isn't reliable I can accept that but I think the larger point stands. There are plenty of more women who have had abortions than there are rape victims in the US.

23

Tyler Correlation doesn't prove causation.

Except when it comes to evolutionary theory, right? ; )

I agree that even a strong correlation does not imply a direct causation. In fact, we can even take a Humean approach and say that we can never prove cause and effect at all. But the question I have is whether we are willing to apply this standard across the board. Do we dismiss all studies in the social sciences that are based on this type of methodology?

Equally likely, though, I think, is that women suffering from mental illness, even in its early stages, don't have their act together to deal with sex and family stuff, so they wind up getting knocked up and aborting.

That is what Fergusson expected to find by doing the study. His team thought that they’d be able to confirm the view that any problems found after abortion would be traceable to mental health problems that had existed before the abortion. But even after controlling for these factors it still came out that women where more likely to suffer a mental illness after an abortion.

In order for us to claim that the science shows that abortions are x times more likely to cause mental illnesses we need to show that women with mental illnesses are less than x times more likely to get abortions in the first place than healthy women.

I’m not sure that is how a blind test would be conducted. Presumably, many women who have been identified and are being treated for mental illness would be less likely to be having sex in the first place (institutionalized mental patients, for example).

Ludwig I wonder if anyone has considered that the unwanted pregnancy itself is also a very traumatic event and i suspect that there would be a very real corrolation between the mental problems of women who abort their unwanted children and those who go through the pregnancy and give them up for adoption.

Yes, that was considered for in the study. And the answer is the correlation between women who had an abortion and who later developed mental illnesses was significantly higher than women who, for whatever reason, carried the pregnancy to term.

Boonton What is being implied here by the 'informed consent' idea is that abortion itself as a procedure somehow induces mental problems.

I don’t think anyone is implying that. No one is saying that there is something unique about the technique of abortion that causes physical trauma that leads to a mental illness (i.e., nicking the uterus makes a woman susceptible to a virus that causes depression).

Does this mean that guns cause mental illness or is it the minds response to the act that happened to be committed by a gun?

For your analogy to work, you would have to admit that abortion kills a human being. Is that what you believe?

'Dire straits' are often in the eye of the beholder, for one thing.

You seem to be arguing in a circular fashion. If the women had an abortion she must be in dire straits because being needing an abortion would, almost by definition, be a situation of being in “dire straits.”

24

You seem to be arguing in a circular fashion. If the women had an abortion she must be in dire straits because being needing an abortion would, almost by definition, be a situation of being in “dire straits.”

Not really, I'm arguing that it is difficult to measure 'dire straits' without knowing the person intimately. In other words just looking at some boxes on a survey tells you very little about a person's true inner life. As someone who aspires to ministry, this should not be a big surprise. Would you believe everyone is a population is well balanced, happy and fine just because a few stats such as income, divorce rates, unemployment etc. appear to be good? I thought my example of the woman who 'looked good on paper' illustrated that for you. Did you fail to read it before you thought of arguing circular reasoning?

I don’t think anyone is implying that. No one is saying that there is something unique about the technique of abortion that causes physical trauma that leads to a mental illness (i.e., nicking the uterus makes a woman susceptible to a virus that causes depression).

As I pointed out this very well might be a possibility. It is well established, for example, that pregnancy and birth itself can cause depression in a certain percent of the population. There's even a clinical term for it, post-partum depression. Isn't it interesting how you began this thread by pretending to be some type of champion of science yet you seem totally uninterested in any actual science here? Only results that happen to fit your ideological agenda.

Regarding the analogy of the cop who suffers mental illness after shooting a person:

For your analogy to work, you would have to admit that abortion kills a human being. Is that what you believe?

Actually the point of the anlogy is to explore what causes mental illness. In the example of the cop who kills someone in the line of duty it is the minds reaction to the event that causes the illness...not the physical gun itself. You'll note that while everyone agrees the cop has killed a human beign the analogy is premised on a justified killing. So theologically the cop should not feel guilty or depressed because he technically did not sin.

The 'natural law' theory sounds comforting but I'm skeptical. If people feel guilty because killing is unnatural (even in circumstances where it is justified) then shouldn't soldiers who see heavy combat and have to kill for long periods of time feel even greater guilt? Yet historically we know that many suffer shock only upon their initial killing of the enemy and as it becomes more routine its psychological impact becomes much less.

I agree that even a strong correlation does not imply a direct causation. In fact, we can even take a Humean approach and say that we can never prove cause and effect at all. But the question I have is whether we are willing to apply this standard across the board. Do we dismiss all studies in the social sciences that are based on this type of methodology?

How about we use the same standards of causation that we would use to judge the claim that a particular pharmaceutical or food additive causes mental illness?

I’m not sure that is how a blind test would be conducted. Presumably, many women who have been identified and are being treated for mental illness would be less likely to be having sex in the first place (institutionalized mental patients, for example).

I think your stuck in the 50's here Joe. Treatment for depression and other mental illnesses is quite mainstream today. Take a peek in your yellow pages and see how many psychologists there are in your area. Do you think they are all servicing the institutionalized population?

25

If the 15 year old's mother wants to get this Dr. visit on the insurance co she'll have to sign so they can call it minor surgery.
The study that was used to put the warning on cigarette packs was correlation and not causation with control group flaws, yet we have no trouble believing and acting on what it shows.

26

And most likely the 15 yr old who wants the abortion billed to her mother's insurance will probably need some type of approval. You've nicely demonstrated my point while missing it yourself.

Exactly what were the correlation and control group flaws with the study used to put the warning on cigarette packs? Were they equal to or greater than the flaws in this abortion study? Please be specific since you've made specific claims.

27

Boonton - You missed my point. I was not making a philosophical argument about the validity or importance of the right to sue, only stating a political reality that conservatives tend to bristle at the words "malpractice suit". Your idea isn't a terrible one, actually. But you do seem to assume that the courts are the best arbiter of science. I disagree. This is why more research should be done and the question should be investigated further. Quashing or ignoring well-founded research helps no one.

Your point about politicization has no bearing on whether this piece of research is valid or not. Are you arguing that no valid research can be done in politically charged areas?

Thanks for the snide aside about Coulter; you might at least spell her name correctly.

28

That may be political reality yet aren't pro-lifers committed more to, well pro-lifeism than to vague feelings of conservatives? Courts, generally, are better arbiters of settling the specific facts of specific cases. Legislatures are better for setting general policies and laws. This isn't anything radical to the well educated conservative. These principles go back to the Federalist papers and before.

Also I'm not arguing that this study isn't valid or even that the whole line of research if invalid. I've pointed out many times on this list that I see a very plausible path that abortion may cause mental illness.

I do question the ability of those who would use this study to justify special 'warning' laws but would never support such laws for activities that they have no moral issues with to be objective. Likewise I also question the ability of legislative representatives to seperate out their feelings on abortion (pro or con) and evalute this issue solely on the objective question of whether abortion causes increased risks of mental illness.

I think Joe basically agrees with me on that one. Notice how he implicitly asserts that pro-choicers are so blinded by their support for legalized abortion that they cannot honestly evaluate research that shows it may be harmful to women. Why would pro-lifers be any less biased? In fact pro-lifers have all the more reason to be more biased since they believe human life is at stake rather than just individual liberty.

Thanks for correcting my spelling of Coulter. I admit I was too lazy to look it up and knew someone would correct me rather quickly.

29

Joe, you got me. They did control, as much as possible, for pre-pregnancy mental health issues. However, your response to Ludwig's question about the possible traumatic effect of unwanted pregnancy doesn't seem to jibe with the actual study. Can you point toward where in the study they talked about unwanted pregnancies being carried to term? I must have missed that -- I didn't read the entire article.

Anyway, the following is from the article's discussion section:

(yay university servers that let me download more than just the abstract! I can email the full paper to you if you want, send me an email.)

It is possible, therefore, that the apparent associations between abortion and mental health found in this study may not reflect the traumatic effects of abortion per se but rather other factors which are associated with the process of seeking and obtaining an abortion. For example, it could be proposed that our results reflect the effects of unwanted pregnancy on mental health rather than the effects of abortion per se on mental health. The data available in this study was not sufficient to explore these options. However, it is our intention to study this cohort at age 30 and at that time it may be possible to gather further contextual information on the factors associated with decisions regarding abortion.

In addition, again according to the discussion section of the article, the abortion rates in the sample were lower than those of society at large, suggesting an underreporting of abortion. I would guess that women who withhold the info. about their abortions are more likely to have mental health issues, and then they'd cause the data to underrepresent the number of would-be mothers suffering mental health as a result of their abortions, but there is no way to prove this and the researchers are right to mention this problem as a possible source of error.

30

"I am an atheist and a rationalist" - This is an oxymoron unless you redefine rationalist as someone who is inherently irrational.

31

Can you point toward where in the study they talked about unwanted pregnancies being carried to term?

Hmm. You have a point. I should have left "for whatever reason" out of my comment. The fact that set A (women who carried the pregnancy to term) has fewer mental illnesses than set B (woman who have had abortions) is as far at the data goes. For me to claim otherwise would admittedly be misleading.

32

Thanks for covering this Joe. Research done by a pro-choice advocate indicating a strong link between abortion and mental illness, even after accounting for pre-abortion mental health is indeed evidence of causation. Unless of course you feel that some other factor affected the 500 women involved in the study coincidentally along the abortion/no abortion split.

Clearly, the evidence supports the contention that abortion is a significant causative factor in mental illness.

33

I'm pro-choice and find the study's results unsurprising. Given the demonization of abortion, the pressure brought to bear on women not to abort by calling what they are doing murder, the general condemnation of those that abort by many on the regilious right, wouldn't any other result be more of a shock?

34

Joe:
Hmm. You have a point. I should have left "for whatever reason" out of my comment. The fact that set A (women who carried the pregnancy to term) has fewer mental illnesses than set B (woman who have had abortions) is as far at the data goes. For me to claim otherwise would admittedly be misleading.

Except the ideal control group would be women who carried an unwanted pregnancy to term. Since abortion is legal in the US many woman carrying pregnancies to term are doing so because they probably want to (or at least do not 'unwant' the pregnancy enough to choose abortion). I wouldn't be surprised that this group would have, on average, better mental health than the typical population (they are, after all, getting what they want!).

Now speaking of being a textbook example demonstrating the truth of my arguments, here's Alan!

Thanks for covering this Joe. Research done by a pro-choice advocate indicating a strong link between abortion and mental illness, even after accounting for pre-abortion mental health is indeed evidence of causation. Unless of course you feel that some other factor affected the 500 women involved in the study coincidentally along the abortion/no abortion split.

Note how the researcher has become a 'pro-choice advocate'. Why? There is no evidence that the researcher had announced his beliefs on the topic until he was asked. He, as far as I have read, does not belong to any pro-choice group nor has spoken publically on the issue until he was specifically questioned. What cause this sudden change from an ordinary person who is pro-choice into a 'pro-choice advocate'. Because it suits the purpose of propaganda. Isn't it all the more convincing if this study was done by an ADVOCATE(tm) rather than your typical boring academic researcher? If people like Alan could get away with it, they'd have us believing this guy was the head of Planned Parenthood and had to escape assassination attempts to bring the truth to the public!

Clearly, the evidence supports the contention that abortion is a significant causative factor in mental illness.

Where was this guy when we were debating global warming? Anyone care to venture their weekly wage on where he probably would have come down?

35

"This is an oxymoron unless you redefine rationalist as someone who is inherently irrational."

You should probably google "rationalist", Andrew.

36

"I'm pro-choice and find the study's results unsurprising. Given the demonization of abortion, the pressure brought to bear on women not to abort by calling what they are doing murder, the general condemnation of those that abort by many on the regilious right, wouldn't any other result be more of a shock?"

So it's the pro-lifers causing the trauma? You're saying that social stigma imposed by "religious extremists that should be discounted anyway" is more traumatic than the act of killing nascent life?

Whatever your position on abortion, it is undeniable that it involves killing something.

If abortion is "trauma-neutral", why do so many of its supporters say "I'm against it personally" or "It should be rare"? Why are the clinics so opposed to education on all options? Why the outcry against the use of sonograms?

37

Bryan, would you consider it a crime to take thousands of people, put them in a freezer and keep them there? If embryos are people that's what's going on in IVF clinics.

38

Does anyone here believe that when a woman visits her doctor in order to obtain an abortion the conversation goes something like this:

"I've given this a great deal of thought, and right now, I know that it's the wrong time. I really need to stop this pregnancy. Can you help me?"

And the doctor says: "You betcha! Step right up to this table over here. Nurse! D&C kit in room 5A stat! Now don't worry honey, we'll have that lil' sucker out of there in 15 minutes flat and you'll be home in time to catch Wheel of Fortune!"

No, of course it doesn't happen that way. Any qualified physician with a modicum of experience will undoubtedly inform the woman of the health risks, the possibility of depression, and counsel the patient as to the range of her options. Maybe some won't, but I'd lay down serious money that most do.

None of which matters.

What occurs in the doctor's office is private between patient and doctor. It's not my business. For Gawd's sake, Joe, it's none of your damned business, and it most definitely is none of the federal or state government's business.

If you don't like abortion, don't have one. End of story.

39

Ah Boonton.
Always willing to bring derision to a discussion I see.

Perhaps you can explain then why an unwanted pregnancy causes such mental distress, as opposed to the findings of the pro-choice doctor who tell us that "Abortion is a traumatic life event; that is, it involves loss, it involves grief, it involves difficulties. And the trauma may, in fact, predispose people to having mental illness."

And also from Dr Fergussion "We took into account social background, education, ethnicity, previous mental health, exposure to sexual abuse, and a series of other factors. It's true we did not take into account specifically whether a pregnancy was wanted or not. However, this limitation is not sufficient grounds for dismissing the results."

Man, I must really be a moron eh Boonton, for agreeing with a pro-choice researcher.

But sure, bring on the derision.

As for 'advocate'. On what grounds do you need to belong to a group or have spoken to public record to be an advocate? I know many people who advocate against abortion who do not meet either of these criteria. However, due to the suprise of the Doctor who was trying to give scientific support to the pro-choice argument that abortion doesn't cause mental distress, it is easy to see how this is consistent with someone you would call an advocate. Add to that the fact that no one has questioned his claim of being pro-choice and it is easy enough to reasonable conclude his beliefs were at least well known to enough people not to question them. But of course, I wouldn't expect you to bother with reasoned deduction when it doesn't suit your bias.

Have a nice day

40

As for 'advocate'. On what grounds do you need to belong to a group or have spoken to public record to be an advocate? I know many people who advocate against abortion who do not meet either of these criteria. However, due to the suprise of the Doctor who was trying to give scientific support to the pro-choice argument that abortion doesn't cause mental distress, it is easy to see how this is consistent with someone you would call an advocate

Those of us in the reality based community know that an advocate is primarily defined as someone who actually advocates. To be a pro-choice advocate, therefore, one actually has to advocate. Simply walking around thinking in your head "I'm pro-choice" is not sufficient. Here you have suddenly altered the story to make this researcher a 'pro-choice advocate' rather than a simple pro-choicer. Yet there's no indication that this researcher ever did anything to advocate a pro-choice position anywhere.

Now maybe he is an advocate. Perhaps he has spent many a lunch hour telling his co-workers that they should march in pro-choice demonstrations. Perhaps he spent weeks collecting signatures on petitions and so forth. Perhaps you know him personally so you can base your advocate label on information other than what was published.

But I doubt you have any personal knowledge of the researcher's activities. I suspect you stuck the advocate label to make the story 'sexier'...to make it more compelling. What, after all, is more compelling than an advocate coming forward and admitting the evidence of something that hurts his cause? I noticed you added a new lie to the story:

due to the suprise of the Doctor who was trying to give scientific support to the pro-choice argument that abortion doesn't cause mental distress

Notice now the doctor was not only a pro-choice advocate but also trying to find evidence to support abortion before he discovered evidence that it may be harmful! Pay attention to Alan people, this is how propaganda gets done. If he ever wants a job working for a totaltarian regime I'll be happy to write him a letter or recommendation.

Actually the only motiviation the doctor mentioned was that he felt abortion was under studied considering how common a procedure it was.

Which of course leads to the title of this post about pro-choicers being anti-science. Here it should not matter what the researcher's opinions are on legalized abortion. All that matters is the quality of the research. If some study shows that eating pork is harmful your first question should not be "is the researcher Jewish or Muslim?" But this is, of course, how a politicized and emotionally charged issue corrupts science. What is a single study will now be blown out of proportion, critical analysis of the study will not be based on the study itself but on the personalities of the authors ("Of course it must be true, the guy's pro-choice if anything he'd make abortion sound better than it is!").

Anyway:

And also from Dr Fergussion "We took into account social background, education, ethnicity, previous mental health, exposure to sexual abuse, and a series of other factors. It's true we did not take into account specifically whether a pregnancy was wanted or not. However, this limitation is not sufficient grounds for dismissing the results."

1. According to the abstract the information they obtained was:

a) the history of pregnancy/abortion for female participants over the interval from 15–25 years; b) measures of DSM-IV mental disorders and suicidal behaviour over the intervals 15–18, 18–21 and 21–25 years; and c) childhood, family and related confounding factors

DSM-IV disorder means the woman had been diagnosed by a doctor with some sort of problem (depression, bipolar, etc.). What this fails to account for, though, is that many mental problems fester for a long time before being formerally diagnosed and often mental problems are unnoticed or not present in young people. In other words, a 17 year old girl may show signs of clinical depression but may not be diagnosed because, well, she's a teenager and teens are often a bit wacky. When she is still acting odd at 25, though, now someone says to the doctor what's going on here and a formal DSM-IV diagnosis is made.

You might catch this if you did a psychological assessment or inventory of a sample of women and then followed up periodically through the years. That would be an expensive longitutidal study, though, so the researchers have to rely on the limited information from this study. It would be a good way, though, to test the hypothesis that people who have mental problems often get themselves into bad situations which causes them to turn to solutions like abortion. It also fits with the fact that most mental problems get worse as a person ages.

2. No the results should not be dismissed because they did not control for whether a pregnancy was wanted or not but it's a pretty big variable. As I pointed out pregnant women who bring their babies to term are usually getting what they want since abortion is legal (and if New Zeland has some type of socialized medicine then they might even be free). In general people who are getting what they want are probably going to exhibit better than average rates of mental illness. Before you draw a conclusion you need to at least try to sample women who brought unwanted pregnancies to term and compare their rates to women who aborted unwanted pregnancies....(while we are at it we would probably want to look at what happened to women who aborted wanted pregnancies...say due to gross deformaties, threats to the life of the mother, or threats to other unborn children)

41

Just thought I would interject a few things. Someone said that you would be hard-pressed to find anyone even a very young person who had not heard pro-life rhetoric. This is completely untrue. Until last year I thought this was true, I thought a person would have to live under a rock to miss it, I also thought that everyone had seen an ultrasound pic, at least in passing, but I work at a CPC and the majority of the girls that come in do not have any knowledge of what half the population of the US believes abortion to be, that is: murder. Most of them have also never seen any pictures of life in the womb. These are girls who are in HS and college, I have had some of them say specifically, "we talked about sex ed and pregnancy in biology but I have never seen anything like this". It really opened my eyes to see that there are a LOT of people who go through life and never see pictures of life in the womb, or have any idea about the pro-life position.
Also, you do need parental consent for all sorts of routine procedures. Before I went to college I got the HepB vaccine series. Which consists of three shots, two about 1 month apart and the other about 6mo later. I was 17, going to be 18 in 3 months and I had recieved the first two shots for which I had had a note from my mom. When I went in for the last shot, they refused to give it to me until they could reach my mother by phone and have her fax a note with her consent. Keep in mind this is a shot that can protect me from disease and she had written notes for the first two shots in the series (which I might add were general enough that they probably could have been construed to mean she approved the whole series), not even a surgical procedure. So parental consent is indeed required even for somewhat mundane procedures.

42

"No, of course it doesn't happen that way. Any qualified physician with a modicum of experience will undoubtedly inform the woman of the health risks, the possibility of depression, and counsel the patient as to the range of her options. Maybe some won't, but I'd lay down serious money that most do."
I don't have statistics on this but from anecdotal experience (I know I know it doesn't prove anything, but I know a LOT of post-abortive women) this statement is patently untrue. Women are very often not informed of the risks or even fully informed of what an abortion is. It seems crazy to me but there are seriously women who just don't know, they don't think about what the abortion actually is, they just think it is a bandaid..."I have a problem, this is the quick and easy way to fix it", then they see a picture of a fetus at the stage where they aborted later and the are dumb-struck.
"What occurs in the doctor's office is private between patient and doctor" The problem with this statement is that for people who know the strict biological facts that an embryo/fetus is human life and don't give a crap about some random definition of "personhood" is that there are more than two people involved, one of them just can speak up for themselves yet.

43

Sarah Faith-
You made the most important point of all. Those of us on the pro-life side do not view abortion as a mere doctor/patient decision because we believe there is at least one other person who is not represented in the decision. It is a person, not an appendage of the mother's, with its own DNA that is different from the mother's. The rights of the unborn child transcend any "privacy" rights of the mother.

This debate has taken on new meaning for me because my wife is pregnant right now. Because she is considered high risk, we are getting ultrasounds every couple of weeks. It is amazing how developed an unborn child is even at a very early stage in the pregnancy.

44

Speaking from experience, my wife became depressed both times after having a miscarriage. I would imagine that an elective abortion would produce at least a similar level of depression.

On an unrelated note, several studies have also shown that abortion takes a psychological toll for male parterners.
Lingering thoughts about abortion: male grief is hidden http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1175/is_3_37/ai_n6097586

45

Also, you do need parental consent for all sorts of routine procedures. Before I went to college I got the HepB vaccine series. Which consists of three shots, ...

Sarah, there is a difference between a provider requiring parental consent because they want to and because there is a law that says they must. For example, someone earlier raised the issue of your parents insurance paying for a procedure. In this case there is no law saying the doctor must get parental consent but the doctor insists because the insurance company requires it (and of course, the doc wants to get paid). Likewise just because a particular doctor or clinic might have insisted on consent doesn't mean there's a law on the books saying they must. You very well could have probably obtained those shots even if your parents were opposed to them for whatever reason.

I'll agree there might be many people who are unaware of the details of pro-life arguments such as ultrasound images, diagrams, phamphlets etc. but I'm very doubtful that anyone is totally ignorant of the essence of the pro-life argument...that abortion is wrong.

I don't have statistics on this but from anecdotal experience (I know I know it doesn't prove anything, but I know a LOT of post-abortive women) this statement is patently untrue. Women are very often not informed of the risks or even fully informed of what an abortion is. ...

Again if this is true the solution is simple. Find these woman who were subjected to these uninformed abortions and have them sue the doctors for malpractice. I've yet to hear a single person on this list provide a credible argument why, if this allagation of mass 'uninformed consent' is true the victims have not availed themselves to the legal remedies available. I again put forth the argument that this charge simply does not stand up upon objective examination.

pizzaman
Speaking from experience, my wife became depressed both times after having a miscarriage. I would imagine that an elective abortion would produce at least a similar level of depression.

There's a difference between depression and depression as a mental illness. If you feel sad after something bad has happened that's normal and healthy as a response. Depression is a mental illness when it goes beyond that. You can't 'come out' of your sadness.

rdsmith3
You made the most important point of all. Those of us on the pro-life side do not view abortion as a mere doctor/patient decision because we believe there is at least one other person who is not represented in the decision. It is a person, not an appendage of the mother's, with its own DNA that is different from the mother's. The rights of the unborn child transcend any "privacy" rights of the mother.

Then I respectfully suggest you stick to that argument instead of going after spurious arguments such as this. It leads to many dead ends IMO and overall does more to discredit pro-lifers rather than advance their argument.

1. It makes them dishonest because they have the incentive to distort the facts. Observe how Alan has behaved on this list. When a study comes out indicating abortion does not cause mental illness will prolifers treat it objectively. Will Alan post something like "gee I was wrong but I'm still against abortion because of X,Y, and Z". No the most vocal will try to discredit the study with spurious reasoning, special pleading and logical fallacies gallore.

2. You may not like the standard you're setting. What do I mean? Well....

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_partum_depression a whopping 70-80% of women experience mild 'baby blues' after giving birth. But 10% experience clinical postpartum depression. In other words, if there should be a law requiring every abortion doctor to warn their patients that abortion may (years, even decades after the fact) increase the risk of mental illness THEN logically every other doctor should also be required to warn pregnant women that if they go through with their pregnancy there's a 10% chance they will develop a mental illness! How do you like that!

In reality, though, we already have such a mechanism in place. Any worthwhile doctor will warn his pregnant patients about the danger of post partum depression. If a doctor doesn't and fails to diagnose it there's a good chance he will end up being sued if the mother or child ends up suffering because of the missed diagnosis. If abortion has an equal danger of creating its own types of mental illnesses then no special laws are needed to deal with it.

46

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_partum_depression a whopping 70-80% of women experience mild 'baby blues' after giving birth. But 10% experience clinical postpartum depression. In other words, if there should be a law requiring every abortion doctor to warn their patients that abortion may (years, even decades after the fact) increase the risk of mental illness THEN logically every other doctor should also be required to warn pregnant women that if they go through with their pregnancy there's a 10% chance they will develop a mental illness! How do you like that!

When my wife and I went through our first pregnancy, our OB-GYN thoroughly explained the risks of post-partum depression and their were pamphlets on the subject in the waiting room. Since OB-GYNs are among the most sued doctors (many in our state are getting out of the baby delivery business because of malpractice insurance premiums), I would be surprised if this wasn't standard practice.

47

Sorry, meant to italicize Boonton's comments that I was referring to. Also, I am not sure that the situation is very similiar, post-partum depression, or "baby blues" is a well known phenomenon, depression associated with abortion is a relatively knew discovery. As such, woman considering abortion should be informed of the risks. I am really not sure what the fuss is, if you substituted Vioxx for abortion, there would be no question of informing the patitent of the risk, why should it be different for abortion? The "Safe" part of "safe, legal, and rare" requires informed consent.

48

I think folks in the pro-life camp are often disingenuous about claims like the one made here.

I think this argument shows that there is plenty of disingenuousness on the "pro-choice" side too. At every "pro-choice" demonstration I've seen over the past decade or so I always see signs demanding we keep abortion "safe, legal, and rare." This seems to run counter to many of the "pro-choice" folks (Rob Ryan is a welcome exception) here. We are willing to give up "safe" (safety requires informed consent) and seem not to care to much about "rare" (God forbid some piece of relevent information might stop a single abortion) and seem to be inordinately focused on the "legal" part, which seem like the part that is least in danger for the forseeable future. Even of Roe is overturned, most abortions will remain legal in at least a large number of states and will likely remain somewhat legal in all states.

49

Joe and others:

Most interesting post, and the comments stream is even more revealing that the post in some ways. [I am heartened to see that there is more of a civil tone than a few months ago.)

I think a few points should be highlighted and reflected on a bit more:

1] Sarah:

I work at a CPC and the majority of the girls that come in do not have any knowledge of what half the population of the US believes abortion to be, that is: murder. Most of them have also never seen any pictures of life in the womb. These are girls who are in HS and college, I have had some of them say specifically, "we talked about sex ed and pregnancy in biology but I have never seen anything like this". It really opened my eyes to see that there are a LOT of people who go through life and never see pictures of life in the womb, or have any idea about the pro-life position.

--> There is a very simple reason for this, having to do with the relative institionalised social power of the two sides of the "debate."

--> Connecting some dots, this is also a very simple and direct explanation for why this study is not being headlined and featured prominently on the various talk shows, by contrast with say the earlier claims about gay geners adn hippocampus [whch have had to be pulled back on later examination of methods, but were trumpeted on being announced]: it does not fit in with the "consensus" story by the dominant social group thsat more or less has set the agenda for public focus and its agenda -- until recently. BTW, since trhe same forces dominate in law, this is also why a strategy of doing a class-action lawsuit would most likely fail to get anywhere. [I think there may have been some attempts to do so, too . . .]

--> Sarah, as one with a significant body of direct experience, perhaps you would wish to tell us a little more on what you have obsereved, generally and in key cases? [Notice here, since we are discussing issues of personhood, a body of expereinces of personhood in the context of this specific issue is material, This is not the same as projecting from personal casual observations to a global, long term process such as climate trends.]

2] Correlation vs Causation

--> Of course, a correlation is not a cause: you are in such contexts, in fact looking at competing explanations of a given phenomenon, and are inferring to the most credible current explanation. That is, we are looking at the logic of scientific explanation, i.e. of what C S Peirce long ago called abduction.

--> Typically, when the competition is between a chance vs non-chance hyp, as in statisticsl testing, then we make a decision based on accepting a residual probability of wrongly rejecting chance or wrongly rejecting non-chance explanations. So plainly that is not even a question about proof.

--> However, in science, we are looking at a much broader picture, based on our intuition that a lot of things that occur in interesting patterns don't just happen at random, but are caused. So, the contest is between competing explanations, which we can compare on factual/empirical adequacy, coherence and simplicity vs ad hocness.

--> In the end, that is a philosophical issue, not merely a statistical one. Thus, worldviews come into the picture, and that makes the decision far more difficult, unless one is willing to engage in open dialogue based on comparative difficulties.

--> Suffice to say that it seems to me far more credible that the guilt and grief etc [which are well known on a very broad basis of experience to precipitate mental illness] is obviously inherently a better explanation for the relative frequency of mental illness in the study, than the alternative B has offered, i.e. in effect it's the "anti-abortion" propaganda and activism, stupid.

--> Observre as well the implied ad hominem. Thus, again, we see the disconnect between what a balanced view of the science [and underlying philosophy issues] would lead us to, and the policy-level and public discussion. The rhetoric of polarisation through ad hominems and the like is simply undermining the underlying basis for civility in the community, i.e. mutual respect. Thus, it also undermines the capacity to make sound and equitable decisions in the interests of justice for all, especially the ones who as Sarah [was it?] noted, don't yet have a voice. Let us set such to one side as fundamentally corrosive and counter-productive.

3] RDS responding to Sarah:

Those of us on the pro-life side do not view abortion as a mere doctor/patient decision because we believe there is at least one other person who is not represented in the decision. It is a person, not an appendage of the mother's, with its own DNA that is different from the mother's. The rights of the unborn child transcend any "privacy" rights of the mother.

--> First, Let us all pray that all goes well with your child and her/his mum over the next several months. May God grant you all grace for whatever lies ahead.

--> A little note to S: as this is an Evangelical blog, it may be wise to avoid questionable language. (You will note how I used RDS's response, not your initial remark.)

--> RDS, you are hitting the nail on the head on the real issue: if the sustainability principle that is commonly advocayted is about being concerned for the rights of as yet unborn [and therefore not even existing] generations e.g. on global warming, why then is it that a tiny little life that is very much demonstrably human and present with us, doen not count? [Notifce the now notorious point about not letting school kids -- and apparently even pregnant mothers considering abortion -- see ultrasound scans of life in the womb . . .)

--> In short, what is happening is that the undermining of the sanctity of life as made in God's image is leading to an ethics of so-called quality of life; demonstrably traceable in the west to implications of the dominance of the evolutionary materialist view of origins. In turn that corrodes the value of life in general as powerful interests push their agendas with little regard for their moral oligations. So, if they have not stopped at killingh 46+ millions of unborn infants since 1973, why should they be concerned over a mere rise in mental illness?

--> In the end, the issue is what we are, and how that leads to whether or not we hold an intrinsic value that lets us properly expect that others will accept that they have binding moral obligations to respect that dignity. Thus, we need to look at the worldview roots of morality ands compare the different major options on the merits.

+++++++++

Grace, open our eyes

Gordon

50

When my wife and I went through our first pregnancy, our OB-GYN thoroughly explained the risks of post-partum depression and their were pamphlets on the subject in the waiting room. Since OB-GYNs are among the most sued doctors (many in our state are getting out of the baby delivery business because of malpractice insurance premiums), I would be surprised if this wasn't standard practice.

Indeed, I would also imagine insurance companies insist on it too. Since insurance companies would rather pay for a problem when it is cheap to fix rather than expensive they probably play a hand in encouraging doctors to look for such things as well.

Also, I am not sure that the situation is very similiar, post-partum depression, or "baby blues" is a well known phenomenon, depression associated with abortion is a relatively knew discovery.

"Baby blues" is not a mental illness. Post-partum depression is a relatively new discovery (treating depression as a mental illness as opposed to simply a 'mood' is somewhat new as well). Post-partum psychosis (basically really severe illness that effects maybe 1-2 out of a 1,000) only really got attention at the turn of the century with some high publicity cases of mothers killing their newborns.

am really not sure what the fuss is, if you substituted Vioxx for abortion, there would be no question of informing the patitent of the risk, why should it be different for abortion?

There is no dispute with 'informing of the risks'. I would not be comfortable with Congress, though, writing a 'warning' that doctors would be forced to read for Vioxx either. Vioxx is a good example of a drug that has some risks but is probably a pretty good drug if used correctly. The hoopla over it, though, would probably cause any warning written by committee to be way over the top. Plus once you put something in a law it is very hard to change it as new evidence comes about because people with vested interests will fight for the law.

But as any good conservative will tell you its best not to have a law when you don't need one. A doctor's job is to keep up on these things. If it turns out Vioxx is safer than the initial scare indicated he will be able to tell his patients that. If it turns out its worse he can tell them that too. Why make him wait for Congressmen to get around to updating the warning?

We are willing to give up "safe" (safety requires informed consent) and seem not to care to much about "rare" (God forbid some piece of relevent information might stop a single abortion)

You have a clear path for making sure 'relevant' information gets to women that might stop abortion. Your reluctance to use it and make up excuses for why warnings about abortions have to be delievered thru a different method than every other medical drug, device and procedure leads to the implication that you deep down suspect that this information probably is either not really true or less dramatic than the headline makes it seem. So you'd rather see a lie enshrined in law before science can catch up to it.

You might think this is a worthy trade off. Accepting a comprimise in what seems like a less important principle (being honest with people) to serve a more important one (saving lives). But I'm telling you that you are fooling yourself. The same trick you think you're going to pull off against on pro-choicers can just as easily be turned on you (mandatory counseling of women to have abortions to prevent the better proven dangers of carrying children to term) & when it is you'll have nothing to stand on.

Gordon
--> Suffice to say that it seems to me far more credible that the guilt and grief etc [which are well known on a very broad basis of experience to precipitate mental illness] is obviously inherently a better explanation for the relative frequency of mental illness in the study, than the alternative B has offered, i.e. in effect it's the "anti-abortion" propaganda and activism, stupid.

Actually Gordon someone else offered up that theory. I'm just about the only one on this list that actually took Joe at his word for being pro-science. I accepted that there very well might be a biological reason for the studies results. To recap; I speculated that when a woman is pregnant her body releases various harmones. Perhaps the sudden ceasesation of pregnancy may short circuit brain chemistry leaving one at a slightly higher risk of mental illness even years later. If this is true then indeed women should be warned just as they are warned of the dangers of carrying a pregnancy to term.

But let's grow up here. People who feel they have done something wrong and feel guilty about it probably have a higher incidence of mental illness. I offered the example of the cop who kills someone in the line of duty and later suffers depression. His gun didn't cause the mental illness but rather his feelings about his actions (notice here that this is independent of whether or not the cop acting morally, such situations develop even in cases where everyone agrees the cop behaved properly just as there are cases where people who kill wrongly sometimes do not feel any guilt or remorse at all).

To use another example, an orthodox Jew or Muslim might feel sick after eating pork. He might feel so guilty that he is diagnosed as clinically depressed by a psychologist. It doesn't follow from then that pork eaters must have 'informed consent' because pork might cause mental illness. The pork itself is clearly not causing anything, it's the person doing something they think is wrong. I use that example because many here probably don't view eating pork as wrong but can understand why a religious person might believe it to be. This is not an invitation to discuss the morality of the prohibition on pork. Even if you agree eating pork is wrong you should see how wrong as it might be it does not cause mental illness in this case.

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"Baby blues" is not a mental illness. Post-partum depression is a relatively new discovery (treating depression as a mental illness as opposed to simply a 'mood' is somewhat new as well). Post-partum psychosis (basically really severe illness that effects maybe 1-2 out of a 1,000) only really got attention at the turn of the century with some high publicity cases of mothers killing their newborns.

Poor wording on my part. I know there is a significant difference between the relatively common "baby blues", the rare post-partum depression, and the incredibly rare post-partum psychosis. As to whether or not "baby blues" is a mental illness, at the very least it is a mild form of depression, which is a form of mental illness.

There is no dispute with 'informing of the risks'. I would not be comfortable with Congress, though, writing a 'warning' that doctors would be forced to read for Vioxx either.

This task is handled through the Office of the Surgeon General or the Centers for Disease Control, not Congress. I am pretty sure they are qualified to write a warning that abortion providers would be comfortable with. Regarding Vioxx warnings, have you read the patient information provided on Vioxx (or any other prescription medication)? Essentially everything negative that happened to a patient while taking Vioxx is listed no matter what the probability that it was caused by Vioxx. As such you have warnings not only for heart and stomach problems, but also for anxiety (possibly from watching the news coverage on Vioxx), vertigo, insomnia, depression and a whole list of other ailments.

But as any good conservative will tell you its best not to have a law when you don't need one. A doctor's job is to keep up on these things. If it turns out Vioxx is safer than the initial scare indicated he will be able to tell his patients that. If it turns out its worse he can tell them that too. Why make him wait for Congressmen to get around to updating the warning?

Since we are making broad generalizations that may or may not have basis in fact, "any good conservative" will also tell you that laws need to be applied uniformly. The warnings on Vioxx went out well before there was a clear understanding of the level of risk involved, they also issued warnings about other cox-2 anti-inflammatory drugs, even though no cases of heart problems had yet been reported. Abortion should not have a priviledged postion because of political concerns. Also, as stated before, medical warnings don't come out of Congress, but rather the Surgeon General or CDC. These organizations are much more responsive than Congress.

You have a clear path for making sure 'relevant' information gets to women that might stop abortion. Your reluctance to use it and make up excuses for why warnings about abortions have to be delievered thru a different method than every other medical drug, device and procedure leads to the implication that you deep down suspect that this information probably is either not really true or less dramatic than the headline makes it seem. So you'd rather see a lie enshrined in law before science can catch up to it.

If we look at the Vioxx example again, the warnings were disseminated long before the science was clearly understood. Silicon breast implants are another good example. In both cases, it was determined that the risk of harm was great enough that they couldn't await the results of further study. I personally don't like this procedure, but it seems to be common in medicine and so, abortion should not be exempted due to political considerations.

The same trick you think you're going to pull off against on pro-choicers can just as easily be turned on you (mandatory counseling of women to have abortions to prevent the better proven dangers of carrying children to term) & when it is you'll have nothing to stand on.

I'm not saying doctors should counsel women to have or not have abortions based on medical warnings, only that the information be presented to patients. When a pregnant woman starts pre-natal care, the OB-GYN clearly spells out the risks of carrying a child to term and what the woman can expect throughout the term of the pregnancy and even post-partum, but does not advocate either having or not having the child, abortion should be the same.

52

This task is handled through the Office of the Surgeon General or the Centers for Disease Control, not Congress. I am pretty sure they are qualified to write a warning that abortion providers would be comfortable with. Regarding Vioxx warnings, have you read the patient information provided on Vioxx (or any other prescription medication)?

Errrr, no the purpose of the doctor is not to figure out which warning to read but to combine his general knowledge of his field with the specific knowledge of the patient. Drugs are different in that they must supply what is called 'fair balance' in their advertising. To the degree that abortionists use or prescribe drugs there is no difference here. {BTW, the FDA has jurisdiction over drugs and is the one that approves the patient provided information...the FDA, though, does not have jurisdiction over doctors and that is why doctors can prescribe drugs for so-called 'off label' uses but drug companies cannot advertise drugs for such uses). Depending upon the method used, the doctor performing an abortion may very well provide a patient with one or several drugs and prescriptions. Their warnings are no different than the warnings on drugs given to women who are having their babies.

Abortion should not have a priviledged postion because of political concerns. Also, as stated before, medical warnings don't come out of Congress, but rather the Surgeon General or CDC. These organizations are much more responsive than Congress.

The Surgeon General's power is limited to the 6,000 or so members of the US Public Health Service whose primary duty is to be dispatched to an area if a public health emergancy breaks out (the closest thing I can imagine might have been Katrina but I'm not sure if they were). He is free to issue any warnings he feels are worth issuing. To my knowledge abortion has never held a 'priviledged position' with the Surgeon General. In fact the most well known, C. Everett Koop, was also a pro-lifer.

Likewise the CDC also holds a similar position. Their job is to gather and disseminate information. They are free to warn that abortion causes a disease if they find credible evidence to merit it.

But there is no agency that writes 'warnings' for doctors to read to patients who are contemplating c-sections, giving birth, having an abortion, getting a boob job, seeking treatment for a cancerous tumor etc. These situations call upon the doctor to exercise his Profession & the doctor is held responsible if he fails to do so. So again, I lead you to the simple solution if you feel that doctors are neglecting their duty. Find their victims and have them sue for malpractice. You're making up a nice little fictional 'exemption' that abortion supposedly maintains where none exists. You can't point to a single solid example where abortion has been 'exempted' from any warning laws on the books.

When a pregnant woman starts pre-natal care, the OB-GYN clearly spells out the risks of carrying a child to term and what the woman can expect throughout the term of the pregnancy and even post-partum, but does not advocate either having or not having the child, abortion should be the same.

Yes but not because pre-natal care is not exempt from some mythical gov't 'warning policy' and abortion is. It is because failure of the obgyn to do as you stated above would result in malpractice suits and challenges to their medical licenses for unprofessional conduct. No doubt the reason many doctors are very careful with post-partum depression today is because of high profile cases that resulted in malpractice rewards for the families of victims of post-partum depression.

If there was real proof here pro-life organizations would farm the population of women who regrett their abortions for candidates to launch malpractice suits against the doctors who performed them. Assuming your version of reality is correct, such a strategy would have great appeal to a pro-life organization because they could put financial pressure on abortionists and at a minimum make them warn some women off of abortion even in states whose voters are generally pro-choice and regardless of how the Supreme Court handles future abortion cases.

53

Someone was asking about lawsuits, saying that if there was really a problem women would settle it in court. Check out this link http://www.lifedynamics.com/Abortion_Prolife/Abortion_Injury/

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You might want to read http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/this_just_in/documents/04475073.asp, it looks like they even won an out-of-court settlement in 2003. The market works! Two and a half cheers for capitalism!

Now the question will come down to how real this science really is. I suspect that it really isn't that strong. Unlike post-partum depression, 'post abortion depression' is not caused by the abortion procedure but by the mind's reaction to it. In more direct terms it's guilt because the person thinks they did something wrong.

Now if abortion really does cause depression in a way that's similar to the way pregnancy does then I don't think pro-lifers should put much stock in it. Treating depression is a huge market for the drug companies and they would be more than happy to get abortionists to offer a 'double package' of depression screening combined with the abortion.

55

All:

Interesting to see what gets simply linked, isn't it:

Late last year, an unnamed 18-year-old Oregon woman claiming malpractice sued the clinic where she’d received an abortion three years earlier; she received an order of judgment, and settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. "Jenny" — who was assisted by the Women’s Injury Network, Inc. — made her case by claiming severe emotional distress and arguing that the physicians and counselors she saw at the clinic never briefed her on the potential physical and psychological complications of abortion. Her case was, as the Women’s Injury Network notes on its Web site, the first abortion-malpractice case in the country to result in both judgment and settlement.

B, it seems this goes to the heart of one of your arguments above.

Further to this, Sarah's link has in it an interesting comment:

Lifr Dynamics: Our Abortion Malpractice (ABMAL) program provides attorneys with the litigation support services needed to win malpractice cases against abortionists. We have routinely participated in abortion related and medical malpractice case and have researched hundreds more. From identifying the cause of action, to locating expert witnesses, to thoroughly researching the defendants' histories, Life Dynamics has created the tools and services necessary to support attorneys representing abortion injured clients . . . .

Developing . . .

GEM

56

B, it seems this goes to the heart of one of your arguments above.

Indeed it does. I've spent the better part of this thread listening to pro-lifers make up excuses as to why the legal system's standard tools could not be used to supposedly counter an epidemic of malpractice on the part of doctors providing abortions. For example, we've been told that conservatives don't believe in lawsuits no matter how justified. We've been told that women who had abortions are llike 'rape victims'...too shy to actually go to court (despite the odd fact that actual rape victims have gone to both criminal court as well as civil court to testify against their attackers). We've been lead to believe there's some mythical 'exemption' abortion enjoys that prevents 'warnings' from being disseminated.

Now it looks like abortion is like any other medical procedure. At least one person has taken someone to court over the charge that she was not properly informed about the procedure.

It's good to be proven right, even though no one here will probably acknowledge it ;)

57

Another issue is 13-14 yr old girls getting abortions at school w/out parental permission. The average boyfriend is 6-8 yrs older. Shouldn't Planned Parenthood report this as Statutory Rape?

A teacher who suspects a child got a spanking has to report it as child abuse, under penalty of law. What is worse, a spanking or an adult boyfriend pressuring your young daughter to get an abortion and the school covers up for the Rapist?

California voted down a proposition to end school abortions. Unbelievable!

58

I've never heard of a school, public or private, performing abortions. Please provide a single example of a school that does so.

Like the case of abortion to save the life/health of the mother, I suspect that such young abortions are probably the minority of all abortions. It also runs smack into a classic problem of confidentiality. If the Priest, doctor, therapist etc. has to report then there is the risk that the person may not come forward for help.

I would generally support whatever the current law is without regards to abortion. If, for example, a girl comes in and asks for birth control & the doctor has to report because she tells him her partner is 20 years older than her then I'd keep that law if the girl is showing up for an abortion rather than birth control.

I'd be careful, though, of not producing a situation like Kansas (see http://www.slate.com/id/2135821/?nav=navoa) where the idiot Attorney General is trying to force just about any professional who deals with kids (docs, teachers, etc.) to report any and all 'intimate activity' even if they are the same age.

59

I've never heard of a school, public or private, performing abortions. Please provide a single example of a school that does so.

What about a medical school;)?