Abortion

The Christchurch School of Medicine that concluded women who had abortions had increased rates of subsequent mental health problems compared with those who had not had abortions has generated a lot of debate.

I am not totally surprised, as I think the whole situation of an unwanted pregnancy, having to decide on whether to have an abortion, and possible guilt afterwards will often lead to mental health issues.

I am unsure, as I have not seen the full study, how comparable the results for those who did not have an abortion are to those who did. If one is comparing married couples who wanted kids to a someone not in a relationship who got pregnant, then it is no surprise if the latter has more mental health issues. However if the two groups were both of women who did not want or plan the pregnancy, then they are considerably more valid. The reputation of the primary author is first class, so I suspect the two groups are reasonably comparable.

I am personally pro-choice, yet am sometimes put off by the extreme elements of the pro-choice movement who seem to regard that one needs to be pro-abortion as well as pro-choice. We saw this at the Aro Valley Candidates meeting where one young woman in the audience lashed out at even the Green candidate for daring to suggest that while she was pro-choice, it would be better to also have programmes to reduce the number of abortions through education etc. Anything other than a total commitment to abortion on demand without question was seen as unacceptable.

Likewise it is rather alarming that four medical journals rejected the article before it was published in the Journal of Child Psychiatry and Psychology. Just as I oppose science taking a back seat to religion in the Intelligent Design debate, it is also regrettable if it takes a back seat to politics in the abortion debate.

The legal situation is interesting. The practice in NZ for many years has been effectively abortion on demand. The law however says it shall only be granted if it will risk the woman’s physical or mental health. Now mental health has been interpretated very liberally, so that merely saying one would be an unwilling mother is taken as grounds for risk to mental health.

Now this study could be used to show that proceeding with an abortion will generally be more damaging to a woman’s mental health, so then the bar may be lifted in terms of needing to identify specific reasons why their mental health will be affected by not having an abortion. One would need a test case of some sort to go to court.

Personally I favour laws being honest laws. We have had abortion on demand for a couple of decades. The law should reflect the practice, and be amended accordingly. However we should not forget the best outcome is one where the unwanted pregnancy doesn’t occur in the first place.