"Abortion Myth About Depression Falls Before Science," triumphantly claims a U.S. News and World Report blogger. "Abortion Is NOT linked to Depression, Scientists Say," screams the headline in the UK's Daily Mail. "No high-quality study done to date can document that having an abortion causes psychological distress, or a 'post-abortion syndrome,' and efforts to show it does occur appear to be politically motivated, U.S. researchers said on Thursday," reads a Reuters news story. Forgive me for mistaking this news lead for an advocay group's press release. Post-partum depression? Sure. Post-abortion depression? No way. It just doesn't make sense that a woman who has killed the life that she has created could possibly be in any way depressed in the aftermath. At least that's the uncommon sense this "scientific" study seeks to impart.

The Johns Hopkins study on studies claims that past "studies with the most flawed methodology consistently found negative mental health consequences of abortion," suggesting that political motivations led to such conclusions. Couldn't one more justifiably make the same claim about the Johns Hopkins study? A clue leading one to that conclusion is the fact that a journal called "Contraception" published the study. And who publishes that? Well, it's the official journal of the abortion industry, specifically the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, an outgrowth of Planned Parenthood, and the Society of Family Planning, which holds its meetings concurrently with Planned Parenthood. And what of the JHU study's lead researcher, Dr. Robert Blum, who once served as the chairman of the board of Planned Parenthood's research arm and whose position as the William H. Gates Sr. Chair of the Department of Population, Family & Reproductive Health at JHU is funded by a pro-abortion misanthropist? Mr. Blum doesn't have an ax to grind does he? It's all those other studies that are politicized, not his. C'mon, who, other than fools, do you fools think you're fooling?

Three other studies released in the last month all came to the conclusion that abortion raises the risk for future mental health problems. Somehow, they escaped notice by Reuters.

If the JHU study isn't the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is. It was produced by pro-abortion activists bankrolled by the abortion industry. Why didn't the Reuters piece touting the study mention the abortion industry's involvement in funding and publicizing it? Because noting these inconvenient truths not only disqualifies the JHU broadside from the category of objective, disinterested science, but invalidates the decision to devote a "news" article to it. What's next, Reuters touting studies by the tobacco industry proclaiming that its product doesn't cause cancer?

The review failed to include three new studies all showing abortion leads to significant mental health problems for women.

Last week, Dr. Priscilla Coleman, a professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Bowling Green State University, and her colleagues published a study in the Journal of Psychiatric Research showing the link exists. http://www.lifenews.com/nat4617.html

The research team found induced abortions result in increased risks for a myriad of mental health problems ranging from anxiety to depression to substance abuse disorders.

The number of cases of mental health issues rose by as much as 17 percent in women having abortions compared to those who didn't have one and the risks of each particular mental health problem rose as much as 145% for post-abortive women.

For 12 out of 15 of the mental health outcomes examined, a decision to have an abortion resulted in an elevated risk for women.

"What is most notable in this study is that abortion contributed significant independent effects to numerous mental health problems above and beyond a variety of other traumatizing and stressful life experiences," they concluded.

Earlier this week, researchers at Otago University in New Zealand reported their findings in the British Journal of Psychiatry and found that women who have abortions have an increased risk of developing mental health problems. http://www.lifenews.com/int1008.html

The study found that women who had abortions had rates of mental health problems about 30% higher than other women. The conditions most associated with abortion included anxiety disorders and substance abuse disorders.

Abortions increased the risk of severe depression and anxiety by one-third and as many as 5.5 percent of all mental health disorders seen in New Zealand result from women having abortions.

A third study, from a team at the University of Queensland and published in the December issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry, found women who have an abortion are three times more likely to experience a drug or alcohol problem during their lifetime. http://www.lifenews.com/int1012.html

The study showed that women who had experienced an abortion were at increased risk of illicit drug and alcohol use compared with women who had never been pregnant or who gave birth.

Bill Clinton was fond of saying time and time again, that abortions should be safe,legal,and rare.

My question is why rare, afterall they say it's only a medical procedure and it's nothing more than a personal choice, so why should it be rare?

2+2 doesn't equal 6.

TEM,

The pro-abortion position is incoherent from top to bottom. Unfortunately, it's advocates don't mind.

The Johns Hopkins study fails the smile test. Abortion, and events leading to it (euphemism alert), cannot help but affect a woman negatively. Unwanted pregnancy? It's obviously depressing.

As for its being a medical procedure, so is an appendectomy, but I think no one wants one of those either. Danger, pain, time lost, and cost all make one hope for their rarity.

Did anyone here play Mozart for their babies? Well that was another example of science debunked. It is now referred to as the Mozart Myth.

The hopkins study was a meta-@nalysis of previous research. This is not an experimental method of science, but can highlight the differences and flaws within conflicting research in order to shed light on an older debate.

As well, your little lifenews article (http://www.lifenews.com/int1012.html) is not experimental either. The populations are ill-defined as well (simply 'women' in a four year age window, with no demographic or SES indicators)

It is simply corollary data exploration. Guess what... there are more murders in the summer, and more ice cream is sold in the summer, therefore (fill in stupid corollary assumption here)

as for "The pro-abortion position is incoherent from top to bottom."

send me a pamphlet on the pro-abortion argument because I have never heard of that. Do you mean pro-choice, as in women's rights?

How do you have a control and random assignment of pregnancies and abortions. Its malarkey. How do we know that depression doesn't cause girls to seek pregnancy either?

Hey Rose using your logic, how do we know placing policeman on street corners with fiddlers,wouldn't make us all safer than the rough men who stand on street corners, in possession of (GASP) all things a gun?

How do we know that pigs can't really fly?

Then again, personal accountability is the left's greatest fear.

TEM,

I am not using logic to build an argument the effects of abortion on the female psyche, for either side. I am demonstrating the fundemental flaws in the anti-abortion logic because it is not truely experimental research. I am not putting my creedence behind the Hopkins article, but rather pointing out it's flaws and strengths.

"Hey Rose using your logic, how do we know..."

If you have read any David Hume you would recognize that apriori knowledge is never certain. As for your policeman theory, there is no guarantee that police on every block will make us safer, especially when we know their propensity for abusing their power to the point of deep corruption. I've seen the police do some pretty bad things, personally.

Rose-next time you feel threatened or some armed thugs break into your house, feel free not to call the immoral,corrupt police. I bet you are capable of talking them out of doing you or your family harm,simply with words.

I don't depend on anyone,but myself to protect my families personal well being and I am not naive enough to believe words will accomplish that mission.

Maybe you should do some volunteer work at your local abortion factory,I am sure a partial birth abortion would make you feel really good as well, as providing a boost to your self-esteem.

"I don't depend on anyone,but myself to protect my families personal well being and I am not naive enough to believe words will accomplish that mission."

You are so arrogant and ignorant to your interdependence. You run around the world protecting EVERYONE apparently, because you were protecting those 'intelligence' and 'diplomacy' types for so long, and you are protecting your family from radical islam so well. How do you do it without the thousands of boots on the ground in other countries? You are not an 'army of one', you are a deutsche bag of one. If someone wants to take something from you bad enough, like your life, you will not be able to stop them.

Have you ever filed a police report? EVER?

"next time you feel threatened or some armed thugs break into your house, feel free not to call the immoral,corrupt police..."

All I was saying it is a logical fallacy to assume that putting a police man on every corner will guarantee protection for everyone. I'm sorry you don't like my perspective, but you need to learn about experimental design and the limits of correlations.

You know, I think I'm going to take you up on that offer of volunteer work at your local abortion factory and kill as many babies as I can. Hell, I'll just get pregnant so I can kill it.