British Section of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life

The motto of the “Silent No More” and “Operation Outcry” women campaigners is “Women deserve better”. This year the U.S. Supreme Court has decided that at least they deserve better than partial-birth abortion.

The Hon. Secretary of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Richard Warren, has admitted that abortion is difficult and upsetting work and it is done with obvious reticence. “We are seeing more doctors who are reluctant to be involved in the process” (The Times, 16 Apr 07).

Linking the violence of abortion with the advancement of women was an act of supreme hypocrisy. Violence and lies go together. Abortion is a crime against women.

40 years of abortion in Britain

“General measures to regulate population growth to ensure that children are both wanted and planned are desirable….” David Steel mentioned this Memorandum on Therapeutic Abortion issued, in 1966, by the Royal Medico-Psychological Association (now the Royal College of Psychiatrists), during the debates on his Bill. He did not quote this part of it.

Despite growing demographic imbalance, population controllers still try to dictate abortion policy round the world, and seem unstoppable in Britain, like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice’s enchanted broom. ‘Abort early and often’ seems to be Government policy. “Investment in services has been heavily concentrated in early ‘chemical’ abortions for women up to nine weeks pregnant, which are available widely in hospitals and clinics. Late abortion services have almost all been contracted out, partly because many hospital doctors are unwilling to carry out the procedure,” The Times reported on Apr 19 2007.

The number of teenagers having second abortions exceeds 100 a month, according to figures released by the Dept. of Health after a request under the Freedom of Information Act (Life Labour Group News, Summer 2007). Apparently judging that 200,000 abortions a year in England and Wales are not enough, the British Medical Association at its Annual Meeting in 2007 approved the proposal by Dr. Evan Harris MP (why is this MP on the Ethics Committee?) that only one doctor need certify “need” for legal abortion. It turned down his suggestion that nurses could do it, but this might rise again when the Government’s proposed Human Tissues and Embryos Bill is introduced. “Before the end of the year, pro-abortion MPs hope to see a vote in the House of Commons which will allow abortion on demand in the first three months of pregnancy, allow abortions to be performed by nurses and allow abortions to be performed in doctors’ surgeries and family planning clinics” (IMAGE News, July 2007).

Partial-birth abortion ban

“The Supreme Court ruled for the first time that governments can ban a particular abortion procedure, in a decision on Wednesday that emphasised the value of foetal life over a woman’s right to end a pregnancy.” (USA Today, 18 Apr 07).

“The 5-4 decision, upholding Congress’ ban on a method critics call ‘partial birth’ abortion made plain how a single change in a justice can change the law of the land. The ruling marks the first time the court upheld a law that did not have an exception for a mother’s health. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote for the majority, said government may “use its regulatory authority to show the profound respect for the life within the woman.”

The New York Times on 22 May 07 reported “All sides agree that the debate reached a new level of significance when Justice Anthony M. Kennedy . . . approvingly cited a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Justice Foundation.

“The Foundation, a non-profit public interest litigation firm that has handled an array of conservative cases, has increasingly focused on abortion through its project called Operation Outcry. Allan E. Parker Jr., president of the foundation, said they began hearing from women in the late 1990’s who considered themselves victims and wanted to tell their stories. ‘Operation Outcry, which grew to include a web site, a national hotline and chapters around the country, eventually collected statements from more than 2,000 women, officials said. In its friends of the court brief, the group submitted statements from 180 of these women. . .” They were supported by Silent No More, another women’s campaigning group. “‘Thirty-three years of real-life experiences,’ the Foundation said. ‘attest that abortion hurts women and endangers their physical, emotional and psychological health.’ ”

“ ‘While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained’, Justice Kennedy wrote, alluding to the brief. ‘Severe depression and loss of esteem can follow.’ ”

For many years there has been evidence of correlation between abortion and the mother’s subsequent suicide. A paper on Post Abortion Syndrome by Claire Wiles, published in CMQ in February 2007 gives 53 references to studies of psychological harm. The most unchallengeable evidence comes in the now famous paper Abortion in young women and subsequent mental health, by David M. Fergusson, L. John Howard and Elizabeth M. Ridder, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 47:1 (2000), pp. 16-24. A letter in The Times on October 27 2006, signed by 15 consultants, said:

Research pubished in The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry in January has shown that even women without past mental health problems are at risk of psychological ill effects after abortions. Women who had had abortions had twice the risk of major depressive illness as those who had given birth or never been pregnant.

This research has prompted the American Psychological Association to withdraw an official statement denying a link between abortion and psychological harm.

Since women having abortions can no longer be said to have a low risk of suffering from psychiatric conditions such as depression, doctors have a duty to advise about long-term adverse psychological consequences of abortion.

We suggest that the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Psychiatrists revise their guidance, and that future abortion notifications clearly distinguish between physical and mental health grounds for abortion.

PATRICIA CASEY
Professor of Psychiatry,
University College, Dublin

ANDREW SIMS
Past President
Royal College of Psychiatrists

GORDON STIRRAT
Emeritus Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Bristol

and 12 others

One of the signatories, Professor Patricia Casey, reported in the Irish Independent on 14 May 07, “A recent study from London (Davies 2005) comparing those having abortion for fetal anomaly in the first and second trimester found that after one year, 32% met criteria for depression and 41% for post-traumatic stress disorder and concluded ‘psychological morbidity following termination of pregnancy for fetal anomaly is prevalent and persistent.’ ”

“A different approach was taken in a study also published in 2005 in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. It compared the psychological outcome after two different methods of abortion for fetal anomaly and followed the women for one year.

“By 12 months 20-27% were suffering with depression and 73-86% were still grieving, while another study, again published in 2005 from a German centre, compared those who had abortions two weeks previously with those whose pregnancy termination had occurred two to seven years earlier. They speculated that the degree of distress would be higher, in the more recent group, but to their surprise no difference was found in the extent of distress between the two groups.”

A series of excellent Bills to amend the Abortion Act have been defeated in the House of Commons in the past year, since it is the policy of the governing Party to oppose them.

Ann Winterton MP, introducing hers on 5 June, 07, said:

“The general public, too, are unhappy with the present situation, as a recent survey of opinion by Communicate Research has shown. Seventy-eight per cent of women would like a compulsory cooling-off period between diagnosis of pregnancy and abortion. 85% want more help to be given to those who want to keep that baby, 87% think that public funds should go to charities offering alternatives, and 96% want a right to be fully informed about the health risks involved in abortion. . . .

“In December 2005, Finland’s National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health published a three-year study of the entire population of women in Finland. It found that, compared with women who had not been pregnant in the previous year, deaths from suicide, accidents and homicide were 248% higher in the year following an abortion. The study showed that the suicide rate among women who had had abortions was six times higher than that of women who had given birth in the previous year, and double that of women who had suffered miscarriages. . .”

IMAGE News in a recent supplement reported: “Of 248 women who contacted LIFE in response to an advertised request to tell LIFE about their abortion experiences, 204 deeply regretted their abortion. . . .

“One woman who had been given the abortion pill at a family planning clinic delivered her dead child at a petrol station on the way home and remains traumatised.”

Austin Ruse, of C-FAM, reports of the UN: "UNFPA has cast its glance the whole world over, and no matter what is happening anywhere, UNFPA’s proposal to ameliorate the situation is the spreading of ‘Reproductive health services’, ‘Reproductive rights’ and other terms that are used by UN agencies and committee as including abortion, much against the wishes of the Geneva Assembly. The programme aims to increase demand for sexual and reproductive rights across the globe by working with all sectors of society from governments and community leaders to NGOs and the media.” (www.c-fam.org)

Austin Ruse warns against an assault on Africa via the Maputo Protocol and the Maputo Plan of Action. “While IPPF and UNFPA work to get more states to ratify the legally binding Protocol, they are insinuating abortion into health ministries by getting health bureaucrats to implement the non-binding Framework and Plan of Action, both of which call for abortion.”

From the Population Institute, Carlos Tolo (5 Apr 07) writes: “More and more citizens of Latin American countries are aware that they are being lied to and manipulated, and are refusing to compromise. . . Nicaragua last year abolished the sole exception of therapeutic abortion. . . . Its strong defence of life is serving as the catalyst for renewed opposition thoughout Latin America to abortion.” The result is that the momentum has shifted, and the supposed domino effect, following the change of law in Colombia, “is now occurring in the opposite direction.

“Unlike Spain, where pro-choice health officials lied about women’s health issues, the prompt action of the Chilean Congress destroyed any opportunity for a pro-death PR campaign. . . .

“The reverse domino effect may also be affecting Latin America where the anti-American candidates, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia, opposed to abortion and population control, have been elected.” But this year Mexico City, like Portugal, fell to the juggernaut.