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PR: Call for Medical Council to Make Abortion Effects Known
25.09.2007
One of Ireland’s leading pro-life organisations has called on the Medical Council to assist in increasing awareness of the adverse effects of abortion on women undergoing the procedure. ‘The evidence of harm caused by abortion to women is now overwhelming’, said Carolyn Johnston of Youth Defence, ‘Medical practitioners should be doing more to highlight the serious physical and psychological effects of abortion.’
The call came in Youth Defence’s submission to the Medical Council, who had invited public submissions as part of a review of the Council’s Ethical Guidelines.
The YD submission stated: ‘There is now strong evidence that women who choose abortion subsequently suffer from higher rates of depression, self-harm and psychiatric hospitalisation than those who carry their babies to term. This evidence has been strengthened by the findings of a large longitudinal study from New Zealand published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry in January 2006, which demonstrated that women who had abortions had twice the level of mental health problems and three times the risk of major depressive illness as those who had either given birth or never been pregnant.’
Youth Defence said that women were being referred for abortion without being made aware of all the possible consequences of the abortion procedure, and urged that those risks be made known to Irish women. The pro-life group also said that abortion referral agencies were ‘grossly dishonest’ when they denied the humanity of the unborn child. They also said such agencies were colluding in the murder of Irish citizens.
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