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According to David Reardon, Ph.D., the author of numerous medical studies on abortion and director of the Elliot Institute, thirty years of experience with abortion has revealed medical risks that were unanticipated in 1973.  “When Roe and Doe were decided, the Court accepted at face value the claim that women were more likely to die from childbirth than from an abortion. Over just the last six years, two major record based studies have proven that the opposite is true.  Abortion is associated with a significant rise in mortality rates, which persists over many years.  In addition to a six-fold increase in deaths from suicide, over the longer term women are at significantly higher risk of death from breast cancer and cardiovascular disease, which is probably mediated by higher levels of anxiety and depression.” Other physical complications associated with abortion include elevated rates of pelvic inflammatory disease, miscarriage, and premature delivery of later pregnancies. Emotional complications are even more common.  Reardon, who co-authored “Forbidden Grief: The Unspoken Pain of Abortion” with Theresa Burke, Ph.D., says emotional problems are more common than physical complications after an abortion. Recent studies have shown that women who have abortions have significantly higher rates of depression over long periods of time compared to similar women who carry unintended or unwanted pregnancies to term.  In addition, compared to women who give birth, women who abort are significantly more likely to subsequently engage in substance abuse, suicidal behavior, or require psychiatric hospitalization.  They are also more likely to have subsequent relationship problems and divorce.  Cano’s and McCorvey’s motions, Reardon says, offer the federal courts their first opportunity to hear directly from the women themselves how abortion has affected their lives.  “After thirty years of experience in counseling and performing abortions, the medical community has still not measured or quantified any significant benefits from abortion.  We have measured a lot of risks, but there are no quantified benefits in regard to the physical, psychological, social, or even economic well-being of women.  All the claims of benefit are anecdotal. But patient’s need to know the likelihood that a treatment will produce the benefits they seek. Do women who abort to save a relationship, for example, keep their man and live happily ever after? The best evidence indicates no.  Any objective risk- benefit analysis reveals that abortion is a poor choice. Doctors who practice evidence based medicine would never recommend an abortion in the light of today’s research.”