By Gudrun Schultz
SPRINGFIELD, Illinois, February 16, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The American Psychological Association (APA) has said that the effect of abortion on women’s mental health has no relevance in determining the association’s support for abortion.
In a special LifeSiteNews report from the Elliot Institute, a spokesperson for the APA openly stated that the Association supports abortion as a civil right, and therefore research contradicting claims that abortion improves women’s health would have no effect on the APA’s position, because “to pro-choice advocates, mental health effects are not relevant.”
The APA holds extensive scientific authority on mental health issues—the association’s support for abortion over the past thirty years has been based on claims that in many cases abortion is necessary for women’s mental health through freedom from “unwanted childbearing.”
“Thirty-five years ago, when the APA joined in the effort to legalize abortion, they were promising more than just ‘relief,’” said Dr. David Reardon of the Elliot Institute in the report. “They were insisting that abortion would fundamentally improve women’s mental and physical health by sparing them the burden of unwanted children. But 38 million abortions later, there is still not a single statistically-validated study that has shown that abortion has actually improved the lives of women who abort compared to those who carry to term.”
Researchers in Christchurch, New Zealand, whose extensive study found clear links between abortion and women’s mental health problems, accused the APA of selectively ignoring current research that shows the negative effects of abortion on women’s mental health.
They suggested that the APA defense of abortion is based on seriously flawed studies, long outdated, and refuted by research from the last seven years clearly showing negative effects from abortion. In an interesting twist, the Christchurch research team, which supports abortion, undertook their study in order to attempt to refute claims that abortion damaged women’s mental health.
View the full Elliot Institute report here:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/feb/060216A.html