No Evidence the College Attempted to Disseminate This Important Health Risk Information
TORONTO, April 23, 2002 (LSN.ca) – A study sponsored by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario found that abortion very significantly increases the risk of serious infection, need for further surgery and psychiatric problems. Interestingly, there is no evidence that the College attempted to disseminate this important abortion health risk information to Ontario women.
The study came to the attention of LifeSite from the introduction pages of the deVeber Institute’s new book “Women’s Health after Abortion: The Medical and Psychological Evidence.” The study was published in the June 2001 issue of the American Journal of Medical Quality. An extensive search of Canadian news published since that date did not produce any references to the study. Jakki Jeffs of Alliance for Life Ontario told LifeSite that the College’s failure to publicize the results is “outrageous”. Jeffs said, “They had a duty once they found out, they are supposed to be concerned about protecting women’s health.”
The study compared 41,039 women who had induced abortions and a similar number who did not undergo induced abortion. It investigated short-term consequences only, yet in the three-month post-abortion period, hospital patients had a more than four-times higher rate of hospitalization for infections (6.3 vs. 1.4 per 1000), a five-times higher rate of “surgical events” (8.2 vs 1.6 per 1000), and a nearly five times higher rate of hospitalization for psychiatric problems (5.2 vs. 1.1 per 1000), than the matching group of women who did not have abortions. While the women who had abortions in clinics fared somewhat better, the authors warned that the clinics “cannot easily follow the medium-term outcomes subsequent to the services they provide.” That is, post-abortion clinic patients often do not go back to the abortionists after experiencing problems and their symptoms are often not recorded as post-abortion complications by the hospitals or physicians who treat them.