January 7, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The December 2004 edition of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (AJOG) has published a letter to the editor from Dr. Nathan J. Hoeldtke of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Tripler Army Medical Center, Honolulu, pointing out the failure by authors of a Finnish study to report the relationship between abortion and increased incidence of suicide.
The 2004 study, Pregnancy-associated mortality after birth, spontaneous abortion, or induced abortion in Finland, failed to take into account the higher risk of death by intentional accident after abortion. Abortion advocates routinely scoff at any suggestion of long-term emotional effects of abortion and claim that it is more dangerous to carry a pregnancy to term.
In his letter, Dr. Hoeldtke says, for unclear reasons, the authors excluded deaths from unintentional accidental injuries and intentional injuries in their analysis of pregnancy-associated mortality. The author of the Finnish study showed in previous research that a post-abortive woman abortion is 6 times more likely to die from suicide (intentional injury) than women who give birth, and 3 times more likely to commit suicide than the general population.
Dr. Hoeldtke continued that “A woman obtaining an induced abortion appears to be at increased risk for dying from violent causes in the near future, including suicide. The stark reality underlying these statistics would seem to represent a significant public health concern that warrants further investigation”.