TORONTO, November 11, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A leading bioethical research institute has a released a new book highlighting ground-breaking research by medical professionals into the physical, psychological and social complications that women experience as a result of abortion.
Complications: Abortion’s Impact on Women was released Thursday by The deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research at a book launch at the University of Toronto.
The book has been nearly ten years in the making and includes over 100 interviews with women who have had abortions along with contributions from a variety of physicians, psychiatrists and researchers. This information was compiled and analyzed by authors Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, Dr. Ian Gentles and Dr. Elizabeth-Ring Cassidy.
At Thursday’s launch, Dr. Gentles said the book’s poignant conclusion is that “abortion is a psychological and physical disaster on women.”
“Every doctor, teacher, counselor, minister, health policy maker, elected government official, nurse and woman who has experienced an abortion or might contemplate one needs to have this book,” he said.
Using data gathered from over 650 papers, mostly in medical and psychological journals, as well as a number of books and official publications, the ill effects that abortion has on women are undeniably laid out in 21 systematic chapters.
The book examines data concerning abortion complications in an effort to reach medical professionals, counselors and women contemplating abortion since this information is largely unknown and unpublicized.
Complications concludes that abortion is detrimental in all areas of women’s health, and includes substantive evidence demonstrating the link between abortion and a variety of health problems including breast cancer, infertility, autoimmune disease and mental health problems along with a multitude of other complications.
Despite some objections that many women undergo induced abortions without experiencing any adverse affects, Complications also examines stories of women on their deathbeds who were haunted by abortions committed decades ago. Collected by palliative nurse Jean Echlin, these stories highlight the dormant effects that manifest themselves late in a woman’s life as well.
“This book comes as an enormous relief to many of us who have been studying abortion for decades. Finally, there is a credible, evidence-based resource to inform medicine, psychology, and law. Moreover, the science is now available in a condensed and easily accessible form to women facing difficult pregnancies and coping with ill-effects of the procedure”, writes Dr. Priscilla Coleman, PhD, professor at Bowling Green University.
Despite the controversial subject in the medical field, the book also highlights new research by psychiatric journals in different parts of the world. Chapter 17, for example, examines a recent meta-analysis published in the British Journal of Psychiatry that found women who have had one or more abortions suffered an 81% greater risk of mental health problems than woman who did not.
The conclusion of the book reveals a variety of counter-intuitive and unexpected findings. For example, they found that “countries where abortion is freely available, such as the US, the UK, Russia and Hungary have a generally worse record on infant and maternal health than countries where abortion has long been unavailable such as Ireland, Egypt, Uganda.” Other suppositions include abortion and the seriously skewed sex ratios in Asia, rise in single-parenthood and child poverty, and the decrease of available health information for women of risks surrounding the procedure.
To buy copies of the book Complications: Abortion’s Impact on Women, please click here.