Abortion and Women's Health

19 March 2014

Editor

LO Review

Shelby Bennett states some facts in her column (LO Review, 3/13/14) that make it seem as though abortion were bad for women. Allow me to clarify the statistics. She wrote, "25% of women who have had abortions eventually seek out psychiatric care." If her statement is true, then the percentage of women seeking psychiatric care after having an abortion is below the average for the general population. That percentage is 26%-27%. Since those seeking psychiatric care are 63% women and 37% men, the number of women in the general  population who seek psychiatric care is 31% of all women. In other words, if a woman has an abortion, she is much less likely to seek psychiatric care than if she did not have an abortion. Add to that statistic the 12% of new mothers who seek psychiatric care for perinatal depression, and there is no question that abortion is much less harrowing than giving birth.

Shelby Bennett also states that "each abortion increases (the woman's) risk of breast cancer 300%." Where she got those numbers is suspect. No studies I have found link spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) or induced abortion ('abortion') to breast cancer. In fact, generally the studies conclude that breast cancer risk is not affected by abortion one way or the other. While there is a reduced risk of breast cancer in young women (under 30) who have carried a fetus full-term, that full-term pregnancy might be the woman's first pregnancy or her fifth pregnancy, the first four having been ended by abortion.

And last, the risk of dying from an abortion is one-tenth that associated with childbirth.

So, with regard to a woman's mental and physical well-being, she is much better off having an abortion than carrying a fetus full-term.