deaths associated with abortion compared to childbirth — a review of new and old data and the...

8/17/2019 DEATHS ASSOCIATED WITH ABORTION COMPARED TO CHILDBIRTH — A REVIEW OF NEW AND OLD DATA AND THE MEDICAL AND LEGAL IMPLICATIONS

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By contrast, the attempted suicide rates before and afterpregnancies ending in abortion rose significantly for each age group

(Figure 3). These findings disprove the hypothesis that suicidalwomen are more likely to become pregnant and choose an abortion.Instead, the researchers concluded, these findings indicate that “theincreased risk of suicide after an induced abortion may therefore be aconsequence of the procedure itself.”

72

The hypothesis that differences in prior psychological illnessaccount for the differences in suicide rates among aborting anddelivering women is also contradicted by the analysis of suicide deathsamong low-income women in California. This study revealed that therelative risk for suicide among aborting women compared to deliveringwomen actually increased from 2.54 to 3.12 when cases were

72Id.

controlled for psychiatric history.73

This suggests that prior psychiatricillness may play a bigger role in suicides following childbirth than it

does in cases of suicide following abortion.74

While it does not appearthat prior psychological history can fully explain the higher suicide ratesassociated with abortion, it is also true that an abortion may aggravatepre-existing psychological disturbances and place this subgroup ofaborting women at a higher risk of suicide.

The above interpretation of record-based studies and case-controlstudies is strongly supported by reports of clinicians and self-reports ofpost-abortive women. A number of published case studies have drawn adirect correlation between abortion and subsequent suicides orattempted suicides.

75In some cases, the attempted or completed

73Reardon, supra note 8, at 838.

74 Id. at 836.

75See generally E. Joanne Angelo, Psychiatric Sequelae of Abortion: The Many Faces


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may also be instructive. Researchers in Finland did such anassessment. During the period examined, deaths from violent causes

accounted for fifty-five percent of the deaths among women who hadbeen pregnant in the previous year. Women who gave birth had onlyforty-seven percent of the risk of death from violence (suicide,accident, or violence) as women who had not been pregnant in theprior year (OR = 0.47; 95% CI = 0.30 to 0.74), while women who hadabortions had 181 percent of the risk of death as women who had notbeen pregnant (OR = 1.81, 95% CI = 1.31 to 2.50).

110The ninety-five

percent confidence limits (CI) for the latter indicates that after allowingfor chance variance in the sample population, it is ninety-five percent

likely that the true odds ratio of death from violence lies somewherebetween 1.31 and 2.50 times higher relative risk for women who hadan abortion in the prior year compared to non-pregnant women.

In the California study, there was not a comparison group to non-pregnant women. Instead, after controlling for age and priorpsychiatric history, the researchers found that over the full eight yearperiod examined, aborting women had a risk of death from violencethat was 178 percent of the risk of death for delivering women (OR =1.78; 95% CI = 1.28 to 2.47).

111Figure 6 represents a graph of the rate

of death per 100,000 women by pregnancy outcome for this group. Itshows that the disparity in deaths from violent causes is greatestnearest the event of abortion or delivery and rapidly declines over fouryears, after which differences in risk of death from violent causes areno longer statistically significant. This time-based effect would seemto support the hypothesis that abortion has a causal direct or indirectimpact on risk of violent deaths at least within the first four years afteran abortion. The decline in risk over four years may be explained bythe healing effects of time as women process their grief and overcomeself-destructive tendencies that were caused or aggravated by theirabortions.

110Mika Gissler & Elina Hemminki, Pregnancy-Related Violent Deaths, 27

SCANDINAVIAN J. PUBLIC HEALTH 54 (1999).

111 Reardon, supra note 8, at 835.


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deaths associated with abortion compared to childbirth — a review of new and old data and the...

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