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The Forum > Article Comments > Choosing abortion is the greatest regret of my life > Comments

Choosing abortion is the greatest regret of my life : Comments

By Madeleine Weidemann, published 18/10/2018

I named my baby later to acknowledge the child that I was still grieving for. I began to imagine the life she could have had.

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Fergusson reported experiencing difficulties getting his study published since the results contradicted the prevailing view that abortion does not have mental health consequences.

Saying that his studies were normally accepted the first time, Fergusson reported that the first of his studies on abortion was rejected by four journals because of the controversial nature of his findings. He was also asked to not publish the results by New Zealand's Abortion Supervisory Committee, the government agency responsible for regulating compliance with the country's abortion laws. He refused to comply with the request because he felt it would be "scientifically irresponsible" to hide the findings.

Unfortunately, he later succumbed to pressure, and following further reviews of other abortion-related research, Fergusson watered down his public position to one that abortion posed a small to moderate increase in risk of some mental health problems.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_M._Fergusson

By the way, in a paper published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry in April 2013, entitled “Does abortion reduce the mental health risks of unwanted or unintended pregnancy? A re-appraisal of the evidence”, Fergusson analysed Professor Coleman’s study which you rightly pointed out had been heavily criticised, and concluded that neither her methodology, nor her findings were flawed.

See http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0004867413484597
Posted by BigAlOz, Tuesday, 30 October 2018 6:49:25 AM
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Dear BigAlOz,

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I agree, the late David Fergusson’s research is worth mentioning.

The research he undertook was so vast and complex that even he admitted the study had enough shortcomings to warrant caution in reading too much into the findings. Perhaps, most significantly, Ferguson and his colleagues did not separate out for analysis purposes women whose pregnancies were unintended and women whose pregnancies were wanted, as did the Royal Colleges' researchers. The authors themselves admitted that this was a significant failing.

The Guttmacher Institute commented on the study in the following terms :

« Two studies from New Zealand suggesting that abortion may be associated with or possibly cause later mental health problems employed a more rigorous methodology than many prior studies addressing the issue, but they still have significant shortcomings.

• The principal methodological strength of both studies, which were conducted by David Fergusson and colleagues, is that they followed the same groups of women over an extended period of time.

• Nonetheless, the APA review of the 2006 Fergusson study cautions that “several design features limit conclusions that can be drawn from this study,” among them failing to control for the wantedness or intentionality of pregnancy, not separating women who had multiple abortions from those who had only one, and not accounting for the underreporting of abortion.

• The 2008 Fergusson study likewise did not separate women who had multiple abortions from those who had only one, and it did not account for underreporting of abortion. This study also did not determine that women who had abortions were more likely than women who had unintended births (or other pregnancy outcomes) to have subsequent mental health problems; instead, the authors compared women who experienced each pregnancy outcome (abortion, pregnancy loss, unintended birth, intended birth) with women who had not experienced that particular pregnancy outcome (e.g., women who had an abortion were compared with all women who had not had an abortion, when the appropriate comparison group would have been all other women whose unintended pregnancy did not end in abortion) » :

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(Continued …)

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Posted by Banjo Paterson, Wednesday, 31 October 2018 1:31:11 AM
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(Continued …)

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http://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/article_files/advisory-abortion-mental-health.pdf

Also, see pp 88-89 of the APA Task Force Report on Mental Health and Abortion :

http://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/abortion/mental-health.pdf
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My impression is that Fergusson was an honest person but the task was simply so immense he was unable to control it with all the rigour necessary. The initial results were so obviously controversial it is quite understandable that four professional journals refused to publish them until they had been peer reviewed.

As it turned out, they were right. Fergusson and his co-authors admitted that themselves. It had nothing to do with any “pressure” or ceding to “politically correctness”, as you suggest.

Fergusson does not strike me as being the sort of person to cede to any form of pressure from anybody. In a letter to the New Zealand Abortion Supervisory Committee in June 2004, he said he was fully aware of "the circus" that publication would provoke. But it would be "scientifically irresponsible" not to publish the results just because they were controversial, he wrote in the letter, released under the Official Information Act.

"To provide a parallel to this situation, if we were to find evidence of an adverse reaction to medication, we would be obliged ethically to publish that fact," he told the NZPA.
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The link you provided does not substantiate your statement that “Fergusson analysed Professor Coleman’s study which you rightly pointed out had been heavily criticised, and concluded that neither her methodology, nor her findings were flawed”. Please re-send.
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You wrote :

« Instead of quoting at length from pro-abortion ideologues like Linda Gordon and medical bodies which have been captured by the Left … »

Linda Gordon is an American feminist and historian. She is University Professor of the Humanities and Professor of History at New York University.

Western society historically allowed abortion. She defends these historical women’s rights :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Gordon
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Would you please provide details of those persons involved in what you consider to be “medical bodies which have been captured by the Left”, and why you think they are less competent than the "Right".

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Posted by Banjo Paterson, Wednesday, 31 October 2018 1:37:12 AM
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