So about that abortion thing..

[kentonio]

A new study on women who are refused abortions finds..

We have found that there are no mental health consequences of abortion compared to carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term. There are other interesting findings: even later abortion is safer than childbirth and women who carried an unwanted pregnancy to term are three times more likely than women who receive an abortion to be below the poverty level two years later.

Unfortunately, when it comes to domestic violence, being denied an abortion makes a really big difference. Turnaways were more likely to stay in a relationship with an abusive partner than women who got abortions. A year after being denied an abortion, 7% reported an incident of domestic violence in the last six months. 3% of women who received abortions reported domestic violence in the same time period.

We find physical health complications are more common and severe following birth (38% experience limited activity, average 10 days) compared to abortion (24% limited activity, average 2.7 days). There were no severe complications after abortion; after birth complications included seizure, fractured pelvis, infection and hemorrhage. We find no differences in chronic health conditions at 1 week or one year after seeking abortion.

http://io9.com/5958187/what-happens-...dy-to-find-out

This incidentally comes just after a woman in Ireland died in agony from septecemia after being refused an abortion despite her life being at risk.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-20321741

[MikeH]

Problem is, people who are against abortion don't appear to consider what happens to women worthy of consideration.

[SlowwHand]

Bull****. Stop your stupid generalizations already.

[MikeH]

Oh ok, I look forward to this study changing a lot of minds then.

[Hauldren Collider]

How does this change anything? The core argument of abortion is entirely unrelated to this.

[MikeH]

Told you. x

[Ben Kenobi]

Problem is, people who are for abortion don't appear to consider what happens to women worthy of consideration.

At least not when it comes to suicides after one has had an abortion.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2352979/

Suicide rate is 3.5x for women having an abortion as compared to women who choose to have their child.

[MikeH]

You won't understand this but I'll try anyway.

The important thing about the study kentonio posted is that it compares only women who wanted an abortion - comparing those who got one with those who didn't. Your survey compares with the general population and with the general population of women who give birth but not with the specific population of women who wanted an abortion but didn't receive one. Which is the important data comparison.

Also in another show of how you can't read data : Your survey suggests that women who have an abortion are actually more like 6.33 times more likely to commit suicide than those that give birth.

And another thing - that paper has two hypotheses behind it. Either induced abortion increases risk of suicide, or there are shared risk factors that make both seeking an induced abortion and suicide more likely. Also discussed in a letter replying to the article here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...df/9093119.pdf

[Ming]

Ben, did you even bother to read the conclusions of the study you linked to?????

Women who had committed a suicide tended to come from lower social classes and were more likely to be unmarried than other women who had had a completed pregnancy. CONCLUSIONS: The increased risk of suicide after an induced abortion indicates either common risk factors for both or harmful effects of induced abortion on mental health.

In other words... the higher rate of suicide might just as well have been caused by the fact that they were in a a lower social class, or unmarried. And that this study can not positively prove the point you are trying to make... You claim this is PROOF... yet the conclusions don't back you up.

Typical Ben....

[Hauldren Collider]

Told you. x

Look, it's totally tangential--the central argument is "do we think fetuses are people". I say yes. That sort of overrides almost every other consideration.

[-Jrabbit]

MEN OF APOLYTON: Please stop trying to address the issue of abortion.

Your logic/argument requires major assumptions to support your view; you are not going to change anyone's mind; you have no moral authority; and you are not AFAIK female.

So please, just stop.
Thanks in advance.

[Hauldren Collider]

You do not have to be female to have an opinion on abortion, Jrabbit. What a ridiculous notion.

In fact, to believe that you do, you have to ASSUME the position of the pro-abortion group: That it is about women's rights, and not the rights of the child. You're basically trying to end the debate by saying "la la la la".

[MikeH]

Thanks for backing up my point HC.

I know Slowwhand was right to call bull**** on my generalisation, but I'm sure there are plenty of people like you who don't consider the health and welfare of the mother to be relevant to the discussion at all. Which is how you end up with cases like that horrific Irish case in the OP.

[Hauldren Collider]

Obviously if the pregnancy is high risk, exceptions can be made, but since the vast majority of abortions are elective what the hell is your point?

[Kuciwalker]

For completeness, they should also study the health consequences of abortion for fetuses.