Springfield, IL (LifeNews.com) -- A prominent researcher into the adverse effects abortion has on women says a study LifeNews.com highlighted last month showing abortion causes mental distress and a host of other problems for women should prompt abortion practitioners to reconsider performing abortions on some women.

Last month, LifeNews.com reported on a New Zealand study showing abortion causes severe depression for women. The research found that 42 percent of the women who had abortions had experienced major depression within the last four years. That's almost double the rate of women who never became pregnant.

The risk of anxiety disorders also doubled. According to researcher Dr. David Reardon, the director of the Elliot Institute, who has published more than a dozen studies investigating abortion's impact on women, Fergusson’s study reinforces a growing body of literature showing that doctors in New Zealand, Britain and elsewhere face legal and ethical obligations to discourage or refuse contraindicated abortions.

He indicated New Zealand law allows abortions only when the pregnancy would endanger a woman's mental health (among other factors) and doctors in England are only supposed to perform abortions when the risks of physical or psychological injury from allowing the pregnancy to continue are "greater than if the pregnancy was terminated."

"Fergusson's study underscores that fact that evidence-based medicine does not support the conjecture that abortion will protect women from 'serious danger' to their mental health," Reardon said. "Instead, the best evidence indicates that abortion is more likely to increase the risk of mental health problems," he added.

"Physicians who ignore this study may no longer be able to argue that they are acting in good faith and may therefore be in violation of the law," Dr. Reardon explained.


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