From the Naples Daily News
Guest commentary:

To the contrary, evidence shows abortion is actually hazardous to women’s health

ELIZABETH ANN SUAREZ, Special to the Daily News
4:43 p.m., Saturday, February 9, 2008

On Jan. 22 I participated in my first anti-abortion march — along Creech and Goodlette-Frank roads in Naples on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade with my children Johnny, age 1, and Victoria, 3.

Pink T-shirted Planned Parenthood people joined my family with signs that read: “Protect Women’s Health.”  I wished I had engaged one or two in honest discussion, but I was quiet.

And so now, I remain honestly befuddled. What could they possibly mean?

In all of my research, I’ve yet to find a shred of scientific evidence showing women’s health is enhanced from an abortion. Yet, since 2000 there have been at least 17 studies published in leading medical journals that indicate a significant correlation between abortion and mental and physical problems.

In October 2006, some 15 of Great Britain’s leading obstetricians and gynecologists penned an open letter to the London Times acknowledging the psychological consequences of abortion.

Done dragging its heels, the American Psychological Association is convening a task force to study abortion and mental health, following criticism from even the pro-choice researchers.
Consider: If you have aborted:
-- You run a 65 percent higher risk of clinical depression (Medical Science Monitor, 2003).
-- You’re 3 1⁄2 times more likely to die from suicide, accidents or homicides in the following year (European Journal of Public Health, 2005).
-- You’re likely to have trouble bonding with subsequent children and experience impaired mothering skills (Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2002).
-- You’re five times more likely to report subsequent drug or alcohol abuse than if you deliver (American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 2000).
-- You’re 160 percent more likely to be hospitalized for psychiatric treatment than if you had delivered (Canadian Medical Association Journal, 2003).

While it’s commonly accepted among medical professionals that childbirth protects against cancer of the reproductive system, abortion is turning out to be one of the best predictors of breast cancer, according to Patrick Carroll, director of research at Britain’s Pension and Population Institute. Using a mathematical formula, the statistician was able to almost perfectly predict rates of breast cancer in England, Wales, Ireland and other countries based on their varying incidences of abortion! The study came out in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons last October.

This is no news to scientists like pro-choice researcher Janet Daling. She tried to publicize the abortion/breast cancer link back in 1994, only to see it wiped off the National Cancer Institute’s Web site. She was quoted in the Los Angeles Daily News as saying, “I have three sisters with breast cancer, and I resent people messing around with scientific data to further their own agenda, be they pro-choice or pro-life. I would have loved to have found no association between breast cancer and abortion, but our research is rock solid, and our data is accurate. It’s not a matter of believing. It’s a matter of what is.”

Post-abortive teens with a family history of breast cancer are the biggest losers, acknowledges Daling and others. They can just plain expect to get it in their later years.

If you abort you can also expect:
-- A death rate that is three times higher than that associated with childbirth (Pediatric Perinatal Epidemiology, 2004).
-- A 60 percent higher risk of miscarriage during a subsequent pregnancy (BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 2006).
-- The odds of being left sterile 6 percent of the time and having immediate physical complications from abortion at least 11 percent of the time (Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists).
And, of course, you can expect that not-for-profit Planned Parenthood, which sucked in close to $900 million in revenues in 2006 (a third was in taxpayer-funded subsidies) and made upwards of $50 million in profits, will not level with you about any of the above.

Elizabeth Ann Suarez has lived in Naples for six years. She has worked as editor of a small Ohio community newspaper and been a teacher of dance and English. Now she says she is a full-time mother and substitute teacher. Abortion, she believes, is “the premier civil rights issue of our time.”