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For other abortion news, please visit: Life News
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Barack Obama Picks Long-Time Abortion Advocate Joe Biden as Running Mate
 Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Barack Obama, on Saturday, selected one of the Senate's most ardent abortion advocates as his vice-presidential running mate. In Joe Biden, Obama has someone who's abortion views mirror his own -- by supporting unlimited abortions and wanting judges who will keep all abortions legal 35 more years.
Obama has been under fire for weeks for his strongly pro-abortion views -- favoring taxpayer-funded abortions, opposing a partial-birth abortion ban, and opposing a bill in the Illinois legislature that would protect newborns who survive abortions. Choosing Biden as his running mate won't help him moderate those views that are clearly out of step with most Americans. Biden is a fierce abortion proponent and someone who has made a reputation out of badgering Supreme Court nominees about abortion during confirmation hearings. In fact, before he dropped out of the Democratic primary race Obama eventually won, Biden confirmed he would have a pro-abortion litmus test for his own possible judicial picks. "I would not appoint anyone who did not understand that Section 5 of the 14th Amendment and the Liberty Clause of the 14th Amendment provided a right to privacy ... which means they would support Roe v. Wade," he said in a November debate. He received a pro-life voting record of 0 percent from the National Right to Life Committee for 2007-2008. Full story at LifeNews.com.
Pro-Life Group Says Barack Obama More Pro-Abortion Than VP Pick Joe Biden
 Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Joe Biden may be a strong abortion advocate, but the legislative liaison for one pro-life group that closely monitors Congress says Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is worse. National Right to Life says Biden has supported two modest pro-life efforts while Obama has been 100% pro-abortion. Douglas Johnson, the legislative director for National Right to Life, tells LifeNews.com there is no disputing Biden's pro-abortion views. Yet, Johnson explained that Biden has supported the pro-life position on three occasions where Obama has not. "Biden has supported the Hyde Amendment and some other laws to prevent tax funding of abortion, while Obama advocates the repeal of the Hyde Amendment and tax funded abortion on demand," Johnson told LifeNews.com. Biden also sided with the pro-life community on partial-birth abortion in 1999, while Obama opposes it. Biden and Obama also contrast on the Born Alive Infants Protection Act -- a measure that requires medical personnel to provide proper medical care for newborns who are purposefully born prematurely or survive botched abortions. While Obama said he would have voted for the federal version of the bill that Biden voted for, he opposed an Illinois version when he served in that state's legislature. Although Biden is unacceptable on pro-life issues, Obama's picking him makes it clear yet again that Obama is perhaps the most radically pro-abortion presidential candidate since Roe v. Wade in 1973. Full story at LifeNews.com.
Joe Biden Makes It Easier for Catholics to Oppose Pro-Abortion Barack Obama
 Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A pro-life Catholic group says it will be easier for Catholic voters to reject Barack Obama as president now that he has strong abortion advocate Joe Biden on board. Although some pundits say Biden is an Irish Catholic who will help Obama in states like Pennsylvania, Brian Burch says he will turn off voters. Burch, the head of the pro-life organization Fidelis, tells LifeNews.com that Biden's pro-abortion views, like Obama's, pose a major challenge for American Catholics. Fidelis warned late last month that a pro-abortion Catholic choice as a vice presidential candidate would offend many Catholics who have struggled with the scandal of prominent pro-abortion Catholic politicians like Senator Biden. “Barack Obama has re-opened a wound among American Catholics by picking a pro-abortion Catholic politician," Burch said. "The American bishops have made clear that Catholic political leaders must defend the dignity of every human person, including the unborn. Sadly, Joe Biden’s tenure in the United States Senate has been marked by steadfast support for legal abortion." Burch pointed to history to support his contention. In 2004, John Kerry’s support for abortion sparked a nationwide controversy over whether Catholics who support legal abortion can receive communion. “Now everywhere Biden campaigns, we'll have this question of whether a pro-abortion Catholic can receive communion," he told LifeNews.com. Full story at LifeNews.com.
Senator Joe Biden: A Look at His Pro-Abortion Voting Record Through the Years
 Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Though he has sided with pro-life advocates on occasion -- such as supporting a ban on partial-birth abortions -- Biden has compiled one of the strongest pro-abortion records in the Senate. He received a pro-life voting record of 0 percent from the National Right to Life Committee for 2007-2008. He has supported the Hyde amendment to prohibit federal funding of abortions but also supported taxpayer funding of abortions in other instances. In February, Biden voted against an amendment to limit federal funding of abortions in the health care program for Indian Americans. He has also voted to make the U.S. military pay for and perform abortions on women in the armed services. Biden put his pro-abortion views on record by voting for a Senate resolution in March 2003 that said the chamber supports the Roe v. Wade decision that allowed for virtually unlimited abortions throughout pregnancy. Biden also opposed the Child Custody Protection Act, a bill that would uphold the parental notification laws of a teenager's home state and prohibit someone other than her parents from taking her to another state for a secret abortion. Biden was also out of step with the American public in March 2004, when he voted against the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. That was the legislation to protect pregnant women and their unborn children -- like Laci and Conner Peterson --from violence. The bill eventually became federal law and 36 states have similar laws on the books. Full story at LifeNews.com.
Copy of New York Times Announcement of APA Findings:
Briefing | Science and Health
Abortion Does Not Cause Mental Illness, Panel Says
By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: August 12, 2008
Women who choose to abort an unwanted pregnancy may experience feelings of grief and loss, but there is no evidence that a single abortion causes significant mental health problems, a panel of the American Psychological Association reported after two years of study. The findings are almost identical to a similar review by the association in 1990. “The best scientific evidence published indicates that among adult women who have an unplanned pregnancy, the relative risk of mental health problems is no greater if they have a single elective, first-trimester abortion or deliver that pregnancy,” Brenda Major, chairwoman of the panel, said in a statement. But the report also found that many of the more than 150 studies it reviewed had major flaws, and it called for better-designed studies “to help disentangle confounding factors” like income and medical history.
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Responses to the APA Statement:
Leaders of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign (SNMAC), the world's largest network of women and men harmed by abortion, today leveled stinging criticism at a new American Psychological Association report claiming abortion is "not a threat to women's mental health."
"The American Psychological Association's so-called study is nothing more than a conclusion supported by opinions screened to match that predetermined outcome," said Georgette Forney, co-founder of SNMAC, and ARIN Board Chairperson. "The APA ignored or downplayed large, peer- reviewed studies showing a clear link between abortion and subsequent problems such as depression. Professionalism and intellectual honesty are not concepts I would associate with this report."
"It's a classic case of the abortion lobby's political and financial interests trumping the truth," added Janet Morana, also a co-founder of SNMAC and ARIN Board Member. "Over 600 post- abortive women asked to meet with the APA about their experiences with abortion and depression. The APA brushed them off, just like it dismissed any scientific study that didn't agree with its agenda."
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American Psychological Association Ignores Abortion-Mental Health Problem Link
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 13, 2008
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A panel of the American Psychological Association released a new report Wednesday that came to the conclusion skeptics predicted. The organization, which supports legalized abortion, claims abortion causes no mental health problems despite recent research proving otherwise.
The group's conclusions aren't a surprise given that pro-life advocates and a psychology professor both noted the organization stacked the panel with abortion advocates.
The panel's report concluded women who have abortions may experience some grief and a sense of loss, but it claimed there is no evidence showing abortion causes significant mental health issues.
Brenda Major, chairwoman of the panel, released the official APA statement.
“The best scientific evidence published indicates that among adult women who have an unplanned pregnancy, the relative risk of mental health problems is no greater if they have a single elective, first-trimester abortion or deliver that pregnancy,” she wrote.
The report also claimed that many of the studies concerning abortion and its link to subsequent mental health issues are flawed.
However, those studies, including a recent one from researchers in Norway, are published in peer-reviewed medical journals and none of them appeared to receive complaints about their methodology at the time.
The Norwegian study, conducted by Dr. Willy Pedersen, was recently published in the Scandinavian Journal of Public Health.
The authors make the link clear in the conclusion of the abstract: "Young adult women who undergo induced abortion may be at increased risk for subsequent depression."
The Norwegian researchers studied 5,768 women between the ages of 15 and 27 years and asked then questions concerning abortion and childbirth as well as family relationships and a number of individual characteristics, such as schooling and occupational history and conduct problems.
The results showed, "Young women who reported having had an abortion in their twenties were more likely to score above the cut-off point for depression."
Other studies have shown serious mental health concerns for a high percentage of women having abortions.
A study earlier this month in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology found 30 percent of women who purchase the abortion drug mifepristone on the Internet experience depression and negative feelings accompanying the abortion.
The most prominent study of abortion's link to mental health issues comes from New Zealand.
The New Zealand study found that having an abortion as a young woman raises the risk of developing mental health problems such as depression and anxiety.
Some 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 the study, women who have abortions were twice as likely to drink alcohol at dangerous levels and three times as likely to be addicted to illegal drugs.
David Fergusson, an abortion advocate who led the study, said the results show access to legal abortions is not necessarily good for women. He also said the study confirms abortions cause women mental health issues -- rather than alleviating them as abortion advocates claim.
Meanwhile, researchers at Bowling Green State University in 2004 examined data on nearly 11,000 women between the ages of 15 and 34 who had experienced an unintended pregnancy.
Their survey found that women who have abortions of unexpected pregnancies were 30 percent more likely to experience subsequent problems with anxiety than those who don't have one.
Women in the study who had abortions and suffered from general anxiety disorder experienced irritability, fatigue, difficulty sleeping, a pounding or racing heart, or feelings of unreality.
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APA Report Disregards Large Body of Evidence Linking Abortion and Decreased Mental Health, Care Net Says
WASHINGTON, August 13 /Christian Newswire/ -- Care Net President Melinda Delahoyde responded Wednesday to a draft report released by the American Psychological Association that claims there is no risk of mental health problems after one abortion. Delahoyde said the report will have "devastating consequences on women if health professionals follow the APA and withhold potentially lifesaving information about the risks of abortion."
"The APA has completely disregarded credible research that shows abortion increasing the risk of clinical depression, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, and post-traumatic stress disorder," said Delahoyde. "The report's conclusion also flies in the face of what pregnancy centers see every day: the anguish of thousands of women and men every year - 13,000 in 2006 alone - who visit Care Net centers seeking help from a past abortion."
"Finally, the APA's report also contradicts what the Supreme Court recognized in Gonzales v. Carthart - that abortion holds considerable emotional health risks for women," said Delahoyde. "In the words of Carhart, women experience 'grief more anguished and sorrow more profound' when they are not informed of the truth about abortion. The Court's conclusion was based on thousands of affidavits of women who testified to experiencing 'severe depression and loss of esteem.'"
"The APA may continue to politicize abortion, but Care Net and its network of affiliated pregnancy centers are committed to providing medically referenced and accurate information about abortion risks to empower women to make informed health decisions," said Delahoyde. "We've heard too many anguished women over the years say, 'I wish someone would have told me abortion would cause me this much grief.' Women deserve the truth."
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Chair of APA Abortion Report Task Force Violates APA Ethics Rules
Lead Author Refuses to Release Abortion Data
Collected Under Federal Grant
Springfield, IL (August 13, 2008) - The credibility of a new report on the mental health effects of abortion from the American Psychological Association is tarnished by the fact that the lead author, Dr. Brenda Major, has violated the APA's own data sharing rules by consistently refusing to allow her own data on abortion and mental health effects to be reanalyzed by other researchers.
Major, a proponent of abortion rights, has even evaded a request from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to deliver copies of data she collected under a federal grant. Because her study of emotional reactions two years after an abortion was federally funded, the data she collected is actually federal property. But in Major's response to 2004 HHS request for a copy of the data, Major excused herself from delivering the data writing, "It would be very difficult to pull this information together."
However, a researcher familiar with Major's work, David Reardon of the Elliot Institute, has seen portions of Major's unpublished findings. Reardon, who has published over a dozen studies on abortion and mental health, believes Major is withholding the data to prevent her findings supporting a link between abortion and subsequent health problems from coming to light.
"Brenda's last published study using this data set was released in 2000, after she moved to her present facility in 1995," said Reardon. "Immediately after that publication one of my colleagues requested a break down of details which had only been superficially summarized in one her tables. One of her grad students replied on her behalf with the additional summary statistics we had requested within 48 hours. So it clearly wasn't at all difficult for her team to access the data. Plus, with modern electronic data bases and multiple backup procedures in place at universities like hers, it is nearly impossible to lose such data."
According to Reardon, Major has not responded to any further requests regarding the data since early in 2000. "I know of a number of experts in the field who have requested the data, even within the last six months. But she simply doesn't respond to their calls, emails, or letters," said Reardon.
"This is very troubling on two counts. First, it the APA's own ethics rule, 8.14, requires research psychologists to share their data for verification of findings. Secondly, she is the chair of the APA Abortion Task Force which is, at least in theory, supposed to bring full and clear light to this issue. But how can we trust the objectivity of a report prepared by a task force composed exclusively of pro-choice psychologists, especially when the chair and lead author has a history of withholding data and findings which may undermine her ideological preferences?"
According to Reardon the additional details from Major's study released in 2000 actually revealed that a significant number of women interviewed by Major did attribute negative reactions to their abortions, but those findings have never been published.
"There is no doubt that she has selectively reported her findings," said Reardon. "We have seen in the unpublished tables details about specific negative reactions which were obscured in her published report by combining them with three to eight other reactions to create watered down, composite scores.
"In my view, it is irresponsible not to report the significant findings associated with individual symptoms. For example, she found that a number of women reported that they tried to cope with negative feelings about their abortions by drinking more or taking drugs. But she has never not fully shared the details on these reactions in any of her published studies, and by refusing to share her data for reanalysis by others, she has prevented anyone else from reporting these findings either."
Reardon believes that the newly released APA Abortion Task Force report is also flawed by a pattern of wording and reporting which tends to obscure rather than clarify what researchers have found about the mental health effects associated with abortion. The primary conclusion of the report, as highlighted in the APA news release, is that "There is no credible evidence that a single elective abortion of an unwanted pregnancy in and of itself causes mental health problems for adult women…"
According to Reardon, this nuanced statement is intended to convey a message that abortion has no mental health risks but those familiar with the literature will see that it actually admits that there is compelling evidence that there are negative effects for:
- women who have multiple abortions, which accounts for about half of all abortions);
- women who abort of a wanted pregnancy because of coercion or pressure to abort from third parties and may account for about 20-60% of all abortions;
- minors who have abortions; and
- women with preexisting mental health problems in which case abortion may not "in and of itself" be the sole cause of mental health problems but may instead trigger or aggravate preexisting problems.
"Even the modifier that there is 'no credible evidence' of mental health risks in the ideal case of a low risk abortion patient is an admission that there is indeed some evidence that a single abortion can pose a risk to the mental health of a emotionally stable, adult woman," said Reardon. "In fact, the report itself identifies a whole host of studies providing such evidence, but it mutes a clear presentation of the findings of these studies by focusing on the limitations of each study's methodology, which all studies have, in order to justify ignoring their clear implications."
While Reardon agrees that the body of the report includes admissions that abortion does negatively impact some women, he is deeply concerned that the summary introduction and conclusion and press releases all fail to emphasize five key points which are clear in the literature and even explicitly or implicitly stated within the 91-page Task Force report. The five points he believes should be made, without room for controversy are:
- Some women suffer emotional harm from abortion.
- Some women feel pressured into unwanted abortions.
There are well established risk factors identifying the women most likely to suffer negative psychological factors to abortion, including being pressured into an abortion, and that it is incumbent on therapists treating women considering an abortion, and abortion clinics, to screen for these risk factors and to give appropriate counseling in light of any identified risk factors.
A nationally funded longitudinal prospective study (such as recommended by Koop in 1989) of psychological factors related to reproductive health (including abortion) is long overdue and should be undertaken as soon as possible.
Therapists should be alert to unresolved issues associated with a past abortion and should sensitively give women the opportunity to discuss such issues and should provide appropriate care or referrals whenever such issues are raised.
"By failing to call on therapists to be alert and sensitive to the negative emotional experiences women attribute to their abortions, the Task Force has allowed ideology to trump sensitivity," says Reardon. "Instead, they are ignoring the reality of how and why abortions take place and are instead focused on drawing conclusions regarding the safety of abortion for an emotionally stable, pro-choice, adult woman who is freely choosing a wanted abortion without any moral qualms. But that doesn't reflect the reality of most abortion situations."
"The fact is that coerced abortions are more common than wanted abortions. Studies show that over 60% of American women are having abortions, often against their moral beliefs, because they feel pressured into it by third parties. These women need therapist and family members to be open to and responsive to their pain, not dismissive of it as an anomaly. Sadly, this is an ideological report that simply ignores the concerns and needs of those women for whom abortion has been a heartache rather than a triumph."
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