...however, constant anti-abortion activism might....
Last September, a three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court issued a mostly bad ruling on South Dakota's 2005 anti-abortion law. The only bright spot was the Court's rejection of South Dakota's attempt to force doctors to parrot bogus science.
But not so fast: the whole court apparently wants to get its mitts on that portion of the appeal. The Eighth Circuit Court announced last week that it will rehear arguments related to the "suicide advisory" in the 2005 statute. That portion of the statute requires doctors to tell women that an abortion places them at greater risk of depression, psychological stress, and suicide. The court throws that party on January 9 in St. Louis.
Planned Parenthood and anti-abortion activists both think the science is on their side in this appeal. Alpha Center director and experienced distorter of reality Leslee Unruh says the court's decision to rehear the abortion-suicide argument is "great news":
"We feel women who suffer after an abortion, many of those women do struggle and have deep depression and many times it does result in taking their own life," said Unruh, who plans to travel to St. Louis for the January hearing [Kristi Eaton, "SD Attorney General: Federal Appeals Court Will Rehear Abortion Appeal," AP via Aberdeen American News, 2011.12.06].
Unruh will not shout "great news!" over the latest study that supports a long-contended thesis, that post-abortion syndrome is a figment of Leslee's imagination:
Abortion does not raise the risk of a woman suffering mental health problems, a major review by experts concludes.
Data from 44 studies showed women with an unwanted pregnancy have a higher incidence of mental health problems in general.
This is not affected by whether or not they have an abortion or give birth [Jane Dreaper, "Abortion 'Does Not Raise' Mental Health Risk," BBC, 2011.12.09].
The full report is available here. But Professor Tim Kendall, director of the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health, says all the judges need to know to uphold the previous ruling on South Dakota's abortion-suicide advisory: "For women who are considering an abortion, mental health is probably not an important consideration."
I have noticed that promisquity and depression problems tend to go together. To state it simplistically, you mix body chemistry with to many people and the chemistry in your brain gets mixed up and depression comes from wrong balances of chemicals in the brain. Killing your kid may also have consequenses if one actually has a conscience after killing their kid when they might not have a conscience when they decided to kill it.
So blame me for being to harsh. I know people who have had abortions and seen the abortion made a lots bigger mess of their life than the kid ever could have. Some are totally lied to by the abortionist. Leslie has been there done that on most of the issues involved with abortion so did doing all those things make her crazy or does she just know what she is talking about from experience.
Sorry, Roger: the study above refutes your anecdotal suppositions. You cannot posit that abortions made those folks you know suffer worse mental problems than they would have if they hadn't had the abortions. You have no way of knowing, only your wishes. Wishes aren't science.