Abortion as Self-destructive

Dan Allot has written a thought-provoking piece online at American Spectator:

Post-Abortion Depression

Some significant sentences:

Another study in the non-partisan American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse reported an increase in substance abuse experienced by post-abortive women. Women who had no history of substance abuse prior to their first pregnancy were, on average, twice as likely to abuse alcohol, more than twice as likely to abuse marijuana, and nearly three times as likely to use cocaine, as women who did not abort. In fact, there have been dozens of recent studies confirming the strong association between abortion and subsequent drug and alcohol abuse, which, in turn, are strongly correlated with depression.

In another study that accounted for prior mental health problems, post-abortive women were found to be much more likely to attempt suicide. Gissler et al. discovered that while the mean annual suicide rate among Finnish women was 11.3 per 100,000, the rates associated with women who obtained an abortion (34.7) were significantly higher than in the population.

Even apart from the morality of taking an innocent life, behind all the negative consequences to the mother lies the fundamental problem: abortion is a short-term solution to much deeper problems. Illegitimacy, for example, is only the outward manifestation of a psychic poverty that seeks sexual satisfaction apart from the fruitful union that is its purpose. "Saving" women (and their cowardly men) from the natural consequences of their choices only reinforces irresponsibility, but even more it denigrades their awesome vocation to bring new human life into the world. The empirical results only confirm what the ancient wisdom would have said: that to reject the purposes inscribed in one's being can bring only sadness, not fulfillment.

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Daniel Allott, "Post-Abortion Depression " The American Spectator (7/19/2005 12:08:11 AM).