We at Birth Pangs confess. Yesterday, when we reported on the American Psychological Association’s report that failed to find that abortion drives women insane causes serious mental health problems as the fetus fetishists allege, we hadn’t read the report.

Now we have. (You can too. Download the 90+ page pdf here.)

Amid all the totally predictable spin and pearl-clutching from the fetus fetishists, we found this one kind of interesting. The article holds up the work from 2006 of one David Fergusson of New Zealand who found that there is a link between abortion and mental health.

Yeah, so? we hear you ask.

Well, David Fergusson is NOT a fetus fetishist. He does not belong to one of those bogus think-tanks with ‘family’ in the title. He appears to be a real sciency type. In fact, he claims he is pro-choice.

So, did the APA panel miss it? No, indeedy. They discuss it at length in two sections of the report.

While calling it the ‘strongest’ of the secondary studies, the APA authors have problems with it.

This study thus suggests that women who have one or more abortions at a young age (<21) are at greater relative risk for psychiatric disorder compared to women who deliver a child at a young age or women who do not get pregnant at a young age.

There are several reasons why caution should be used in drawing the above conclusion from this study. First and most importantly, Fergusson et al. (2006) did not assess the intendedness or wantedness of the pregnancy. As noted earlier, approximately 90% of pregnancies that are aborted are unintended, compared to only 31% of those that are delivered (Henshaw, 1998). Thus, although these were young women, it is reasonable to assume that at least some of the women in the delivery group were delivering a planned and wanted child. Delivery of a planned and wanted child would be expected to be associated with positive outcomes and is not a viable option for women facing an unintended pregnancy. Second, the other comparison group used by Fergusson et al.—women who had never been pregnant—is not a viable option for women already facing an unintended pregnancy. Third, the prospective analyses were based on only 48 women who had abortions, an extremely small sample. Fourth, the study did not control for number of prior abortions or births. Fifth, the study focused on women who had one or more abortions at a young age (< 21 years), limiting its generalizability to younger women; younger age has been linked in some studies to more negative psychological experiences following abortion (e.g., Major et al., 2000). Finally, this study was conducted in New Zealand, a country with more restrictive abortion regulations than those in the United States. Because the focus of APA is on mental health in the United States, it may thus be less useful as a basis for drawing conclusions about relative risks of abortion for U.S. women.

While Dr. Fergusson may not be a fetus fetishist, he’s a little miffed. LifeShite quotes him:

Fergusson compared the results of the APA study to officials in the tobacco industry defending their products as healthy.

“Since there is suggestive evidence of harmful effects it behooves us to err on the side of caution and commission more and better research before drawing strong conclusions,” he said.

Keep comparing the APA to the tobacco industry, Dr. Fergusson. The fetus fetishists lap that stuff up. They will be certain to keep commissioning research like yours.

Meanwhile, all the usual suspects are saying all the predictable things: the report is ‘biased’, ‘politicized’, the authors are known pro-choicers, yadayada.

But, as the Wall Street Journal points out:

The report was endorsed, however, by the American Psychological Association’s 174-member governing body — and that endorsement carried with it a vote of confidence that the work was scientifically rigorous, said Kim Mills, a spokeswoman for the group.

It seems rigorous to us at Birth Pangs. (And its section on methodology is good background for us who will no doubt be slapping this shit down til hell freezes over.)