Abortionists and the APA Conspire to Misinform Women
Statement on North Carolina House Bill 854
Abortion – Woman’s Right to Know Act
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Martha W. Shuping, M.D.
This statement is in support of HB 854.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak in support of HB 854. My name is Martha Shuping. I’m a medical doctor specializing in psychiatry, fully licensed in North Carolina for 23 years. I’ve personally treated hundreds of North Carolina women who’ve had psychiatric illness after abortion. I’ve co-authored published research related to women’s mental health after abortion, and I’ve taught accredited continuing education to physicians and nurses on this subject.
The women who come to me say they wish they had received better information about the risks before they made their abortion decision. One North Carolina woman told me that she received better informed consent counseling before her dog had surgery compared to what she received when she had her abortion. This is typical.
In a 2004 study of Russian and American women after abortion (1), two thirds of the American women reported they had not received any counseling, and this is consistent with what women report to me.
In this study, only 17.5% of the American women reported receiving counseling on alternatives, and only 10.8%, believed they had received adequate counseling before their abortion.
The United Nations document, The Beijing Platform for Action (2), was adopted by consensus of all nations, and welcomed enthusiastically by feminists and women everywhere. This document expresses concern that women do not always receive full information about the options and services available in regard to reproductive choices. It mandates that all women must be fully informed of their options, including potential side-effects. The document also mandates that women have immediate access to post-abortion counseling—why would they mandate counseling if there were no problems whatsoever?
A large body of research shows that abortion is associated with increased risk of suicide, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance abuse, and other mental health problems.
A 2007 study of PTSD was conducted at an abortion clinic by Suliman and colleagues (3). Doctors who performed abortions were concerned about the high rate of PTSD in their patients. They compared two types of anesthesia to see if they could reduce the rate of PTSD. The type of anesthesia made no difference. Three months after the abortion, 18% of the women had PTSD—almost one in five. The authors considered this high.
By way of comparison, U.S. government studies after Viet Nam showed that 15% of men with combat experience were diagnosed as having PTSD (4); Suliman’s study, and other studies of PTSD after abortion are in this ballpark.
PTSD is important because it can last a lifetime and can be very disabling and distressing. Patients have problems falling asleep, but then awaken after having nightmares. Women may find they are distressed by things that remind them of the abortion, even by going in for routine gynecological care, or by being around children.
The Abortion Task Force of the American Psychological Association published a report in 2008 that seemed to indicate that most women don’t have problems after abortion (5). But to arrive at their conclusion, they had to ignore or dismiss much of the world literature on abortion. For example, Suliman’s 2007 PTSD study was not even mentioned in the 2008 APA report.
The APA’s carefully worded conclusion also excluded a majority of the real women who have abortions.(6)
The APA conceded that young women under 21 have more negative outcomes after abortion, so the APA specified that the conclusion of “no problem” applies only to adult women.
The APA’s conclusion also specifically excluded women who have repeat abortions, since these women do have more problems—though these women account for about half of all abortions.
The APA intended their conclusion to apply only to women aborting an unwanted pregnancy, acknowledging that “women terminating a wanted pregnancy,” and those “who perceived pressure from others to terminate their pregnancy,” had more negative effects. But in the real world many women are in the position of aborting wanted babies and are being pressured into unwanted abortions. The conclusion of “no mental health problems from abortion” does not apply to these women.
Many NC women do experience mental health problems after abortion. The women who come to me wish they have been offered a range of real choices, and real informed consent.
One provision of this bill would be to provide women with the name of the doctor who is performing their abortion. Though people often say abortion is “between a woman and her doctor,” in reality many women are meeting their doctor for their first time at the moment he or she walks in for the procedure, and they don’t know the doctor’s name.
I’ve known North Carolina women who told me they never knew the doctor’s name. One woman wanted to complain about bad care she received, but how could she, not knowing the doctor’s name?
We need this bill.
References:
1. Rue VM, Coleman PK, Rue JJ, Reardon DC. (2004). Induced abortion and traumatic stress: a preliminary comparison of American and Russian women. Medical Science Monitor, 10(10):SR5-16.
2. Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, Fourth World Conference on Women. (1995). United Nations. Paragraph 106. URL: (accessed March 6, 2010).
3. Suliman S, Ericksen T, Labuschgne T, de Wit R, Stein D, Seedat S. (2007). Comparison of pain, cortisol levels, and psychological distress in women undergoing surgical termination of pregnancy under local anaesthesia versus intravenous sedation. BMC Psychiatry 2007, 7:24 doi:10.1186/1471-244X-7-24 Accepted: 12 June 2007.
4. National Center for PTSD Fact Sheet. United States Department of Veterans Affairs.
5. American Psychological Association, Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion. (2008). Report of the Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion. Washington, DC: Author.
6. APA Abortion Report. (Notes and Criticisms)
