Abortion Sideaffects?

[Aaron]

I had a converstaion with my mother-in-law yesterday around abortion. She was pretty horrified that I would pay for an abortion for my daughter if required (she's a Catholic nutter) and brought up a few points to try and convince me not too. They were:

• The hormonal changes would damage the body if the fetus was aborted
  
  Abortion increases the odds of developing breast cancer, she claimed there was a study backing her up (I got the impression she got if off Oprah or her Catholic newsletter).
  
  She also stated that it damages the "plumbing".

I'm curious to see if there is any actual backing for this. As she has no say in what goes on with my kids, I'm asking more for the knowledge than to convince her.

[The Vortex Empire]

I'm nopt sure about 1 or 3, but as for 2, tell her to show you the study.

[Aaron]

I will, I'll pull that out the next time I see her.

[Metatwaddle]

There have apparently been a few studies showing the abortion/breast cancer link, but the National Cancer Institute does not officially recognize the link. It's politically controversial but I don't think it's scientifically so.

I've been Googling for the past few minutes or so, and one website said that eight medical associations and groups recognized the link. Well, it turns out that out of their eight websites...

One has "pro-life" in the name.
One has "Catholic" in the name.
One does not have "Catholic" in the name but explicitly states on their website that they "will not promote methods or intentions that are inconsistent with the ethical and moral guidelines of the Catholic Church".
One is called "Ethics and Medics" (I couldn't get to their website) which sounds like more than a medical association.
One says on their website that "the abstinence-until-marriage message should be embraced as the medical model for sexual health".
One is simply called the "Breast Cancer Prevention Institute" but is headed by one of the big ABC (Abortion-Breast Cancer) talking heads, Joel Brind, and seems to have been created expressly to tell people about ABC.
Two don't have websites, so I couldn't find out exactly what their deal was, but I'm thinking any significant medical association has a website.

That's all eight.

Doesn't really count in their favor, does it?

[Superman]

All I can do I is repeat what I've learned from a textbook in class, and that's that abortion is considered to be a safe procedure. There is an inherent risk with any surgical procedure, and abortion is no different.

First point: I'm calling bullshit. Does she think that every time fetus is miscarries or spontaneously aborts, which is much more common than most people realize, the mother's body has some kind of damaging hormonal change? From what I've learned, the fact is that pregnancy hormones begin to dissipate when a pregnancy is terminated. Effects probably depend on how far along the pregnancy was, but all are considered short term.

Second: This one I am a little familiar with, as a professor of mine once talked about it at length. This came from a British study in the late 80's. Some researchers concluded that induced abortion before first term pregnancy might increase the risk of breast cancer. The facts are that there might be some truth to this, but there are too many confounding factors for something like cancer. I can make a study where I look at car accidents, realize that many people involved in them are eating fast food, then conclude that fast food may cause car accidents.

Third: She's going to have to do a little better than that.

[LadyTevar]

It would only 'damage the plumbing' if it's done by someone who didn't know what they were doing, ie: backdoor abortion hack-job.

Now, any surgery does have risks. In abortions there are the risks of uncontrolled bleeding, of scarring to the uterus/cervix, or of infection. These can 'damage the plumbing' as well, but when performed by a professional the risks are far less likely to occur.

The whole Hormone Outta Whack thing is complete bullshit.

[Spin Echo]

The link between breast cancer and abortion is due to reporting bias. There was a study in the netherlands where they followed the methods of the breast cancer studies showing links to abortion in a religious and less religious part of the country. In the religious Roman Catholic part of the country, abortion was linked to twice the relative risk of breast cancer. In the less religious part of the country, it was found to be only 1.1 relative risk.

So either God is punishing the Catholics, or healthy religious people are much less likely to admit to having an abortion than one who's had breast cancer and looking for a reason why it happened to them.

A Danish study that looked at the records of people that had abortions and compared it to those that developed cancer found no correlation at all. So once you take reporting bias out of the link, the correlation disappears.

[Aaron]

The link between breast cancer and abortion is due to reporting bias. There was a study in the netherlands where they followed the methods of the breast cancer studies showing links to abortion in a religious and less religious part of the country. In the religious Roman Catholic part of the country, abortion was linked to twice the relative risk of breast cancer. In the less religious part of the country, it was found to be only 1.1 relative risk.

So either God is punishing the Catholics, or healthy religious people are much less likely to admit to having an abortion than one who's had breast cancer and looking for a reason why it happened to them.

A Danish study that looked at the records of people that had abortions and compared it to those that developed cancer found no correlation at all. So once you take reporting bias out of the link, the correlation disappears.

Excellent. Thank you, and everyone else.

[Broomstick]

The hormonal changes would damage the body if the fetus was aborted

Bullshit.

The end of any pregnancy - by ANY means, including normal childbirth - most certainly does alter the hormones, just as the start and continuation of pregnancy alters the hormones in the body. The manner of pregnancy ending means squat. The only time I'd be concerned the hormonal changes could "harm" someone is if the woman is prone to post-partum depression or psychosis - which she would be at risk for after normal childbirth, too.

Abortion increases the odds of developing breast cancer, she claimed there was a study backing her up (I got the impression she got if off Oprah or her Catholic newsletter).

Others have answered this more ably than me.

She also stated that it damages the "plumbing".

Only if done improperly or if there are complications, but statistically speaking, a properly done first trimester abortion carries less physical risk to a woman than a full-term pregnancy does.

If the Mother-in-Law lived in the US and remembered the pre-Roe v. Wade days I could understand where she would get that belief. When abortions were illegal they were all too often poorly done with little or no follow up care. Women's vaginas, cervixes, and uteri were damaged both by physical trauma (inept use of crude tools) and by infections resulting from lack of sterile techniques. I don't know what the situation was in Canada. However, of all her concerns, this is the only one I'd say has a basis in reality, and that only where safe, legal abortions are unobtainable.

[Aaron]

Only if done improperly or if there are complications, but statistically speaking, a properly done first trimester abortion carries less physical risk to a woman than a full-term pregnancy does.

If the Mother-in-Law lived in the US and remembered the pre-Roe v. Wade days I could understand where she would get that belief. When abortions were illegal they were all too often poorly done with little or no follow up care. Women's vaginas, cervixes, and uteri were damaged both by physical trauma (inept use of crude tools) and by infections resulting from lack of sterile techniques. I don't know what the situation was in Canada. However, of all her concerns, this is the only one I'd say has a basis in reality, and that only where safe, legal abortions are unobtainable.

Abortion used to be illegal in Canada as well, certainly when she grew up. I pointed out that we're along way from the coathanger days and that if the current methods weren't safe we wouldn't be using them. She shut up after that but I got the look of much disproval.

Anyways, I don't much intend on debating with her unless her other children are present. Trying to convince a sixty year old religious zealot that her beliefs are wrong is like bashing your head against the wall. You'd think after seven years of being in the family she'd have figured out that pushing religion on me is a no-go, especially when it involves my kids.

[Knife]

Bullshit.

The end of any pregnancy - by ANY means, including normal childbirth - most certainly does alter the hormones, just as the start and continuation of pregnancy alters the hormones in the body. The manner of pregnancy ending means squat. The only time I'd be concerned the hormonal changes could "harm" someone is if the woman is prone to post-partum depression or psychosis - which she would be at risk for after normal childbirth, too.

Well, she's right in that there are hormonal changes durring/after pregnacy. She's wrong in that you're going to get them abortion or not.

[ray245]

I've heard that women often suffer physiological illness and guilt after abortion, is it true?

[Aaron]

I've heard that women often suffer physiological illness and guilt after abortion, is it true?

Yes. Though like everything else in life you have to weigh the pros and cons. If you were raped would you prefer the guilt of abortion or the guilt of being raped and being reminded of it everytime you see yourself pregnant in the mirror? Or even worse if you keep the kid.

[Broomstick]

I've heard that women often suffer physiological illness and guilt after abortion, is it true?

I don't know how you define "often"

Every women I've known who has had either an abortion or a miscarriage has had some physical recovery to go through. This will vary greatly from woman to woman and pregnancy to pregnancy. How far along the pregnancy is when it ends is also a factor. For some women this means a few days of taking things easy. For others, it might require time off work.

As for guilt - that depends on the woman. I've known several who aborted and never looked back, never felt guilt, were absolutely sure they did the right thing. Others have horrible guilt and feel themselves murderers. A LOT depends on how they were raised, their religion, their community...

There are so many psychological and social factors at work here that it would be hard to say if a woman experiencing problems have them as a result of a minor surgical procedure or because of society/family viewpoints.

[Kitsune]

It also does not help that if you get an abortion, there are throngs who will call you a monster and baby killer.....

[Metatwaddle]

I've heard that women often suffer physiological illness and guilt after abortion, is it true?

I don't know how you define "often"

Every women I've known who has had either an abortion or a miscarriage has had some physical recovery to go through. This will vary greatly from woman to woman and pregnancy to pregnancy. How far along the pregnancy is when it ends is also a factor. For some women this means a few days of taking things easy. For others, it might require time off work.

As for guilt - that depends on the woman. I've known several who aborted and never looked back, never felt guilt, were absolutely sure they did the right thing. Others have horrible guilt and feel themselves murderers. A LOT depends on how they were raised, their religion, their community...

There are so many psychological and social factors at work here that it would be hard to say if a woman experiencing problems have them as a result of a minor surgical procedure or because of society/family viewpoints.

To expand on that, the American Pregnancy Association (it seems trustworthy; their board of advisors has a lot of obstetrics and gynecology professors from big-name med schools) has a list of emotional reactions and risk factors here.

For those who are too lazy to look at the page, here's what I found. In addition to the religious/ethical concerns, late-term abortions and abortions for the purpose of genetic abnormalities tend to contribute to emotional problems. Other contributors are a past history of psychological problems, a lack of support from a significant other, and whether the woman has been coerced/forced/pressured to get an abortion - but those three are pretty obvious and unsurprising. (More anecdotally, when I asked my own therapist about emotional side effects she had seen and treated, she told me the biggest factor in her experience had been someone's own moral and religious views on abortion.)

There is also a page about the physical side effects, where they say common side effects include cramping, bleeding, nausea and vomiting, lasting from 2 to 4 weeks. Some pretty scary side effects are also present; it sounds like most of them would only occur in the case of a botched abortion. Nevertheless, 1 in 100 (for early abortions) or 1 in 50 (for late abortions) is not nearly as rare as I had expected.

They also make the point that some of these risks are also present in childbirth.