Doctors are subverting abortion law by adopting “liberal criteria” as to what constitutes a mental health problem, allowing women to more easily undergo the procedure, says David Fergusson, a University of Otago professor of psychology.
He is is not anti-abortion; he says that the law should be liberalised and a set of guidelines should be established to determine what were acceptable or valid reasons.
About 90 per cent of abortions are justified on mental health grounds but research by Fergusson and others showed having an abortion did not help mental health and in fact it was associated with small to moderate increases in anxiety, alcohol misuse, illicit drug use and suicidal behaviour.
Fergusson said clinicians were making decisions to allow abortions “on the basis of diagnostic criteria for which they have no evidence”.
“This is not a trivial thing given abortion is one of the most common medical surgical procedures that women of child bearing age face.” Continue reading