Children in Aborted Families

Philip G. Ney, MD, FRCP(C), MA, RPsych

Presented at: Delaware Pro-Life Coalition Convention, USA, April 6 - 8, 2001

*Tables have not been attached. For the complete text of the talk, including tables and figures, please contact us via mtjoy@vanisle.net

A remit of science is to attempt to discover any cause and effect connection between observed phenomena. But scientists seldom say, "This causes this." What they will say is, "This is closely correlated with this. There is a correlation between a cloudy day and rain, but not on every cloudy day does it rain. It would be foolish to say clouds cause rain.  We have to explore the question, "Is there any connection between rain and clouds?"   If every day it was cloudy it rained, you would say that is a one to one correlation.  You could say that much of the time when it is cloudy it rains, is a correlation of .5.

We are interested to know whether abortion creates psychiatric problems in women. If you interview a lot of women post-abortion, some of them say, "Yes, I have problems." But not every woman at the time of interview admits to psychological conflicts and symptoms. So what is the correlation between abortion and later problems? From my clinical observations it seemed there was a connection between the abortion of a patient's mother and their psychiatric symptoms. Not every person whose parents have had an abortion shows relevant problems at the time I assess them. If the correlation was 1. - not a problem . You could say that abortion causes psychiatric problems. But there are very few things in the world where there is a one to one correlation.  Some of those people in a representative sample of the population we find there is a connection between a mother's abortion and their psychological problems. However, that apparent correlation might be by chance. We apply statistical techniques to determine whether this correlation is real or accidental.  We have done this in a study in Canada. Thus, another problem in doing research has to do with sampling. If you have a small sample population it is alright to generalise as long as those people are typical of the whole population.  Our study on the effects of pregnancy losses on women's health published in 1997 is important because the population we used was typical of the whole Canadian population.

This present study was to determine whether there is a cluster of symptoms uniquely associated in people whose mother had an abortion.  I first presented the Post Abortion Survivors Syndrom, based on clinical observations to a professional audience in 1980, but can I trust my observations and deductions?  The sample in this study is 293 people, approximately 1/3 are patients from my practice. About 2/3 of the sample were trainees in group counselling. Although it is not a random or representative sample, it is an unselected sample, i.e. we did not try to find people who had PASS. The 86 item self-report questionnaire consists of; a series of tables where people check off what kind of pregnancy outcome their mother had and what kind of pregnancy outcome they or their partner had, brief answers, checked possibilities and visual analog scales. When the data is compiled, we ask the computer, "Is there any connection between some of a whole range of psychiatric symptoms and the mother's pregnancy outcome?"  On the basis of my clinical observation, I think there is. But I must be able to present this information to sceptical scientific audiences. 

When we did a stepwise regression analysis to determine if any of 16 symptoms common to psychiatric illness are associated with the subject's mothers' pregnancy outcome, we found that the symptom that most closely connects to the mother's abortion is the symptom, "I feel I don't deserve to be alive." We used that as a dependant variable in a stepwise regression to determine, "Are there any other symptoms significantly associated with that symptom?" (Table 1)

The next most closely connected symptom is, "I am not glad to be alive." The correlation is .360. The possibility of that being an accident is 1 in 1,000. It is highly significant statistically speaking. The second most clearly correlated symptom is, "I feel something terrible is going to happen to me." The third symptom is, "I have tried to kill myself." The fourth symptom is, "I fear I am going to lose my mind." The fifth symptom is, "I have tried to injure myself." It appears there is a constellation of symptoms that go together. We call this a syndrome, in particular, this is the Post Abortion Survivors Syndrome. Now anyone teaching medical students should say, "When you find a patient who has tried to kill themselves, ask them, have they ever felt that they don't deserve to be alive. If they say, "Yes there are times when I feel that I don't deserve to be alive",  then it is possible their mother had an abortion. Because doctors go from symptoms to causes of illness, a doctor is considered to not practice properly if he/she unnecessarily misses the cause of an illness. I can tell my students now, "You should ask a suicidal patient whether his/her mother had an abortion." We now have a certain degree of confidence in the existence of Post Abortion Survivor Syndrome, but more research is required.

Table 2 is a partial correlation table and it shows all the 16 symptoms and how they correlate with each other. I ask the patient, "Do you feel sad?" "Do you feel angry?" "Have you ever tried to kill yourself?" "Have you injured yourself?" These correlations make sense clinically. You are not at all surprised that there is a significant correlation between people who feel angry and people who try to kill themselves. Is it possible these symptoms correlate with some other kind of pregnancy outcome? Do I find these symptoms associated with early infant death or miscarriage?" A stepwise regression indicates "No." (Table 3) This particular constellation of signs and symptoms is particularly associated only with this kind of pregnancy outcome.  What happens if a mother has a miscarriage? What are the symptoms you might find in her children? The stepwise regression is, (Table 4) indicates the most closely correlated symptom is,  "I feel angry." Then "I feel that life is not worth living." But, it is a negative correlation. It says that if your mother had a miscarriage you do feel that life is worth living. So why is it that when a mother has an abortion, her children feel that life is not worth living, but if a mother has a miscarriage her children feel "life is worth the living.'  It is the difference between 2 children standing on a ledge of a high building. If your brother fell to his death you can say, "I'm glad it wasn't me. I'm glad I am alive." But if your father pushed your brother off, then you are likely to say, "I feel it should have been me." These symptoms are connected with intent behind a siblings death.. If it was an accident, you feel one way, if it was murder you feel a different way.  And yet some mothers who would never consider an abortion secretly wished an inconvenient baby would miscarry.

What is the constellation of symptoms associated with child abuse and neglect? Well, there is a list of symptoms here, (Table 5), depending on what kind of child abuse and neglect. The most important symptom of somebody who has been sexually abused is, "I have tried to kill myself." The most important symptom ,if you were physically neglected is, "My human relationships are poor." There is obviously an overlap of symptoms between those whose mothers have had an abortion and those whose mothers have neglected them. Is there a common denominator to both of these problems, something that is associated with abortion and neglect that makes people want to kill themselves? We found one underlying factor is the amount of partner support. I am describing this so that you can understand the process of scientific investigation. A common denominator to rain and cloud is what? Humidity and temperature. So it is not clouds that cause the rain, it is temperature and humidity that cause the clouds that cause the rain. So we are always looking for underlying causes. What are the symptoms of those who have had abortions (PAS)? (Table 6)  The symptoms are: "I have injured myself, my relationships are poor, I have tried to kill myself." So suicide is not specific to Post Abortion Syndrome (PAS), Child Abuse and Neglect Syndrome, (CANS) or Post Abortion Survivors Syndrome, (PASS) it is common to all three. A good therapist, when assessing a suicidal person will want to know, did they have an abortion, where they neglected as children, did their mother have an abortion? Does the  emergency room doctor in your average hospital ask about these three factors? Many don't. It is politically incorrect. It is considered bad manners to ask people, "Did you have had an abortion?" It is considered even worse manners to ask, "Did your mother have an abortion?" Now you see where the social process has an impact on the practice of medicine, which has an impact on the quality of care. Is there a connection between past problems and pregnancy outcome of the subject's mother? (Table 6) We find more previous psychiatric admissions and repeated depression.

Now, go backwards and say, "Alright, I have a patient who is depressed. What are the most likely factors of all the ones we considered that are underlying the depression?" We find they are the impact of mistreatment in your early life and the total number of people whose mother had an abortion. The medical profession needs to know that if they have a depressed patient,  likely factors include childhood mistreatment and the mother's previous abortion. What are the factors that are  most likely correlated with a woman's decision to have an abortion? (Table 8) We don't have a definitive answer, but we are getting close. It appears a woman chooses to have an abortion because:  1) she was neglected during her childhood. 2) her mother aborted her first pregnancy. 3) her partner did not support her. To stop abortions, you have to address the underlaying factors:  neglect, mother's abortion and partner support. Well, you can't do much about childhood neglect and the grandmother's abortion. But you can do a lot about partner support. Do you encourage partners to be supportive? You are in a pregnancy crisis centre and a girl comes in and says, "I want a pregnancy test." Hanging around on the front steps is this creepy character. He has long stringy hair. He has rings everywhere. He is smoking pot and you know he doesn't have a job. So you think, "I wish he would go away." Wrong!  He's the father. Bring him in. Make sure he is part of this whole thing. His support has the greatest impact in determining whether the woman will or will not have an abortion. "You got to be kidding. That creep's a no good. It would be a good thing if she said she would never see him again." That is not how God made families.

Another way of approaching the problem of a Post Abortion Survivor's Syndrome is those who survive, in a statistical sense. The question is, "What was your chance of surviving statistically?" If you come from the Ukraine, your chances of surviving statistically as an unborn baby is about 20%. So is there any correlation between a low chance of surviving a pregnancy and later symptoms? The most important symptom is, "I can't trust people." This is very important. How do you run a country if people don't trust each other? How do you run a country if nobody trusts the government? You ask people in some Eastern European countries if they trust the government. Most people don't trust the government. They don't want to pay their income tax. They don't want to obey the laws. How can you run a government? Because the government's job is to protect people when they are vulnerable, how can you trust a government that doesn't protect unborn babies? To check the validity of our questionnaire, we analysed symptoms associated with suicidal thoughts.

A critic may say, "You designed this particular questionnaire in order just to find this problem." We have good validity to the questionnaire, because the usual kind of things that go along with suicidal thoughts turn up. The question is: Does the pregnancy outcome of the mother have an impact on all pregnancy outcomes of the daughter? Miscarriages tend to run in families. Early infant death tends to run in families. Now we can say that abortion tends to run in families. (Table 9)  A woman is likely to have an abortion particularly if her mother has had an abortion of her first pregnancy. So why is the first pregnancy so important? The outcome of the first pregnancy is the best predictor of all subsequent pregnancies. It is critical that a woman has a full term, healthy, happy baby in her first pregnancy because that is the best predictor of having full term, healthy, happy babies in subsequent pregnancies. That is why it is so tragic that the first pregnancy is aborted.

Do men have different symptoms than women when it comes to a Post Abortions Survivor's Syndrome? It appears that men are more likely to have symptoms associated with violence. You may wonder if the escalation in the domestic violence, men being violent toward their partner, is related to their mother's aborting a sibling.

Now suppose the man knows inside himself that he has a big anger that he has difficulty controlling. He will tend to conclude, "I am afraid I will lose control of my anger, so I will do everything to make sure I don't get angry." That kind of a man may look passive, sweet and gentle, but how far can he trust his anger? Suddenly violence may erupt. Now you understand why it is very important that we help men whose mother has had an abortion. When a woman tries to decide what to do with a pregnancy, the last thing she wants is a passive male. What she wants is a strong, confident man who says, "Don't worry, I will look after you." But a passive male says, "Well...you do what you want." And then she will have an abortion.

There is now a fairly definable cluster of symptoms in people whose  mother has had an abortion. They are (Table 19):

1. "I feel I don't deserve to be alive." - existential guilt.

2. "I am not glad to be alive." - we can call that existential sorrow.

3. "I feel something is going to happen to me." - a sense of impending doom. "It's a feeling something is going to kill me, I don't know where it is going to come from, but something is going to get me."

4. "I have tried to kill myself." - self destructive.

5. "I fear I am losing my mind." - has a tenuous grasp on reality, "I think I am going to go crazy."

6. "I have injured myself." - eg. reckless sexual behaviour.

7. "I feel sad."

8. "I am not pleased with who I am." - low self esteem.

9. "I have feelings that things are unreal." - disassociation.

10. "I am bothered by thoughts I cannot control." - obsessive symptoms.

11. "I do not know who I am." - a poorly defined identity.

12. "Life is not worth living." - depression.

We also have evidence, from the same study that there is a constellation of symptoms that correlate with a woman being post abortion. There evidence is strong but we need research funds to do a larger study.

The California study is data from about 1.6 millions requests for Medicare funding. It represents something like 48,000 abortions. It represents an 8 year segment of a woman's life. We don't have the complete obstetric history, but we have record linkage. We can trace the identity of an individual from one kind or record to another. Information from  hospital records can be connected to the information on a death certificate and to the billing information from the doctor's offices on any one patient. A problem with this particular sample is that they are all basically poor people. Therefore, we cannot generalize the findings to the whole American population.

Two of the most frequent arguments used to support abortion are: 1) abortion is safer to a woman's health and life than is a pregnancy,  2) abortion is required for women who are psychiatrically ill. We analysed this large amount of data and compared 2 groups of women. One group who have only had a delivery during that 8 year period and another group of women who only had an abortion during that 8 year period. In the delivery only group, there are about 80,0000 women and the abortion only, there are about 30,000 women. We examined the chances of having a psychiatric admission following a delivery compared to a psychiatric admission following an abortion. Ninety days after the pregnancy ended, the chances of a psychiatric admission  an abortion is about twice as often as after a delivery. (Table 1) There is a trend, an increasing rate of admission to 2 years. If the abortion is just a little trauma causing an "adjustment reaction", the psychiatric admission rate should decline over time. You should just get over an abortion. Time will heal the wound. But since the psychiatric admission rate goes up, we must conclude, time does not heal when it comes to abortion. Time makes it worse. The effect of an abortion is serious and requires serious treatment. Now a doctor who is providing information to a woman prior to abortion has got to say, "It is going to deeply effect you and it is going to get worse over time."

The other argument was that a woman is less likely to be injured or killed by an abortion than by delivering a full term baby. Not true. You are more likely to die from a whole series of causes following an abortion than a delivery. (Table 2) Following an abortion, violent deaths increased by about 200% . Suicides go up by about 2.5. Accidents are more frequent, homicide is more frequent, AIDS is more frequent, cardiovascular diseases are more frequent, cerebral vascular disease are more common. Why? We have to use our clinical observations to help provide an explanation. Why would abortion and heart attacks go together? Dr. David Reardon and I have published a study to show that, following an abortion, people are more likely to take drugs and drink alcohol. It seems that post abortion people do not look after their health and quite possibly because they don't look after their health they are more likely to have heart attacks, strokes etc. So now you begin to understand that abortion isn't just about being depressed. Abortion has to do with AIDS, accidents, suicide, breast cancer, etc. Abortion has a huge impact on the health of a country.

Last year Dr.Olga Polesgaeva and I talked to the Professor of Gynaecology and Obstetrics at the University of Moscow. Without any question or prompting from me he said, "The factor that most undermines the health of women across the Russian Federation is abortion." It is not smoking. It is not toxins from the environment. The factor that undermines women's health in the federation of Russia is abortion. Governments are doing lots of things to discourage smoking. They are trying to make the environment clean, no toxins, no pollutants, but the one factor that undermines a woman's health more than anything else, they are ignoring. That is not only true in Russia, it is true in Canada, in Switzerland....and whose fault is that?  You.  You vote the government.