Culture & Cosmos
Volume 3, Number 26 | February 1, 2006

Dear Colleague,

There is a dearth of information about the effects of abortion on women. Abortion advocates are against gathering any scientific data that might cast abortion in a negative light. We report today on yet another call in the US House to initiate a longitudinal study that will explore abortion and depression. This is certainly a reasonable proposal.  

Spread the word.

Yours sincerely,

Austin Ruse
President
Congressional Letter Calls on NIH to Address Abortion, Depression Link

 
     A recent letter from a House subcommittee to the National Institutes of Health reveals a new strategy in the fight to get the scientific community to address the question of abortion and depression. The letter presents the findings of a recent study out of New Zealand recently reported in Culture & Cosmos that shows a strong link between abortion and poor mental health and asks the director of the NIH to address the study's findings with US research.

     The letter comes from the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources and was authored by that committee's chairman Rep. Mark Souder. The Indiana Republican wrote that his committee was seeking NIH's "advice on searching out the best US research data on the effects of abortion on women in the United States." According to the letter the request was occasioned by the New Zealand study. That study is thought to be highly credible because it is based on data from a 25 year longitudinal survey that followed more 500 girls from birth to age 25.

     In his letter Souder asked NIH to respond to seven questions regarding the New Zealand study. Among the questions asked were whether there were "studies of comparable methodological rigor published on U.S. women"; "any significant reasons to suggest the New Zealand conclusions would vary for U.S. women"; if "there [was] any way to quickly replicate, modify, or debunk these findings";  and if "any studies presently being funded by NIH . . . address any of effects of abortion enumerated in the New Zealand study."

     The questions may force the mainstream scientific community to address the new research and also to concede that nothing similar exists in the US. It has been 17 years since Surgeon General C. Everett Koop told President Ronald Reagan that not enough research existed to show definitively whether or not there was a link between abortion and depression. In a 1989 letter to the president, Koop called on the scientific community to take on such a project. There have been repeated calls since that time for the NIH to fund a study that would examine a large cohort of women beginning in early childhood and proceeding thought their child bearing years.

     Asking the NIH whether there is a data set in the US equivalent to New Zealand's will likely force them to admit there is not. "To the best of my knowledge we have nothing comparable," said Patrick Fagan, the William H. G. Fitzgerald Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

     The letter notes that in the past the NIH has not been overly cooperative with Congressional inquires. "Recall that this Subcommittee initiated a request to NIH on October 8, 2002 dealing with critical stem cell research issues, to which we did not receive a response until June 18, 2004: an unreasonable delay met by an inadequate response. . . We will not allow the present inquiry to be delayed, and will be in close communication with the Office of the Secretary to ensure that the response to this inquiry will be timely and accurate." The letter asks that the NIH respond by February 22.
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