None of the politicians driving the divisive abortion referendum are informing the women of Ireland of the threats to women’s health that are part and parcel of their proposals nor that information on this is available from research in many countries – Finland, Denmark, the United States, New Zealand and other places.

The Great Achievements Of Obstetrics Over The Past Century In Reducing Maternal Deaths
Maternal deaths in the Republic declined from 370 in 1922, 176 in 1945, down to 20 in 1970 and have been in single figures, since then – 1 or 2 per annum. This was a great achievement of good obstetrics and new broad-spectrum drugs that made caesarean sections safe. It is a great pity that that science is now being used to terminate unborn life. Ireland, without abortion, has been one of the world’s leaders in preserving mothers’ lives.

Some Physical Effects of Abortion are the usual complications such as perforation of the uterus and cervical laceration. These injuries can lead to premature births- 1 or 2, some years none and complications of labour. Emedicine.com. also lists other effects of the abortion such as pain and bleeding, infection and low-grade fever, bowel and bladder injury and sexual dysfunction.

The Mental And Suicidal Effects Of Abortion: The key work done on this phenomenon was undertaken in Finland by Dr Mika Gissler and associates. It was taken at the direction of the Government which was concerned about the high suicide rate in Finland and the suicide associated with abortion.

Finland is about the same size as Ireland with a population of 5,477,000. In 2015, it had 55,472 births and 9,300 abortions (16.8% births). Ireland in 2016 had 3,265 abortions (5.1% births). The comparative suicides of both countries are:

Comparative Suicide Rates of Ireland and Finland

– Suicide.org International Suicide Rates

First Gissler Report on Abortions in Finland 1987-1994 Proceeds

It was a register linkage survey; first, all women having births, miscarriages and abortions were logged then followed up through other publicly available registers, hospital discharges, autopsy reports, police files etc. The results were surprising. A small number of women gave birth, suffered post-natal depression and committed suicide, a larger number committed suicide after miscarriages but the largest number of suicides was post-abortion women.

There were 73 suicides associated with pregnancy, the mean annual suicide rate for all women in this age group was 11, 3 per 100,000, the suicide rate associated with births was 5.9 per 100,000 well below the average rate. The rate associated with miscarriages was 18.1 per 100,000 whilst that associated with abortion at 34.7 was extremely high. The risk of suicide after birth was associated with teenagers and the risk of suicide after abortion is indicative of the harmful effects of induced abortion on mental health.

Suicides after pregnancy in Finland 1987-1994 British Medical Journal 7th December 1996
Researchers Mika Gissler, Rlina Hemminki, Jouko Lommqvist.

Suicide Rates in Finland among all women aged 15-49 in Period 1987-1974

Isolating Maternal Deaths only, the Data shows