From: Larry Margolis <margoli@watson.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: Walking down to the student center last night
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1992 00:26:12 GMT
Reply-To: margoli@watson.ibm.com
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: The Village Waterbed

In  <1992Oct5.201136.23879@cs.yale.edu>  rescorla@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu (Eric Rescorla) writes:
> In article <1992Oct5.195341.22724@ra.msstate.edu> cea1@Ra.MsState.Edu (Carolyn E
> >no matter what they decided. Furthermore, research says that college females wh
> >choose abortion are emotionally more stable and adjusted to their decision
> >two years later than those who kept the baby and those who gave it up
> >for adoption.
> Can you please post some data to support this contention?

I assume the following is what she's referring to.
# Newsgroups: talk.abortion
# From: wreck@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com (R. Cage)
# Subject: Post-abortion trauma is bogus; effects are POSITIVE.
# Message-ID: <1992Jan28.141633.26842@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com>
# Summary: Believe it
# Keywords: "post-abortion" syndrome almost certainly due to other causes.
# Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1992 14:16:33 GMT
#
# Taken w/o permission from the Ann Arbor News, 25 Jan 1990,
# p. A-1, continued on A-9.  Comments in [brackets] are mine.
# All errors theirs:
#
#      "New study of inner city teens finds
#      no evidence of emotional trauma"
#
# By WILLIAM BOOTH
# The Washington Post
#
# Inner-city teenagers who have abortions do better in school,
# are better off economically and are no more likely to have
# emotional problems than similar teenagers who have children,
# according to a study published Wednesday by researchers at
# Johns Hopkins University.
#
# The study of 360 black women in Baltimore indicates that two
# years after their abortions, "the young women who had chosen
# to terminate an unwanted pregnancy were doing as well (and
# usually better than) those who had had a baby or who had not
# been pregnant," according to Laurie Schwab Zabin, who did
# the study with Marilyn Hirsh and Mark Emerson of the
# Department of Population Dynamics at the Johns Hopkins School
# of Hygiene and Public Health.
#
# The investigators focused on blacks because they wanted the
# young women in the study to be as similar as possible so
# comparisons would be more valid.  All the women were 17 years
# old or younger and from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
#
# The study is the latest contribution to the debate over
# whether women who have abortions are emotionally harmed by
# the experience.  Some researchers believe that women who
# have abortions suffer severe, and often delayed, emotional
# reactions.
#
# Last January, then Surgeon General C. Everett Koop decided
# that he could not issue a long-awaited report on the impact
# of abortions because the available scientific evidence, about
# psychological effects in particular, "simply cannot support
# either the preconceived beliefs of those pro-life or those
# pro-choice."  Koop called the studies "flawed methodologically."
#
# [Notice that Koop called *all* the studies flawed.  If he was
#  biased he would have found one side to be correct.  - RC]
#
# The Johns Hopkins study attempted to find out if there were
# any negative consequences associated with abortion.  The
# researchers recruited young women when they came to one of
# two clinics in Baltimore for pregnancy tests.  The women were
# divided into groups that had an abortion, had a child or were
# not pregnant.  All the women were followed for two years.
#
# [Here's the meat of the study. - RC]
#
# As measured by levels of stress, anxiety and feelings of self-
# esteem, those in the abortion group were no different from
# those in the child-bearing group.  The researchers found that
# both the abortion group and child-bearing group were equally
# likely to be pleased with their decisions a year later.
#
# [Conclusion:  no emotional trauma from abortion. - RC]
#
# The economic status of those who had abortions did not
# deteriorate the way it did in the child-bearing group, according
# to the study.  The researchers also found that more of the women
# in the abortion group graduated from high school or advanced
# their educations, compared with the young women who had children
# or who tested negative for pregnancy.
#
# [Note that bombshell:  those who aborted are more likely to
#  continue their educations and support themselves in a socially
#  responsible fashion than *both* other groups. - RC]
#
# Another finding of the study was that the women who had
# abortions were more likely to use birth control consistently
# after their abortion and to avoid a subsequent pregnancy.
#
# [Reactions of anti-abortion groups deleted]
#
#
# And from the same paper, same page, same day:
#
#      "Mental stresses following operation
#      largely uncharted waters, group says."
#
# By MICHELE LESLIE
# Ann Arbor News Bureau
#
# CLEVELAND - Counselors for Catholic Social Services are well aware
# that the term "post-abortion syndrome" cannot be found in medical
# reference books, that research regarding it is flawed, and that it
# can be used as a political weapon.
#
# [Remainder of article deleted.]

Larry Margolis, MARGOLI@YKTVMV (Bitnet), margoli@watson.IBM.com (Internet)
Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:48264 alt.politics.bush:6948 alt.politics.clinton:7527