January 16^th. Today I respond to a letter to the editor in our local paper, The Traverse City Record-Eagle. The writer is commiserating with a woman totally incapacitated by the over- whelming grief occasioned by her abortion. She is at a counselling center for women who have had abortions and need psychological help dealing their guilt. The writer claims that post abortion suicide rates for women increase substantially.

There is no credible evidence for any post abortion stress disorder nor is the suicide rate higher for women who have had abortions than for women enduring other similar events such as a normal birth. The American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynecology in London have all found no well-designed study showing such an increase. They have all concluded that of those studies that do show an increase many are so designed so as to produce the desired results for political purposes.

Look at the websites that push the issue of an abortion related stress disorder. Nearly all of these are sponsored by church related groups. The goal of this anti-abortion movement is to stop all abortions and if that requires piling guilt on any woman thinking of an abortion until her health breaks so be it!

These people truly believe that a fertilized human egg is a human being. I wonder if they think that eating acorns destroys oak forests.