The Christchurch Medical School Paper

Recently, a paper published by Christchurch Medical Researcher Professor David Fergusson showed that women who have abortions are more likely to have

The study has received much more publicity than it would by being published in the slow news period at the beginning of the year - ending up lead items on TV1 News and the Dominion Post.

I take the argument that the study shows abortion is detrimental to mental health with a grain of salt. What the study doesn't show (or perhaps it couldn't show) is the effect on women who are forced to have children they didn't want. Presumably, most of the women who continued their pregnancies planned to have children, or did not mind an unexpected pregnancy. So the study couldn't show the effect on mental health of those who did have an unwanted pregnancies and had children regardless.

I'm a very conservative person, but to go back to the days of backstreet abortions, or 'abortion holidays' to Sydney would be a retrograde step. It is much better to work at avoiding unwanted pregnancy than to use this study to try to restrict the availability of abortion. This study is proof of that.