Abortion Increases Risk of Subsequent Child Abuse.

Does maternal abortion history increase the risk of child abuse? A new study recently published in the Scandinavian medical journal Acta Paediatrica suggests the answer is "yes," supporting what pro-lifers have suspected for years.

Priscilla Coleman and Charles Maxey of Bowling Green State University, Vincent Rue of the Pregnancy Loss Institute, and Catherine Coyle of Edgewood College analyzed data from the Fertility and Contraception among Low-Income Child Abusing and Neglecting Mothers in Baltimore, MD study. Among the 518 study participants were 118 mothers who had been identified by Child Protective Services as having physically abused their children or as having allowed someone else to do so and 281 mothers with no known history of child maltreatment.

Interviews and observations were conducted in the participants' homes and comparisons were made between women without a history of perinatal loss and women with one loss (voluntary or involuntary) relative to risk for child physical abuse.

The results showed striking differences for abortion versus miscarriage/stillbirth. Specifically, compared to women with no history of induced abortion, those with one prior abortion had a 144% higher risk for child physical abuse. By contrast, if the woman had a history of one miscarriage or stillbirth there was no enhanced risk for physically abusing a later born child.

One of the frequently uttered claims of those who support abortion is that abortion will result in fewer unwanted children and should therefore result in a reduction in child maltreatment. Ironically, just the opposite seems to be occurring.

One of the assumptions is that because a woman has freely chosen to abort, sheand her subsequent childrenwould not be negatively affected. But more recent research on the psychological effects of abortion suggests that women who abort often are, at a minimum, ambivalent, if not also under pressure from others to abort.

A handful of earlier studies identified a correlation between maternal history of abortion and problematic parenting. This includes lower emotional support and heightened risk for both child abuse and neglect.