Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I second it. Section 9 is one to which, like Senator Walsh, I am absolutely opposed. Senator Walsh has referred to various studies and reports. One of the questions we must ask ourselves is whether abortion reduces the risk of suicide in pregnancy. It is a valid question. Dr. Eleanor Corcoran is an eminent psychiatrist of 27 years' standing who was based in England but now works at Letterkenny General Hospital. She compiled a report examining all the studies, both pro-abortion and pro-life. From her findings she could discover no suggestion in the core text-books of psychiatry, including perinatal psychiatry, that abortion is a treatment on its own or as part of a risk reduction measure for suicidality in pregnancy.

The issue of abortion as an aid to reducing suicide has been examined more directly in a series of studies from Finland. The first of those studies, by Gissler in 1996, linked the individual records of those whose pregnancies ended either by delivery, miscarriage or abortion with the suicide records enabled by a common record number, between 1987 and 1994. In total, over 650,000 women were involved. The suicide rates in these were compared to the national average in Finland. The study showed that with a national average suicide rate for women of 11.5 per 100,000, the rate of suicide after abortion was 34.7 per 100,000. The rate of suicide after birth was only 5.9 per 100,000.

The author suggests that either abortion caused the increase in suicide or there were factors common to abortion and suicide, such as mental illness or poor supports, that led to the increase. One way or the other, this study confirms that abortion does not reduce the risk of suicide, but rather is associated with a several-fold increase.

A similar study covering a longer period-----