Women should be able to choose to end a pregnancy without having to pretend that continuing it would drive them to despair
Last week saw the publication of the most comprehensive review ever of the impact of abortion on the mental health of women. The analysis, published by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, confirmed what a lot of people know already. Abortion doesn't really have an impact on mental health, whether women continue with their unwanted pregnancy or proceed with the birth. The research does, however, have an impact on the arguments of anti-abortion groups, who argue that women are being given abortions when abortions are terrible, traumatic things that scar them for life. The number of women who can testify against this is legion.
But pro-abortion groups have something to learn from this research as well, and to campaign for. In Britain an abortion can only be given if two doctors authorise it. In the absence of any other medical reason, they tend to agree that it would be bad for the mental health of a woman if the pregnancy continued.
Mostly, people know that this is poppycock, something that three people have to conspire to say in order to tick the boxes that earn the right to have a medical procedure that is requested, perfectly sanely, because they don't feel that they are in a position to have a child. It is ridiculous, infantilising, that women must play the "it'll drive me to despair" card in order to obtain a sensible intervention. It is appalling, too, that medical professionals are obliged to play along. The only really important opinion about the suitability of an abortion is that of the pregnant woman. The excuse of dire effects on her mental health has always been an insulting and craven figleaf. It has to go.