British Pro-Life Group Takes Newspaper to Task on Abortion’s Impact

International   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Aug 9, 2007   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

British Pro-Life Group Takes Newspaper to Task on Abortion’s Impact Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 9,
2007

London, England (LifeNews.com) — A leading British pro-life group is taking the Belfast Telegraph newspaper to task — saying that a recent editorial it ran failed to acknowledge the negative consequences abortions have for women. Betty Gibson of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, says women frequently experience post-abortion problems.

Gibson says the editorial acknowledges that women "often suffer an overwhelming sense of loss and despair" following abortion, but it refused to depict the "severity of the trauma women can experience after abortion."

"Not only do suicide rates go up, recent studies show that post-abortive women have an increased death-rate due to accidents, when compared with women who were not pregnant, or those who carried a pregnancy to term," Gibson said.

She explained that women who have problems following abortion can experience guilt, grief, drug/alcohol abuse, emotional numbing, sleep disturbances, panic attacks, low self-esteem and self-harm.

"While your editorial recognizes the suffering of women, it goes on to call for more flexibility in providing abortion ‘particularly in the cases of young girls,’" Gibson says in criticism. "Greater ‘flexibility’ would really mean killing more babies and hurting more women. Women deserve better than this."

Gibson says that anyone who genuinely wishes to help women should join pro-life advocates in lobbying the Department of Health Social Services and Public Safety to provide more help and information to women facing crisis pregnancies so they don’t feel abortion is their only option.

She also encourages women who face emotional trauma following an abortion to contact Rachel’s Vineyard or the British Victims of Abortion.