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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 10 Hansard (25 November) . . Page.. 2882 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

who have delivered. A report in the British Medical Journal of December 1996 says that the suicide rate in Finland after an abortion was three times the general rate and six times that associated with birth. Suicides are more common after a miscarriage and especially after an induced abortion than in the general population. Yet, Mr Speaker, Ireland, which has the lowest abortion rate of 27 developed countries, was listed by the Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health as also having the lowest suicide rate for females aged 15 to 24.

Mr Speaker, one of the other unknown or unspoken of effects is the link with breast cancer. One report that I have had put to me says:

Women who carry their first baby to term cut their chance for breast cancer almost in half. Women who abort their first pregnancy almost double their chance. With 2 or more abortions, there is a 3 - 4 increase.

This is an American report, Mr Speaker, and it goes on:

For instance. A 15 year old American girl has a 10 per cent lifetime risk of breast cancer. If she gets pregnant in her teens and has the baby she reduces her risk to 7.5 per cent. However, if she has an abortion, her risk rises to 15 per cent ... If the abortion sterilises her and/or for other reasons, she never has another pregnancy, her risk rises to 30 per cent.

Mr Speaker, there are many other examples here. Another report called "The Effects of Pregnancy Loss on Women's Health", in 1994, said this:

In a survey of 1,428 women researchers found that pregnancy loss, and particularly losses due to induced abortion, was significantly associated with an overall lower health. Multiple abortions correlated to an even lower evaluation of "present health". While miscarriage was detrimental to health, abortion was found to have a greater correlation to poor health. These findings support previous research which reported that during the year following an abortion women visited their family doctors 80 per cent more for all reasons and 180 per cent more for psychosocial reasons.

Another report says:

The risk of breast cancer almost doubles after one abortion, and rises even further with two or more abortions.

That is in a series of reports from 1981 to 1990. Referring to cervical, ovarian and liver cancer, a series of reports says that women with one abortion face a 2.3 per cent relative risk of cervical cancer. These are reports from 1983 to 1992. Mr Speaker, the British Journal of Psychiatry published a review which found that psychological or psychiatric disturbances occur in association with abortion and seemed marked, severe or persistent in approximately 10 per cent of cases. In 1994 the United Kingdom parliamentary commission of inquiry into the effects of abortion on women found that 87 per cent of women it surveyed experienced long-term emotional consequences,

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