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These results make sense because while most cultures have slowly come to consider abortion as a normal and acceptable part of reproductive women's health care, the real psychological effects that aborting one's child has on a mother can never be completely avoided.

UNFORTUNATELY, THE PUBLIC IS largely unaware of these important findings, and, even worse, doctors still rarely inform women considering abortion about the strong abortion/depression link.

Congressman Joe Pitts from Pennsylvania wants to do something about this. Last year he introduced House Bill 4543, the Post-Abortion Depression Research and Care Act, which would have amended the Public Health Service Act to authorize the Secretary of Health and Human Services to expand research with respect to post-abortion depression and post-abortion psychosis.

Some of the authorized activities included research relating to the causes of negative reactions, the development of improved diagnostic techniques, and education programs for health care professionals and the public.

H.R. 4543 would have also provided grants "for projects for the establishment, operation, and coordination of effective and cost-efficient systems for the delivery of essential services to individuals with post-abortion depression or post-abortion psychosis and their families."

The legislation's principle objective, however, was to provide funding for a comprehensive, non-partisan national research project to determine the incidence and prevalence of cases of post-abortion conditions, the severity and duration of such cases, and to establish whether abortion causes depression.

Regrettably, little action was taken on this bill last year, and it died while under review in the House of Representatives subcommittee on Energy and Commerce.

Given what is at stake with this issue -- not only the lives of over one million babies, but also the health and lives of over one million women and their families -- the Post-Abortion Depression Research and Care Act needs to be re-introduced this year and made law so that we can give women the information they need to make truly informed choices.

topics:
Education, Health Care, Abortion, Law, Energy