Paul de Bellefeuille
Extract
It is good that in their sympathetic article (Can Med Assoc J 1989; 140: 799-801, 805) Drs. Ruth Stirtzinger and G. Erlick Robinson remind us that “for [the mother] this has been the loss of a baby”. But in their review they incidentally say that in a group of women described by Simon and associates’ “there were no reported cases of psychiatric symptoms attributable to therapeutic abortion [emphasis mine]”. This statement is not made in the article quoted. Simon and associates wrote that “the amount of psychopathology seen following spontaneous abortion over the same 10 year follow-up period is minor when compared to the therapeutic abortion group”.
de Bellefeuille P. (Correspondence) The psychologic effects of spontaneous abortion. Can. Med. Assoc. J.. 1989;141(6):508-511.