The rhetoric and contradictions on the subject of abortion and healthcare reform are becoming deafening to the point I believe many are simply tuning it out all together.   
Mine is not to question the stories and experiences of women like Susan Silodor opined in the November 27th edition about women’s rights for reproductive choice “teetering on the brink”.  My heart aches for the countless experiences of those who have experienced the trauma of abortion as I have walked this profound life-changing path myself.  Sadly there is a kind of sisterhood, a club that we would surely not have otherwise “chosen” to join.   As I have walked out this journey for the last 29 years since my abortion at the age of 18 I am saddened by the divisiveness, confusion and downright abuse in some cases we have inflicted on each other as we try to come to terms with the facts.  
As I take in the plethora of opinions with regards to abortion being included in “healthcare reform”, I want to scream!   It’s as if the powers that be are so bent in one direction.  I see a runaway locomotive headed for a train wreck of mass destruction and it needs to be stopped.   It would be so nice if abortion were as simple as some would like us all to believe.  
For the last eight years, beginning with a profound healing journey, I have been researching the multi-faceted impact abortion has had on our world.  What I have discovered has brought me to question the true motives of those who strongly support abortion without limits under the banner of “protecting women’s reproductive rights”.   What about a woman’s right to know the whole truth, a women’s right to protection from a coerced abortion.  A little known fact, the number one cause of death for pregnant women is homicide.  
Let me draw your attention to just a sampling of worldwide peer-reviewed studies with regards to abortion’s impact on women.  A study in 2006 highlights that 64% of abortions involve coercion.
An epidemiological study published in 2006 in the European Journal of Public Health, conducted by Finland’s National Research and Development Center for Welfare and Health (STAKES) looked at data between 1987 and 2000 on all deaths among women of reproductive age (15 to 49) which found suicide rates among women who had abortions was six times higher than that of women who had given birth in the prior year and double that of women who had miscarriages.  Finland legalized abortion in 1950.  
Following this published study the United States National Institutes of Health stated that they do not have the data necessary to conduct a similar study on abortion and mental health.
An American research team led by Dr. Priscilla Coleman, professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Bowling Green State University, found that abortion increases the risk of panic attacks, panic disorder, agoraphobia, PTSD, bipolar disorder, and major depression, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, concluding that as many as 10 percent of all mental health problems in the U.S. result from abortions.
A New Zealand study led by a “pro-choice” scientist which tracked 500 girls from birth to 25 which drew international attention found that higher rates of depression, suicidal thoughts, and other mental disorders were found in women after abortion.
In 2008, Britain’s Royal College of Psychiatrists issued a statement urging the government to undertake a full review of the linkages between abortion and women’s mental health.   While the argument is often given that the stress on a woman carrying an “unwanted child” through full term is difficult, Britain clearly calls for more information be given to women contemplating abortion and that it may have adverse impact on their psychological well being.  
The University of Queensland (Australia) as well as a more recent New Zealand study at Otago University found similar outcomes.  
Then we have the breast cancer link that has been widely ignored as a risk factor.   In October of 2007, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons published a study entitled, “The Breast Cancer Epidemic”.  Showing that abortion, being the “best predictor of breast cancer,” among seven risk factors.  
Again, this is only a sampling of the current worldwide data available to us that our lawmakers and others seem bent on ignoring.  Why is that?  I could easily fill an entire issue of The Oregonian with the binders of information I have gathered over the past eight years.   Please don’t just take my word for it, do the research.  Women were designed to bring forth and nurture life.  Let’s take better care of educating and informing women with the truth.    Please help us stop this runaway, frighteningly out of control freight train.