UNWANTED CHILDREN

RIDICULOUS AWARD FROM THE AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION FOR "EXCELLENT SCIENCE" TO H.P. DAVID AND WASTE OF FEDERAL DOLLARS SUPPORTING

A REVIEW OF

BORN UNWANTED
DEVELOPMENTAL EFFECTS OF DENIED ABORTION

Editors: H.P. David, Z. Dytrych, Z. Matejcek,V. Schuller
by Springer Publishing Company - New York and
Avicenum-Czechoslovac Medical Press/Prague, 1988

August 14, 1989

(Pro-abortionists had obviously planned to make this book into the "final say" on the concept of "unwanted children." When it was published, news releases were sent out all over. However, I and several others clarified the fraudulent science involved in the book which actually proved the opposite of what the abortionists wanted. The sham science invoked by pro-abortionists demonstrate their basic psychopathy being incapable of any allegiance to truth, honesty and science itself. The following review of the book shut all of them up, and Henry David himself even ducked me on a radio show. I doubt he actually evaluated the book as he should have. I know the American Psychological Association did not. Read the following review and come to your own conclusion.)

To read the book, Born Unwanted -- Developmental Effects of Denied Abortion, is to be like a baseball catcher facing twenty-five pitchers all throwing at once. Which ball to catch? Which to throw back? One is overwhelmed at the errors of it all.

In spite of its proclaimed scientific basis, the book is written with a purpose and a prejudice. While the pre-publication promotion called it a "landmark book," it is hardly that to the scientific-minded.

My criticisms will fall into six categories:

a)General comments
b)Matching doubts
c)Surprising positives
d)A couple of puzzles among many
e)Samples of obvious bias
f)Conclusions

This review will not begin to address all the deficiencies of this book but will provide a glimpse of what can be found wrong with it.

A summarization of data is on Table I. Readers may refer to the actual text for further details. My review of this data will refer to the enumerated categories lined in Table I when the data is being discussed.

The book is a summarization of the data supposedly identifying the developmental effects of denied abortion. It discusses the history of abortion and other studies with a superficial discussion of the concept of unwantedness as a continuum linked to responsible parenthood and "good" future outcome as defined by the authors.

The book also reviews other major studies of similar nature including the Göteborg Cohort of 1939-77 by Forssman and Thuwe as well as older studies from Sweden and the Northern Finland Cohort of 1966-82 by Myhrman. The main thrust of the book is to present data about the Prague Cohort which is comprised of women who were twice rejected abortions for the same pregnancy in Prague during 1961-63. These women and children were then followed, and this book attempts to present data concerning developmental outcome and therefore the supposed effects of unwantedness.

The Prague Cohort originally consisted of 555 women twice denied abortion. Three hundred and sixteen (316 or 57%) subsequently gave birth while in Prague. The text states:

316 traceable Prague women gave birth to 317 live children. Of these, six died (five during their first year and one at age 8), a lower proportion of infant mortality than the Prague average during the Study period. Nineteen children were adopted, a proportion exceeding the national average by more than 30 times; 16 were offered for adoption before age 1 and another three children before age 3.

Of the 317 live unaborted children, follow up of the unaborted and approved control was completed for 220 children -- by chance being 110 males and 110 females.

Matching Doubts

The unaborted unapproved pregnancy child (UP) was matched with an approved wanted pregnancy (control) child (AP). From the study:

Pair-matching of children was for age, sex, birth order, number of siblings, and school class. Mothers were pair-matched for age, socio-economic status as determined by their husband's educational level, and by the husband's or partner's presence in the home, that is, completeness of family.

Contrary to what the authors say, the only criteria being matched adequately were age and sex for all the children.

A closer look at the matching of environments creates havoc for the validity of the study. While the authors claim comparability between the unaborted child (UP) and the approved child (AP), this does not hold up when one looks at the data.

The average age of the mother at the birth of the child was effectively the same (Table I, line 1 -- 25.5 years vs. 25.9 years), but line 2 reveals the unaborted mothers were under 24 years of age (line 2 -- 49.5% vs. 40.5%), 25% more than the approved mothers. Twenty percent more fathers of the unaborted child were under 24 years of age, not comparable to fathers of the approved pregnancies (line 3 -- 21.9% vs. 17.9%). At age 8 (line 4 -- 26.9% vs. 13.6%), the unaborted children had three or more siblings twice as often as the approved pregnancies. The families with their own living quarters, called "flats" (line 5 -- 53.0% vs. 61.0%), were eight percentage points fewer than the approved pregnancies and the grandparents (line 6 -- 41.4% vs. 29.1%) were required to help 12 percentage points more frequently in the unaborted group.

Comparing "complete" families (line 10 -- 83.2% vs. 90.0%) for the authors is accomplished by adding lines 7 (married parents -- 73.2% vs. 86.4%) and line 8 (remarried parents -- 10.0% vs. 3.6%), pretending that step-parent status is irrelevant. Line 8 (10.0% vs. 3.6%) reveals that a step-parent was present almost three times more often in the unaborted group. Line 8 and line 9 (still divorced -- 13.2% vs. 8.2%) together reveal that 23.2% of the unaborted children were not with their real fathers compared to 11.8% of the approved pregnancies.

The social employment status of the father (when present), line 11 (Lowest Class I -- 53.4% vs. 53.2%), line 12 (Middle Class II -- 34.8% vs. 30.1%) and line 13 (Highest Class III -- 11.8% vs. 16.7%), at the child's eighth birthday underscores the significance of the father's absence during the first eight years of life, especially when the approved children had almost 50% more fathers earning in the highest employment class.

Line 14 (natural father married to another -- 11.7% vs. 3.2%) and line 15 (natural father still not remarried -- 10.3% vs. 7.6%) confirm the natural father was out of the picture 22% of the time for the unaborted, almost twice the frequency of the approved children.

A further dimension distinguishing the study and control groups is identified by line 31 (three or more abortions, at birth -- 2.9% vs. 0.9%), line 32 (one or more abortions, at birth -- 27.6% vs. 18.9%) and line 33 (one or more abortions, child at 9 years old -- 42.7% vs. 36.5%). That is, at the birth of the children, 27.6% of the unaborted mothers had experienced one or more prior abortion(s) which is not at all comparable to the 18.9% of the approved pregnancy mothers.

In essence, these were not comparable groups. In the unapproved pregnancy, the unaborted child was with younger parents, fewer fathers, more step-parents, more siblings, less resources, required extended family help more often, and had mothers with more prior abortions, than the families of the approved pregnancies. When comparing environments for a child, the match-up is not precise.

The differences found in outcome can be accounted for by the lack of comparability of the study and the control groups. The differences found and alleged to be due to "unwantedness" can be accounted for by the lack of matching for environmental security between the study and the control groups.

Surprising Positives

These will be briefly described, and I think the reader will find them interesting if not "amazing."

1.The infant mortality was less for the unaborted children than the Prague average during the study period. Of the 316 traceable pregnant women delivered of 317 live children, six of the children died (one at age 8 and five within the first year). A lesser infant mortality is positive.

2.Of the women nine years after delivery, 38% declared their pregnancies to have been wanted and desired. Apparently, they totally repressed or compensated for what was originally felt to be an "unwanted" child. Page 75 of the text states:

… 38% of the UP mothers denied having ever been before an abortion commission; indeed, some even said they had planned the pregnancy and were greatly looking forward to it.

These were women who had been twice denied abortions. The compensatory mechanisms were positive.

3.The pregnancy-puerperal complication rates (line 16 [no pregnancy complications -- 73.9% vs. 65.3%] and line 17 [no puerperal complications -- 90.8% vs. 83.0%]) were amazingly positive and statistically significant according to the authors. It is surprising that the complication rates of pregnancy and of puerperium were lower for those carrying this so-called "unwanted" child. The authors themselves state (p. 67):

Moreover, there is no evidence that the mental condition of the UP mothers and their rejecting attitude toward the pregnancy were manifest in any negative way at the time of birth.

That the "unwanted" attitudes were not "manifest in any negative way at birth" is positive. These women took care of themselves better than the control group.

4.The authors state (pp. 67-68):

… breast feeding, one of the first objective indicators of the psychosocial mother-child relationship, is unfavorable for the UP children . . . . More UP children than AP children were either not breast fed or breast fed for only a short time.

This is questionable and perhaps an example of an attempt to skew the findings. The table for breast feeding that the authors provide is set up so that it would appear that the breast-feeding trends were greater among those with the approved pregnancies. However, reasonably combining the data as in line 18 (breast fed -- eight weeks or less -- 54.6% vs. 60.4%) and line 19 (breast fed -- nine weeks or more -- 45.4% vs. 39.6%) reveals that the UP (unaborted) group was breast fed longer. A case can be made that the total breast-feeding picture for the study group was positive.

5.The financial status of the families five to eight years after birth (lines 20 and 21) was improved in 40% of the unaborted vs. 42% of the approved pregnancies while the unaborted families were worse 15% of the time and the approved 17%. Obviously, no one gave up -- and there exists no regressive financial downward spiral due to the "unwanted" child's presence that was not also occurring with the approved controls. This is a positive finding that there is no evidence of an "unwanted" child creating undue economic hardship in these families. Somehow they compensated.

6.On page 78 of the text is the following quotation:

Not withstanding the tendency of the UP mothers to distort facts to suit social conventions [Reviewer note: This is a gratuitous slur -- how about the distortions from the AP mothers too? And the distortions from the so-called researchers?], most of them must be credited with a significant positive shift in attitudes toward the child.

This "significant positive shift in attitudes toward the child" is positive.

7.The Maladaptation Scores are comprised of sixty (60) items which could be interpreted as indicative of immaturity, imperfection, and problem-proneness in psychosocial development and social integration of the child. The authors indicated: "Only the hard items were selected, that is those showing extreme scores on the rating scales . . . ." The Maladaptation Scores (MS) was merely the summing up of the child's "negative points." The higher the number of negative indicators (maximum was 60), the more the child was thought problem-prone and at risk. Line 22 (Maladaptation Scores, age 9, total -- 10.6 vs. 8.7), line 23 (Maladaptation Scores, age 9, males -- 12.2 vs. 9.8) and line 24 (Maladaptation Scores, age 9, females -- 9.0 vs. 7.6) give a brief overview of these scores which are statistically significant according to the authors. Yet they state on page 83:

Review of the MS (Maladaptation Score) findings also showed that a considerable number of UP children are as well adjusted as their matched AP controls. Nine percent of UP children had scores within the range that could be taken as a good indicator of adaptation, 0 to 4 (the average for the AP controls minus one standard deviation) while 18 percent of the AP controls obtain an MS of 16 or higher (the average plus one standard deviation for the UP group).

Given the differences clearly evident in stresses for the family of the unwanted child, and when the maximum score in calculating problem-proneness is 60 and the average for the unaborted is 10.6, while the approved pregnancy average is 8.7, one must say the results are positive!

8.When the children were under 18 years of age, line 25 (child care help needed for divorce -- 36.8% vs. 35.5%), line 26 (child care help needed for education/alimony matters -- 29.8% vs. 24.3%), line 27 (child care help needed for criminal acts of adolescence -- 10.6% vs. 13.5%) and line 28 (child care help needed for other social/legal problems -- 22.8% vs. 27.1%) compare the unaborted to the approved in regards to reasons-for-needing-help from the government-sponsored Child Care Departments when less than 18 years old. What is surprising is that this is all there is of those hard core, need-help situations of obvious disadvantage. Indeed, for "criminal acts of adolescence" and "other social/legal" help required, the approved children did worse! This is an undeniable positive outcome.

9.On page 84, concerning Maladaptation Scores, the authors state:

Unwanted pregnancy alone does not specifically harm the child's development, but in its wake come a variety of other factors, which collectively appear to influence the development of the child in his or her social integration. (Reviewer's emphasis.)

[Reviewer's Note: Well, the "wake" of unwanted pregnancy is seen to be a series of family-social problems neither identical with nor equivalent to "unwantedness."]

In this quote, the authors infer that these "other factors" are always negative influences on the child's development.

Along with the already mentioned surprising positives, other data in the book also point in the opposite direction. Not in the Prague study, but in the Göteborg Cohort, 1939-77, Table 4.2 (page 42) compares UP (unaborted) children and AP (approved) control children during the period 0-21 years of age while Table 4.3 (page 44) describes the children 21-35 years of age. What is compared therefore is what happened 0-21 vs. 21-35. For psychiatric consultation and hospitalization, the percent needing such was reduced from 28.3% (before 21 years old) to 24.2% (21 to 35) for the UP children while the AP's went from 15% (before 21) to 18.3% (21 to 35). Crime registration increased from 8.3% (before 21) to 11.7% (21 to 35) for the UP children while the AP control children jumped from 2.5% to 6.7% -- a 2.5x increase. The registration for public assistance increased from 14.2% to 16.7% for the UP children while the approved children (control) jumped from 2.5% to 14.2% -- an almost six-fold increase from prior to age 21 to ages 21-35 (one wants to cynically ask: Does approval make children at risk?). The total problem-free group (not found registered for any problem anywhere in this socialist country which keeps such records) reveals that 48.3% of the UP children between the ages of 0 to 21 had no problems to be found registered. The AP control group (prior to 21 years) was 68.3% without problems. Between the ages of 21-35, however, the no-problem group had increased to 61.7% for the unwanted UP children while the approved AP control jumped to 74.2%. Obviously, some compensating was ongoing -- the unaborted improved to problem-free 13.4 percentage points while the approved persons improved 5.3 percentage points.

The data of the Göteborg Cohort can be summarized:

The data of the Göteborg Cohort does not support the claim of the authors that the trends for the unaborted-unwanted are bad. To the contrary, the trends favor them. This is a positive finding.

10.On page 85, the authors state:

No single test, no individual item, and no indicator in the case history was capable by itself of distinguishing the UP children from the AP children so as to enable an experienced clinician to identify an "unwanted" child easily and reliably.

This is a positive finding.

11.On page 85-86, the authors state:

In sum, the findings around age nine suggested that a woman's originally rejecting attitude toward her pregnancy does not inevitably lead to behavioral difficulties in the child. The belief that every child unwanted during pregnancy remains unwanted is not necessarily true. It is equally untrue that the birth of an originally unwanted child causes a complete change in maternal attitude. Not every woman who becomes a mother will love her child. The child of a woman denied abortion appears to be born into a potentially handicapping situation. At the same time, some factors in the life of the mother and child have a positive impact.

Here the authors seem to be struggling hard to avoid the conclusions which they do not want. They are equivocating to a surprising degree and are in fact preaching what their data did not provide. They do not want to accentuate the positive findings.

12.When asked at age 20 about life (line 29 -- "life: close to what wanted with few problems" -- 60.0% vs. 83.0% and line 30 -- "life: satisfied on the whole or better" -- 64.0% vs. 86.0%), the positive attitudes of the unwanted UP's towards life are not as high as the approved AP's, but when one considers the situation into which these children had been born, the 60% and 64% satisfaction level is a clear indication that most of these individuals are certainly entitled to be alive. This is a positive finding.

A Couple of Puzzles Among Many

Among the reasons women chose abortions (which were twice denied) at the time of the request were:

Unmarried - 29.3%
b) Threatened or actual family disintegration - 16%
c) Housing shortage - 36.3%

These figures should be kept in mind when other data are provided, such as at eight years of age when the child was said to be a "fairly complete family" (line 10) in 83.2% of the unwanted and 90% of the approved. Yet the abortion request was because of "unmarried in 29.3%. This figure does not confirm the number of "complete families" for those with unwanted pregnancies or the stability equivalence between the two groups.

Of interest is the number of abortions which had occurred to the mothers (lines 31, 32, 33). Obviously, 27.6% of the UP mothers had one or more abortions vs. 18.9% in the AP mothers at the time of birth. Nine years later, the UP women had 42.7% with one or more abortions while the AP mothers had almost doubled to 36.5%. What is not stated but seems a reasonable hypothesis to this observer is that previously aborted women have more trouble raising children and whatever the problems were which created the unwanted pregnancies in the first place had not yet been helped.

Examples of Observer Bias

1.The authors frequently qualify their positive statements and accentuate the negative findings. For example, on page 57 the authors state:

If the UP and the AP groups do not represent either extremes on the continuum (of wantedness/unwantedness), then whatever significant differences are found are likely to be of even greater importance.

This is a transparent effort to enhance their predetermined negative conclusions regardless of the data. This reviewer responds that the authors are right but the children's end states were positive considering the more insecure environments into which they had been born.

2.The manipulation of breast-feeding data has already been discussed, which is an obvious example of observer bias.

3.On page 79 is stated:

The UP mothers do not constitute any "special" or "marginal" group of the general population. At the time the child was to be born, they were definitely not threatened by any material deprivation. In later years, they were not "overburdened" by children, having largely one, two, and, at most, three. (A fourth child or more appeared in only ten cases, which is 4.6%.)

Some objections:

To write: ". . . at most, three (children) . . ." and then add parenthetically that ten cases had "a fourth child" is an example of grammatical confusion at least and wanting scholarship at worst.

As has already been shown, a close look at the data reveals material deprivation and a handicapping situation which explains the differences in outcome. This is the "more insecure environment" to which these children were exposed: The mothers were younger; the fathers were younger and fewer; there were more step-parents; the children had more siblings; the families had less resources in terms of owning their own flats; more grandparents' help was needed; and the mothers had been through more abortions already before the birth of these children.

4.The authors' description of the Maladaptation Scores on pages 80 and 81 of the text reveal that their mission was to warp the data. They focused on the negatives for both the children and mothers, pretending objectivity but such is naught. Given this negative emphasis, the outcome was extremely skewed for those more deprived. In actual fact, the outcome was far from a disaster.

5.The text states on page 85:

The unconditional acceptance of the child by the mother is the essential prerequisite for an effective mutual psychological interaction.

This is generally accepted by mental health experts around the world. Nevertheless, these authors did not test this statement. It remains a theoretical concept and a desideratum, but by no means did the authors prove it valid. What is apparent in the total picture is that the mothers compensated and people tried to do what was right. The so-called "born unwanted" turned out indistinguishable from the so-called wanted.

6.On page 91 is stated:

In the social integration and competence of UP subjects as a group and in their school achievements, it is the lack of pluses rather than surplus of marked minuses that becomes most apparent. Still, perhaps most important, the fact that differences between UP subjects and AP controls persist and have actually widened after nearly 18 years of family life suggests that "unwantedness" during early pregnancy constitutes a not negligible factor for the child's subsequent life. Socially handicapping characteristics in UP subjects seem to have an accelerating momentum.

This is just not confirmed by their own data nor by the Göteborg Cohort already described. This is how the authors want it to be -- not how they found it. (Abortionists think Right-to-Lifers cannot be scientific. To the contrary, what is obvious is that abortionists do not care about science.) Furthermore, given the authors' admitted strong negative bent, the pluses would seem even more significant.

7.On page 96, the text states:

There were no significant differences in views expressed by UP subjects and AP controls on how they felt within their present social groups, their concerns about the future, or on how they decided on or prepared for their occupations. Nevertheless . . .

Always a "nevertheless . . . ." The authors routinely qualify their absence of findings in the direction they want. This particular quote is taken as they discussed "job satisfaction" between the ages of 21 to 23 (lines 29 and 30 of this critique's Table I).

8.On page 110:

The prevention of unwanted pregnancy is more important than ever for the well-being of the family.

This statement is not justified by the data. The concept of "unwantedness" is actually found to be irrelevant.

9.On page 124:

In conclusion, the findings of the Prague study -- and also of the Scandinavian research -- lend reasonable support to the hypothesis that insufficient gratification of basic social and emotional needs (which accompanies many UP children from early childhood) tends to create an unfavorable social environment with negative effects in personality development, social relations, and self-realization.

One cannot argue with the hypothesis -- but it has not been linked with wantedness, unwantedness, or abortions denied. To claim so is scientific balderdash.

Conclusions

The task for the reviewer is to maintain objectivity, an easy task in view of the data itself but a difficult one when faced with the maddeningly gross abuse of thinking present in this book. One wants to yell when convulsed by the equivocating and propagandizing. I am confident I have kept more faith with science in this review than the authors did in their book. And any group which accepts or promotes this book is filled with scientific charlatans (like the American Psychological Association).

The book is an example of manipulation of data more and more frequent in the scientific community. The authors ignore some data at times, then orchestrate it to accentuate the negative or to minimize the positive. Unjustified claims are made over and over again. They conform the data to themselves.

What was really measured in the studies in this book are family deficiencies and the lack of complete perfection in family life. The study measured the "more insecure environments" between the two groups of mothers and children. The seeking an abortion (an "unwanted" pregnancy) is truly a marker and a cry for help. It is not a cause of anything. The insecure environments are the cause of the few differences between the two groups. It is not scientifically correct to say that the marker for the insecure environment is the cause of the insecure environment or the cause of the problems subsequently identified.

The differences between the groups include the following:

-Mothers less than 24 years of age 25% more often than controls;

-Fathers under 24 years of age 20% more often than controls;

-Three or more siblings were present twice the controls;

-Controls owned their own flat eight percentage points more;

-The study group needed extended family help twelve percentage points more;

-Step-parents were present in the study group 2˝ times more than the controls;

-Single parent was present 50% more often in the study group;

-In the control group, the fathers earned in the highest employment status 50% more than the study group;

-Natural father was gone 1/5 of the time -- twice more often than in the control group;

-Mothers had one or more abortions prior to this child's birth 50% more often than the control group.

Science is not served well by ignoring these differences between the groups which singularly may prove insignificant but in the additive sense loom rather large, especially to those of us in clinical practice who discern what chaos each of these factors can cause in a family.

Buried in this book are the following assertions by the authors:

- (pg. 67) -There is no evidence that the mental condition of the mothers and their rejecting attitudes toward the pregnancy were manifest in any negative way at the time of the birth.

- (pg. 78) -Most of the mothers must be credited with a significant positive shift in attitude towards the child.

- (pg. 84) -Unwanted pregnancy does not harm the child's development.

- (pg. 85) - No single test, no individual item, and no indicator in the case history was capable of distinguishing the child so as to enable an experienced clinician to identify the so-called unwanted child easily and reliably.

- (pg. 96) - There were no significant differences in views expressed between the groups on how they felt within their present social groups, and their concern about the future.

- (pg. 124) -At all ages of the study: "The unaborted subjects are not so much over-represented on the extremely negative indicators as they are under-represented on the positive ones. They are rarely observed on any indicator of excellence." [Reviewer note: This is elitism and eugenics. After all the negative searching made by the authors, we are now informed that the negative indicators were not heavily represented but that the positive indicators were less frequent. One suspects they want to have it both ways.]

But all this is ignored, and the authors, by delicate psychological testing, discern differences in outcome, trying to suggest that a symptom is actually a cause. This is scientific quackery to be repeated and praised no doubt by scientific quacks (like those in the American Psychological Association).

Never more clear than in this book is that those who are aborted are real people with lives to lead and, if left alone and unaborted, do not have "bad" lives. The outcome was far from a disaster. Sixty-four percent stated they were at least satisfied with their lives from the Prague study, and from the Göteborg study, 48% had no registered problems from birth to age 21 and also no registered problems in almost 62% between the ages of 21 and 35. The positives justify the existence of these children not only as children but as adults.

This is a study of those who should be dead by abortion according to the authors. Therefore the real question is: Is life's adventure worth it for the unaborted? To answer this question and to bring this study to a valid conclusion, the authors must break the codes, openly discuss the unabortedness with the UP individuals and find out directly whether they feel they should have been allowed to live. Narratives are needed emphasizing the common struggles and themes present. Unfortunately, the real stories of the unaborted remain hidden in this egregious attempt to deceive entitled Born Unwanted -- Developmental Effects of Denied Abortion.

The not-aborted children described in this book confirms that abortion is a massive deprivation and a total write-off of millions of lives. This study shows that if these lives had been left to live, they would not have been that much different from the socially-approved pregnancies. These unaborted individuals are the lebensunwerten Leben (life unworthy of life), and we need to know more about those "who might have been" by looking at those few who have escaped the abortionists' procedures.

Finally, one wonders what improvements could have resulted had the authors, instead of merely studying the subjects, spent time in therapy and in counseling with these families. This is to raise an ethical objection. Not to offer help to someone in identifiable trouble flies in the face of Western Christian traditions. It is certainly against the Oath of Hippocrates. What these authors did was to allow more suffering than was necessary while they attempted to promote their point of view in clear defiance of civilization, science, and all helping traditions. This is traitorous science, not only in its failure to keep allegiance to the scientific process but in its failure to offer help when obviously needed by both groups studied. (And, the American Psychological Association ought to close its doors.)

TABLE I

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