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Abortion Kills Your Sex Life Says UK Doctor in Times Column
By Hilary White

In the May 2 instalment of his regular health feature in The Times, Dr. Thomas Stuttaford responded to a reader who complained of a loss of interest in sex following an abortion. "Though my boyfriend and I agreed it was the right thing to do, I feel guilty and I've gone off sex," wrote the questioner. Dr. Stuttaford responded by saying that loss of libido after an abortion is "so common that it can almost be said to be expected".

Asked if the feelings would pass, Stuttaford wrote, "It is possible, but by no means inevitable, that the changes this will have wrought in the way you feel about a future together may have irretrievably undermined your relationship."

Indeed, Dr. Stuttaford observed that in "years of experience with patients" has "reinforced the teaching I received in my early medical life that even the most ardent affair may not survive an abortion, although both partners often remain good friends. Frequently, there has been too much emotion around, even if there have been no spoken recriminations. The shadow of the decision to have the termination, and any doubts one or other may have had about this deep down in their psyche, means that sooner or later they will be tempted to start again with, as if it were, a clean slate."

Stuttaford referred to a study, authored "about 15 years ago," that he said showed that although "nearly all" women suffer feelings of guilt and grief following abortion, the effects usually passed within a month.

"My own opinion," he writes, "is that the American research workers were unduly sanguine in expecting women to jettison guilt and overcome their feelings of loss - the grief response - within just a month."

Statistical research by the Elliot Institute shows that, in many cases, the emotional effects of abortion are still discernable eight weeks after an abortion. In one study, two months after their abortions, 44 percent of women complained of nervous disorders, 36 percent had experienced sleep disturbances, 31 percent had regrets about their decision and 11 percent had been prescribed psychotropic medicine by their family doctor.

But Dr. Stuttaford quickly assures his questioner that "neither of you should assume blame or feel guilty."