Confirming an earlier Finnish study, researchers reporting in the Southern Medical Journal found that women who have abortions are at significantly higher risk for death than women who give birth.

Researchers examined the death records of 173,000 low income California women. They discovered that women who had abortions were almost twice as likely to die in the following two years, and that the high mortality rate persisted for at least eight more years.

The study of medical records for women who had abortions and women who gave birth during an eight year period showed that women who aborted had a 154 percent higher risk of death from suicide, an 82 percent higher risk of death from accidents, and a 44 percent higher risk of death from natural causes.

It is the first American study to use a uniform and objective standard for associating deaths with prior abortions and births.

The same researchers, reporting in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, found that after controlling for prior history of mental illness, women who abort subsequently require more mental health treatment than women who deliver. Abortion was found to be associated with higher rates of subsequent treatment for neurotic depression, bipolar disorder, adjustment reactions, and schizophrenic disorders.

The British Medical Journal also reports a study that surveyed American women whose first pregnancies were unintended. Results showed that those who chose abortion were at significantly higher risk for clinical depression than those who brought their unintended pregnancies to term.