Unwanted Child Succeeds Less, Research Finds

A child born after its mother was denied an abortion is less likely to achieve personal, social and professional success and satisfaction than a child from a similar background whose mother welcomed the pregnancy, a team of researchers has concluded from an unprecedented two-decade study.

The U.S. and Czechoslovakian researchers, who have been tracking 440 men and women born in Prague between 1961 and 1963, reported Monday that they have found a widening gap between the educational, social and professional adjustment of the two groups beginning at age 9 and extending into young adulthood.

By age 21 to 23, the children of unwanted pregnancies were encountering more personal frustration, job dissatisfaction and disappointment in love. They were more likely than the other group to have been convicted of a crime and slightly more likely to have had alcohol or drug problems.

“Being born to a woman who did not want that pregnancy . . . the chances are pretty good that the child will have a rather detrimental psychosocial development,” Henry P. David, a psychologist and author of the study, said Monday in discussing his findings at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Assn.

David did not speculate on precisely how the experience of being “unwanted” shaped children’s lives. But the researchers have noted that families seeking abortions may be less willing or able, emotionally or economically, to provide adequately for the child.

David is director of a nonprofit research institute in Bethesda, Md., that conducts international studies on reproductive health issues. A self-described supporter of the right to abortion, David suggested his findings illustrate the harm that could be done by outlawing abortion.

Arthur M. Bodin, past president of the association’s division of family psychology, praised David’s study. Particularly impressive, Bodin said, were the rigorous scientific procedures David used and the social value of the findings.

Findings Disputed

But one psychiatrist opposed to abortion challenged the study’s methodology and conclusions. Dr. Samuel A. Nigro, president of the Cleveland chapter of Physicians for Life, contended in a telephone interview that much of David’s data is ambiguous and, when examined closely, does not unequivocally support his conclusions.

“You can look at his data . . . and come to the opposite conclusion,” said Nigro, who has seen the study in an earlier published form. “He owes it to other scientists to be more objective. He’s got an ax to grind.”

The research, which David said has been funded at various times by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the Ford Foundation and the World Health Organization, centers on 220 children born to women who were twice denied abortions under what was then Czechoslovakian law.

The law, which has since been changed, permitted abortions on medical grounds and for various social and economic reasons if approved by a special council. The women applied for permission, were refused, appealed the denials and were turned down again.

David’s group matched those women to women who had not sought abortions; they were paired by socioeconomic status, age and marital status. The children in the two groups were matched by age, sex, birth order, number of siblings and school class, David said.

At birth, the two groups of children were similar. There were no significant differences in weight, size, congenital malformations or apparent brain function, David reported. When tested at age 9, both groups achieved similar scores on widely used intelligence tests.

But the children from unwanted pregnancies “were rated less favorably in school performance, diligence and behavior by their teachers and mothers,” David said. They tended to receive lower grades in Czech language--a skill David links to “socio-emotional environment”--but scored no worse than their counterparts in math.

Gap Widens

When examined again at age 14 to 16, the gap between the two groups appeared to have widened, David said. The children from unwanted pregnancies were not failing, but they were under-represented among students graded by their teachers as above average or higher.

Significantly more children of unwanted pregnancies did not continue their education into secondary school, instead becoming apprentices or starting jobs. They were also more likely to report contentious relationships with their parents, David said.

Interviewed again at age 21 to 23, members of the unwanted group were more likely to report lower job satisfaction, more conflict with co-workers and fewer and less satisfying relationships with friends. Among those who had married, they rated their marriage as less happy and more often expressed a desire not to be married at all.

“The point is, these differences over 20 years became wider and more statistically significant,” David said.

Yet he emphasized that 10% of the children from unwanted pregnancies appeared no different from the other group. Similarly, 10% of the men and women in the other group encountered the same degree of problems as those in the unwanted group.

“We cannot say that every child born to a woman who did not want that child is going to be a child with difficulties,” David said.

David’s conclusions were challenged by Nigro, a child psychiatrist who described himself as “philosophically and scientifically” opposed to abortion. Citing specific data from David’s study, Nigro contended the differences between the two groups were often too small to be truly significant.

He also questioned whether the two groups were really “pair matched” or whether subtle differences accounted for any apparent gaps in social adjustment. For example, the unwanted children were slightly more likely to have younger parents and more siblings; and their families were less likely at the time of their birth to be living in their own apartment, a measure of socioeconomic status.

Similarly, the parents of the unwanted children were less likely to remain together as the child aged, Nigro noted.

“It’s just not a good match,” Nigro contended. “They say it is, but from scientific honesty, how can they say this? They’re coming from a prejudiced point of view.”

The researchers initially described the study to participants as a study of child development, not a study of the effects of unwanted pregnancy. They did so to ensure that the data would be unbiased and to protect the children from the knowledge that their mothers had sought an abortion.

David said no comparable study has been done in the United States, at least in part because of the absence of the extensive personal records kept in countries like Czechoslovakia. David’s ongoing results have been published over time in scientific journals and were published last year in the United States and Prague in book form.