Comments on Cameron and Tichenor's remarks on our 1966 paper

W e are interested to read Cameron and Tichenor's analysis of our paper (which is now 10 yr. old). With respect to the choice of control material, we made the simp!est possible sampling from the birth register and thereafter studied the outcome from various points of view. Another method would have been to attempt matching of the control cases, factor for factor. However, it seemed co us that such a procedure would in practice have been almost impossible; moreover, it would to some extent have rendered the study pointless. If one presses such a requirement for analogy of situation in pregnant women far, it becomes hardly reasonable that the one group seeks abortion and the other not. It was therefore obvious to us that the two groups would differ socially and also in respect to mental health. In the first paragraph on page 75 it would have been better to write that in this very limited material the differences between social Groups I and I1 on the one hand and Group 111 on the other did not reach statistical significance. However, we consider that Cameron and Tichenor do not pay sufficient attention to the comparisons we made between the pairs which were matched for social group. On page 82 we expressly say that among 77 pairs concordant for social group there were 34 cases denied abortion (44.2%) free from sociopsychiatric disability as against 54 control cases (70.1 % ) . This difference is significant (0.005 > p > 0.001). W e make several such analyses in which different individual factors are separately controlled. W e fully agree with Cameron and Tichenor that an unwanted pregnancy is not synonymous with an unwanted child. The term "unwanted child" has become a kind of technical term for a child born after refusal of an application for abortion, but this is unfortunate. The principal conclusion to be drawn from our study is that women who were at that time seeking abortion, even in cases where the indications were considered much too weak to justify assent to the application, were to some extent a disadvantaged group, both socially and in respect to mental health. Cameron and Tichenor's analysis is interesting but as far as we can see it does not conflict with our view.