The psychiatric abortion consultation

The role of the psychiatric consultant has changed with the recent liberal "on demand" abortion legislation. This paper emphasizes factors relevant to the psychiatric consultant in the evaluation of the adolescent patient, the retarded patient and the patient with psychiatric illness. In addition, a survey of the literature is made to identify the patient who is at high risk of developing postabortion psychiatric complications. The authors conclude that postabortion complications are infrequent and that there are no absolute psychiatric contraindications to elective abortion.