Abortion Psychological Impact

Though not a double-blind study (obviously impossible for reasons stated in the article), in my clinical experience, post-abortion women have serious psychological stress long term afterwards--often decades afterwards. No woman has ever said that she regretted having her child (again, not a scientific study, but evidence, nonetheless). Many women have regretted marrying the ding-dong who fathered the child and that caused stress, but this strays somewhat from the topic.

The main times it is difficult for a woman who aborted:

• When trying to get pregnant
• When pregnant with a wanted child
• When parenting a teenager
• When sick (with cancer or some other disabling disease)

If she's having trouble getting pregnant or can't get pregnant, she will forever rue the child that could have been. When she is pregant, worries of guilt tend to resurface. When she has a teenager, especially if her belief system has changed and even if it hasn't, she must decide whether to bring this chapter of her life into the conversation. And finally, when any person is deathly ill, they often wonder why. More than one patient has struggled with self-forgiveness when enduring cancer over what they now consider sin.

As an aside, only one woman that I've known to have an abortion, was not in some way coerced or pressured by a man to do so. Again, not a statistical sample, to be sure.

Bottom line, these women all felt and many continue to feel shame, distress and sadness years down the road. Abortion is not universally the "freeing procedure" it has been billed to be.