Books written by anti-abortion advocates that deal with post-abortion effects are, by and large, heavily infected with bias. Not only is contrary evidence unrefuted, it is rarely even mentioned. Incorrect and out of date “facts” abound. The authors’ pop psychology often seems to be based on little more than their own wishful projections about the nature of women and how they should feel. Here are two typical examples from essays in the 1977 anti-abortion book The Psychological Aspects of Abortion:

It is interesting that women who need self punishment do not abort themselves more often. . . . Abortion is done “to” the woman, with her as only a passive participant. This is further indication of masochism.

Howard W. Fisher, “Abortion: Pain or Pleasure”

. . . Sooner or later [after the abortion], the truth will make itself known and felt, and the bitter realization that she was not even unselfish enough to share her life with another human being will take its toll. If she had ever entertained a doubt as to whether her parents and others really considered her unlovable and worthless, she will now be certain that she was indeed never any good in their eyes or her own. A deep depression will be inevitable and her preoccupation with thoughts of suicide that much greater.

Conrad W. Baars, “Psychic Causes and Consequences of the Abortion Mentality”

Post-Abortion Problems Are Uncommon

With the advent of safe, legal, routinely performed abortions, a wealth of good evidence has come to light that is quite contrary to common anti-abortion assertions. The typical abortion patient is a normal, mentally stable woman who makes a strongly resolved decision for abortion within a few days after discovery of the pregnancy and comes through the procedure virtually unscathed. Several scientific review articles— published from 1990 to 1992 in highly respected journals such as Science and American Journal of Psychiatry—support this conclusion. The reviews evaluated hundreds of studies done over the last thirty years, noting the unusually high number of seriously flawed studies and pointing out common methodological problems. Based upon the more reliable studies, all the reviews concluded that, although psychological disturbances do occur after abortion, they are uncommon and generally mild and short- lived. In many cases, these disturbances are simply a continuation of negative feelings caused by the pregnancy itself. Serious or persistent problems are rare and are frequently related to the circumstances surrounding the abortion rather than the abortion itself.

Further, many women who were denied an abortion showed ongoing, long-term resentment, and their resulting children were more likely to have increased emotional, psychological, and social problems in comparison with control groups of children. These differences between children widened throughout adolescence and early adulthood. Finally, many studies show that giving birth is much more likely than abortion to be associated with severe emotional aftereffects, such as post-partum depression.

The review articles largely concluded that the most frequently reported emotions felt by women immediately following an abortion (experienced by about 75 percent of women) are relief or happiness. Feelings of regret, anxiety, guilt, depression, and other negative emotions are reported by about 5 percent to 30 percent of women. These feelings are usually mild and fade rapidly, within a few weeks. Months or years after an abortion, the majority of women do not regret their decision. In fact, for many women, abortion appears to improve their self-esteem, provide inner strength, and motivate them to refocus their lives in a meaningful way.

Abortion Does Not Cause Emotional Problems

Does abortion ruin a woman’s life? Does it have any long- term effects at all? In the vast majority of cases of legal, early abortion, the answer is no, according to psychologist Dr Nancy Felipe Russo of Arizona State University—a conclusion that has caused controversy in the US. Dr Russo participated in a large-scale American review of independent studies of women’s responses to abortion by a team of psychologists. The team found that studies claiming women suffer from depression and mental health problems after abortion do not take into account the fact that they may have suffered from diverse other problems beforehand.

“We looked at factors such as education, income, how many children women already had and their levels of self-esteem before the operation, and found that the abortion itself had no independent effect,” explains Dr Russo. “If you really care about women’s mental health, you won’t just talk about abortion, you will look at the complexities of some women’s lives—lack of education, no money, a violent partner, sexual abuse, the effects of not having an abortion. There is no relationship of depression to abortion.”

Hester Lacey, Independent on Sunday, August 3, 1997.

Studies on abortion are done primarily through self-report measures, however, and it is possible that some women may be reluctant to admit negative feelings after their abortion. To help quantify this, consider these figures: every year since 1977, 1.3 million to 1.6 million abortions are performed in the United States; about 21 percent of all American women between the ages of fifteen and forty four have had an abortion. These are very large numbers indeed. The American Psychological Association has pointed out that, even if only 10 percent of the millions of women who have had abortions experienced problems, there would be a significant mental health epidemic, clearly evident by large numbers of dysfunctional women requesting help. There is no evidence of any such epidemic, thereby supporting the general reliability of self-report measures.

Those Who Need Extra Help

Some women who are disturbed or unhappy with their abortion decision belong to support groups like Women Exploited by Abortion and Victims of Choice. Several antiabortion studies and books purporting to demonstrate the overall harmfulness of abortion limit their samples to the membership of such groups. Not only does this introduce an immediate and fatal flaw to their argument, it shows deliberate obfuscation on the part of the authors. This does not mean, however, that post-abortion support groups are valueless to women. The very existence of such groups points to the strong need for health professionals to identify and provide extra help to women who are most at risk for developing psychological problems related to abortion. Many studies have shown that women at greater risk tend to include:

• emotionally immature teenagers
• women with previous psychiatric problems
• women aborting a wanted pregnancy for medical or genetic reasons
• women who encounter opposition from their partner or parents for their abortion decision
• women who have strong philosophical or religious objection to abortion
• women who are highly ambivalent or confused about their abortion decision and had great difficulty making it
• women who are coerced by others into having an abortion
• women undergoing second trimester abortions

In spite of psychological problems suffered by a few women after abortion, the existence of post-abortion syndrome is doubted by most experts. There is little need to posit a unique disorder in this case, since abortion is not significantly different from any other stressful life experience that might cause trauma in certain people. Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, himself anti-abortion, noted this in 1988. Unfortunately, facts, evidence, and common sense rarely get in the way of anti-abortion advocates who are determined to prove that women suffer terribly from post-abortion syndrome. Certainly, if this syndrome were real it would be a lethal weapon in the fight to reverse Roe v. Wade. This was, in fact, the motivation behind a 1989 surgeon general’s report on the health effects of abortion on women, which was called for by former President Ronald Reagan on behalf of anti-abortion leaders. Although the report was duly prepared, the surgeon general chose not to release it, apparently because it did not support the antiabortion position. Meanwhile, anti-abortion literature continues to churn out the myth that women are severely harmed by abortion.

Because abortion is such a volatile issue, it is probably unrealistic to expect this aspect of the controversy to die down soon, if at all. However, by recognizing that a small subset of women may require increased counseling and support during their abortion decision and afterward, the women’s community and health professionals can do much to minimize the damage wrought by the anti-abortion movement’s dangerous and irresponsible campaign of misinformation.