Getting an abortion, contrary to popular belief, is not an easy decision. As much as the media and culture today have formed the narrative that women should not only have abortions for unwanted pregnancies but will not suffer from any negative mental health impacts, that’s simply not the case. In most situations, women are pressured to abort. Whether that pressure comes from the partner, the family, or life circumstances such as financial or physical instability. Although we cannot make the blanket statement that women who are pressured to get an abortion will have worse mental health, research has shown that there are short-term and long-term psychological effects post-abortion.
What are the mental side effects of getting an abortion?
According to the British Journal of Psychiatry1 (2018):
Women who had undergone an abortion experienced an 81% increased risk of mental health problems.
- 34% more likely to develop an anxiety disorder
- 37% more likely to experience depression
- 110% more likely to abuse alcohol
- 155% more likely to commit suicide
The study does take into consideration if women were already abusing substances or had a history of mental health issues before receiving an abortion. Within the 81% statistic above, 10% is directly attributable to the abortion. However, it’s important to keep in mind that many women, regardless of having an unintended pregnancy or not, do report high levels of stress, anxiety, and depression due to other factors. An abortion will most likely be a compounding factor.
Simply put, an abortion does not help in alleviating any pre-existing mental health issues. In fact, it deepens or worsens what a woman may already be experiencing. And in some cases, an abortion can bring on a myriad of mental health effects experienced in the immediate post-abortion phase and long after.
Suggested Reading: The Real Effects of Abortion on Mental Health
Being pressured to abort can cause lasting mental health issues
In a more recent study (2023), the National Library of Medicine2 (NIH) aimed to determine if women who feel pressured to agree to abortion are more likely to experience negative emotional and mental health reactions.
This is what they found:
Overall, 61% reported high levels of pressure on at least one scale (origin of pressure). Our findings confirmed that women who perceived pressure to abort, especially from their male partners, families, or other persons, are more likely to report more negative reactions to abortion. Those experiencing pressure reported more negative emotions; more disruption of daily life, work, or relationships; more frequent thoughts, dreams, or flashbacks to the abortion; more frequent feelings of loss, grief, or sadness about the abortion; more moral and maternal conflict over the abortion decision; a decline in overall mental health that they attribute to their abortions; and more desire or need for help to cope with negative feelings about the abortion.
At Save the Storks, we hear many stories of women who were pressured into getting an abortion. In fact, one of our past staff members, boldly shares her story of feeling direct pressure to get an abortion. Sadly, this came directly from her father. He said that she would become another “single black mom statistic.” Ohers also said she would “never finish high school.”
Also read: The Coercion of Abortion
Is abortion a traumatic experience?
Many of these studies were incited due to a widespread report by the APA Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion3 (TFMHA). It considered many variables before, during, and after an abortion, such as the state of the woman who discovered an unintended pregnancy (socio-economic, personal, cultural contexts), the reason for choosing the abortion, the type of abortion procedure performed and at what gestational point, and any post-abortion issues that may have occurred subsequently. They argued that an abortion was no more traumatic than the experience of a miscarriage or stillbirth. But therein lies the truth. The loss of a child, whether it was from a wanted or unwanted pregnancy, wherein the life was ended either through abortion or miscarriage, carries the same weight on a woman. The report says it clearly itself (citing another source):
“Abortion is traumatic because it involves a human death experience, specifically, the intentional destruction of one’s unborn child and the witnessing of a violent death, as well as a violation of parental instinct and responsibility, the severing of maternal attachments to the unborn child, and unacknowledged grief. The view of abortion as inherently traumatic is illustrated by the statement that ‘once a [young] woman is pregnant…it is a choice between having a baby or having a traumatic experience.’”
The report concluded in saying what many on the pro-abortion side like to enforce: that no access to abortion more significantly impacts a woman in a pregnancy (intended or unintended); that abortions are only traumatic during a second or third trimester procedure (90% of abortions happen in the first trimester). But they also mention this: “Some women do experience sadness, grief and feelings of loss following an abortion, and some may experience ‘clinically significant disorders, including depression and anxiety.’”
In Conclusion: Abortions Do Cause Negative Emotional and Mental Health Outcomes
Regardless of the intention of a pregnancy or the reason for an abortion, we can agree––even with varying statistics and studies producing different results––that this is clear: women who have an abortion face physical pain and emotional trauma. They are susceptible to the many risks associated with abortion. The psychological impact of such a traumatic experience is profound and heartbreaking.
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- https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/abortion-and-mental-health-quantitative-synthesis-and-analysis-of-research-published-19952009/E8D556AAE1C1D2F0F8B060B28BEE6C3D ↩︎
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9981219/#REF2 ↩︎
- https://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/abortion/mental-health.pdf ↩︎
