Problems After Abortion

Some pro-abortion people argue that having abortion legal makes it “safe” for women and that the overturn of Roe v. Wade would have a devastating impact on women’s health.

The idea that legalized abortion makes abortion “safe” is untrue. There is strong evidence that there are many complications - physical, emotional and psychological - which can occur as a result of an abortion or multiple abortions.

National statistics show that 10% of women undergoing induced abortion suffer from immediate complications, of which one-fifth (2%) were considered major. ¹

Over one hundred potential complications have been associated with induced abortion. “Minor” complications include: minor infections, bleeding, fevers, chronic abdominal pain, gastro-intestinal disturbances, vomiting, and Rh sensitization. The nine most common “major” complications are infection, excessive bleeding, embolism, ripping or perforation of the uterus, anesthesia complications, convulsion, hemorrhage, cervical injury and endotoxic shock. ²

Sterility
Long-term damage can occur from the immediate complications. One such example, identified by Dr. David Reardon, post-abortion expert, is sterility. “Researchers have reported that three to five percent of aborted women are left inadvertently sterile as a result of the operation’s latent morbidity.³ The risk of sterility is even greater for women who are infected with a venereal disease at the time of the abortion. ⁴

Premature Births
After induced abortions, premature future births are more likely. Why? During an abortion procedure, the cervix is artificially opened before it is ready to deliver the baby, and often the cervical muscle is torn. The cervical muscle must be stretched to allow the surgeon to enter the uterus to complete the abortion. If the cervical opening and muscle are torn, depending upon the extent of the tear and damage to the cervix, the muscle becomes weakened. Babies as they develop rest head down, preparing for birth. If the muscle is damaged, it may open prematurely to allow the baby to be born before he/she is fully developed. ^5,6

Mental Problems
In a study of post-abortion patients only eight weeks after their abortion, researchers found that 44% of patients complained of nervous disorders, 36% had experienced sleep disturbances, 31% had regrets about their decisions, and 11 % had been prescribed psychotropic medicine by their family doctor. ⁷

Research further shows that women who have had abortions are significantly more likely than others to subsequently require admission to a psychiatric hospital. At especially high risk are teenagers, separated or divorced women, and women with a history of more than one abortion. ⁸

Guilt
The feeling felt by the post-abortive woman for making a decision against her moral beliefs, that of killing her unborn child. ⁹

Anxiety
Post-abortive women may experience any of the following – tension, physical responses (dizziness, headaches), worry about the future, difficulty concentrating, disturbed sleep. ¹⁰

Denial
When a person experiences anxiety because of an intense inner conflict, and there is no end in sight, the mind will take whatever course of action is necessary to regain emotional equilibrium. One such defense mechanism is repression, a sort of “motivated forgetting,” which simply pushed the unbearable emotions away from the conscious level of thinking. Denial is a more thorough mechanism in which one not only pushed down unacceptable emotions surrounding a painful event, but also part or the entire event itself. ¹¹

Depression
While a few post-abortive women reach the point of an overt clinical depression, many will experience some of the following: sad mood; sudden and uncontrollable crying episodes; deterioration of self- concept, sleep, appetite, and sexual disturbances; reduced motivation; disruption of interpersonal relationships and thoughts of suicide. ¹²

Approximately 60 percent of women who experience post-abortion sequelae report suicidal ideation, with 28 percent actually attempting suicide, of which half attempted suicide two to three times. ¹³

Grief
No matter when the abortion occurred – a few days or many years ago, the women who underwent the procedure never forget the abortion experience, and grieve for their unborn children. The grief of losing a child never ends, but for those who chose to abort, the grief, combined with guilt, make the experience very difficult to forget or forgive. Most women report that when the anniversary date of the abortion comes, they remember it as if it were yesterday.

In addition, grief over an abortion is not limited to just the woman who had the abortion. Grief extends to the aborted baby’s father, siblings of the aborted child, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and extended family.

And the impact of that grief can even extend to partners – husbands, fiancées, boyfriends and future partners unless the abortion experience and the associated grief are resolved. “Nearly half of women in one study said abortion had “significantly altered” their relationship with their partner. ¹⁴ Breakups are common,¹⁵ even among couples with previously stable relationships.¹⁶

Alcohol Abuse
Abortion is significantly linked with a two-fold increased risk of alcohol abuse among women.¹⁷ Abortion followed by alcohol abuse is linked to violent behavior, divorce or separation, auto accidents and job loss. ¹⁸

Abortion and Breast Cancer
Dr. Joel Brind, an endocrinologist and biologist, and a leading expert in discussing the link between breast cancer and abortion, on his website ( http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/frear/brind.htm) reports the following findings:

The first evidence of a link between abortion and breast cancer was published in April 1957 in the well-known Japanese Journal of Cancer Research, (no. 48) which is published in English. So the “news” of a link is not new. The cells in the breasts that develop for lactation are called TEBs (terminal end buds) and are undifferentiated until the end of a pregnancy. If pregnancy does not occur these cells tend to grow and are susceptible to becoming cancerous. The fully developed cells, called lobules, that result from full-term pregnancy are more or less immune to cancer.

Carcinogenesis is a two-stage process: 1) exposure to a carcinogen that damages cell DNA and 2) a tumor promotion stimulus that makes cells grow. When TEB cells are exposed to a carcinogen they tend to become cancerous, whereas mature cells likewise exposed can be injured, but will not become cancerous.

In the case of induced abortions, however, the level of estrogen exposure is much higher, for two reasons. One is that, since the unborn child is viable, there is the same increase in estrogen levels that is found in healthy pregnancies. The second is that whereas spontaneous abortions usually occur in the first trimester, induced abortions are generally performed in the second or third trimester. Even one interrupted pregnancy means several weeks of exposure to abnormally high levels of estrogen. In a pregnancy that is carried to term, on the other hand, other hormones take over in the final stages, negating the effects of the earlier exposure to estrogen by differentiating cells for lactation and killing unneeded cells.

Dr. Frank Joseph, M.D., also investigated the abortion-breast cancer link. Some of his observations are summarized below:

• The American Cancer Society (ACS) reports that one of every seven women in the United States will develop breast cancer.
  
  
• Breast cancer has risen dramatically in America (by 50%) since 1973, when abortions were legalized (Roe v. Wade) and is also increasing worldwide. Recent studies have pointed out a dramatic relationship between the rate of abortion and the rising incidence of breast cancer. In fact, as the rate of abortion rises in America, so does the rate of breast cancer, with those women who have aborted having significantly higher rates.
  
  
• Of the 1.3 million abortions done annually in the United States and accounting for the increased risk posed by abortion, researchers estimate that the 800,000 first-time abortions performed annually would thus generate roughly 25,000 excess cases of breast cancer each year, as the first group of women exposed to legal abortion advances in age….Given the margin of error, the researchers predicted that excess cases of breast cancer would be between 9,000 and 40,000 per year, due to the impact of induced abortion.
  
  
• However, the ACS (American Cancer Society) refuses to include induced abortions as a breast cancer risk. They say the link is inconclusive, but they are wrong. The evidence is overwhelming. (http://www.errantskeptics.org/AbortionBreastCancer.htm )
  

The link between breast cancer and abortion is there. The medical community must allow women to know the full facts about abortion and its link to breast cancer to keep women safe, not expose them to further harm.

Resources
American Victims of Abortion
512 10th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20004
202-626-8800

Project Rachel
National Office of Post-Abortion Reconciliation and Healing
PO Box 07477
Milwaukee, WI 53207-0477
Office: 414-483-4141
1-800-5WE-CARE (93-2273)
www.marquette.edu/rachels
noparh@juno.com

Ramah International
1776 Hudson Street
Englewood, Florida 34223
941-473-2188
sydna@aol.com

Silent No More
http://www.silentnomoreawareness.org/about/

Reference:
1. Frank, et.al. “Induced Abortion Operations and Their Early Sequelae,” Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners (April 1985), vol. 35, no. 73, pp.175-180. Grimes and Cates, “Abortion: Methods and Complications,” Human Reproduction, 2nd ed., 796-813.
2, 3. Reardon, Aborted Women-Silent No More, Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1987).
4. Willke, Abortion: Questions and Answers, (Cincinnati, Hayes Publishing Co., 2003.)
5, 6. L. Iffy, “Second-Trimester Abortions,” JAMA, vol. 249, no. 5, Feb. 4, 1983, p. 588.
7. Ashton, “The PsychoSocial Outcome of Induced Abortion,” British Journal of Ob&Gyn., 87:1115-1122 (1980).
8. R. Somers, “Risk of Admission to Psychiatric Institutions Among Danish. Women who Experienced Induced Abortion: An Analysis on National Record Linkage,” Dissertation Abstracts International, Public Health, 2621-B, Order No. 7926166 (1979); H. David, et al., “Postpartum and Post-abortion Psychotic Reactions,” Family Planning Perspectives 13:88-91 (1981).
9,10,11,12. Symptoms of Post-Abortion Syndrome, http://www.pdhc.org/cl/after/symptoms.php
13. Speckhard, Psycho-social Stress Following Abortion, Sheed & Ward, Kansas City, Mo, 1987; Gissler, H. Lohnqvist, “Suicides after pregnancy in Finland, 1987-94; register linkage study,” British Journal of Medicine 1996. C.Haignere, et al., “HIV/AIDS Prevention and Multiple Risk Behaviors of Gay Male and Runaway Adolescents; International conference on AIDS: San Francisco, June 1990; N. Campbell, el al., “Abortion in Adolescence (92):813-823 (1988); H. Vaughan, Canonical Variates of Post-Abortion Syndrome, Portsmouth, NH: Institute Loss, 1991; B. Garfinkel, “Stress, Depression and Suicide: A Study of Adolescents in Minnesota,” Responding to High Risk Youth, Minnesota Extension Service, University of Minnesota (1986).
14. David H. Sherman, et al., “The Abortion Experience in Private Practice,” in W. Finn, et al, eds. Women and Loss: Psychological Perspectives (New York: Praeger, 1985) p. 102. An illustration of how this plays out in a marriage relationship is offered in the case of Ariel Balkind., detailed in Linda Bird Franck’s The Ambivalence of Abortion (New York: Dell, 1978), pp. 149-152.
15. Arthur B. Shostak and Gary McLouth, Men and Abortion: Lessons, Losses and Love (New York: Praeger, 1984), p. 105 notes that 25% of 75 men interviewed at some interval (varied) after their partner’s abortion said that abortion contributed to a breakup of the relationship.
16. Winfried Barnett, et al., “Partnership After Induced Abortion: A Prospective Controlled Study,” Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 21, No 5 (October 1992), pp. 443-455. Barnett and colleagues found that 20 out of the 92 aborting couples, or 22% in their study group, had separated after one year. Among the 2,000 plus cases of post abortion trauma that Theresa Burke worked with, she encountered several women whose marriage dissolved as a consequence of their abortions. See Theresa Burke, Forbidden Grief (Springfield, IL;; Acorn books, 2002), pp. 208, 212, 217.
17. Klassen, “Sexual Experience and Drinking Among Women in a U.S. National Survey,” Archives of Sexual Behavior, (5):363-39; M. Plant, “Women, Drinking and Pregnancy,” Tavistock Pub., London (1985); Kuzma & Kissinger, Patterns of Alcohol and Cigarette Use in Pregnancy, “ Neurobehavioral Toxicology and Teratology, 3:211-221-(1981) .
18. Morrissey, et al., “Stressful Life Events and Alcohol Problems Among Women Seen at a Detoxification Center, Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 39(9): 1159 (1978).