Voluntary abortion does not harm mental health

Voluntarily terminating a pregnancy does not have negative psychological consequences, according to a study.

Abortion is an issue that is complicated to address leaving ideological filters behind. It has always raised many passions and strong opinions, which has polarized the debate. It is partly for this reason that many women feel a great concern about the prospect of abortion; it is an option to which they areIt is a choice that has been given much prominence, either to portray it as a form of murder or to make it an expression of the freedom to decide about one's own body.

However, just because there are political and religious ideologies at play does not mean that science has nothing to say. In fact, a comprehensive investigation has recently been carried out in which a 5-year study of how abortion or the absence of abortion has affected the well-being of a number of women has been carried out.. In this way it was possible to know if indeed in most cases abortion produces a great feeling of sadness and guilt that can lead to frequent anxiety crises, traumas, depression, etc.

Abortion and psychological damage

Part of the negative factors that are usually related to abortion is the high possibility of becoming traumatized, going into depression or, in general, damaging one's mental health as a consequence of going through this process. However, the most comprehensive research that has been conducted on this topic has concluded that no, there is no negative psychological effect that necessarily follows a voluntary abortion.

Does this mean that the fear produced by the prospect of abortion was the result of a propaganda campaign against this practice? That is too complex a subject to have a clear answer, at the moment.

But there is more. Not only is it the case that the women who are approached do not present significant psychological distress years after going through the clinic, but this is also true for the other group of women, those who cannot have an abortion.

Thus, the women who are not allowed to have an abortion are those who present symptoms related to mental disorders and malaise in general.. Specifically, these women were more likely to show low self-esteem, much greater anxiety and a high level of general distress. In addition, their desire to have an abortion remained and their level of anxiety had repercussions on many dimensions of their daily lives.

How was the study conducted?

To develop this research, a group of 956 volunteers was used and they were interviewed 11 times over 5 years. Some of them were able to have an abortion, while others were not given that option, having attended the clinic at too advanced a stage of pregnancy.

Thus, a large sample was used and studied through a longitudinal study, a large sample was used and studied through a longitudinal study, conducting two interviews per year in order to track the psychological well-being of these women. to be able to follow up on the state of psychological well-being of these individuals.

As the waves of interviews went on, a picture of the happiness (or lack thereof) of these women, as it related to abortion, was created.

The results of this research have been published in the scientific journal JAMA Psychiatry, and can be viewed by clicking here.

Psychological impact

These results are evidence of the psychologically damaging impact of making abortion impossible for women who choose this option. Although it may seem that pregnancy is the "normal" option and that approaching it means leaving the natural path, these data indicate the opposite: in the face of an unwanted pregnancy, the path is bifurcated into two options, and abortion does not produce the mental effects that the myth suggests it would..

Of course, this may be information that serves to weaken one of the positions in the abortion debate, but it is no less true that the design of the study was not done to favor one of these outcome options as having a greater chance of success.

In any case, in the end it is a struggle of moral ideas, and in this regard science can only provide data that are used as a tool in this type of debate (without in such debates (not that this need not be particularly bad in itself).