and nothing is ever ‘right’. Never assume that for anything, because it’s just not true. everything in this world is dialectical, and there’s never any real ‘right’ answer.

There’s a lot of reasons for that, and you’re right.

I don’t think I’m “pro-life,” however. I’m just sick of everyone acting like the termination of pregnancy (whether by miscarriage, abortion, or birth) is an easy thing, either psychologically or physiologically. It’s not.

I never meant to disparage women who have had abortions – ever – and I apologize if that argument could be inferred from what I wrote. This article grew out of a concern both for women who have had abortions and women in general. As someone who used to be pro-choice, I have been exposed to pro-choice arguments. In my experience, it was only talked about as a “right” and something that was universally beneficial to women. I am eternally grateful for the women like Debra who fought for increased women’s rights on all fronts in the 1960s and 1970s, without whom I would probably not have access to many of the opportunities that I, and millions of other women, are able to enjoy today. However, with regards to abortion, I feel that as the years have gone by and the potential effects of the procedure have come to light, we need to re-examine whether this is something that hurts or helps women. I do not argue that the medical abortion procedure is safer than it was pre-Roe; however, it is still far from a universally harmless procedure, as is frequently presented by pro-choice groups and Planned Parenthood.

I do not claim to know what every woman who has had an abortion feels and experiences. I have never been in that situation, nor have I personally interviewed every woman who has had an abortion, and I apologize for misunderstandings on that part. I do not argue that some women feel relieved and nothing else after having an abortion. However, it is worth pointing out that not every woman feels relieved, and has a more complicated response, psychologically, physiologically or both, to the experience. Information on such experiences, however, by nature is difficult to come by, whether it be that the woman doesn’t want to discuss her experience or the fact that the differences between correlations and causations can be difficult and potentially impossible to discern in some cases.

However, it is worth pointing out that there ARE women who have a seriously damaging experience after having an abortion. Regardless of statistics or not, the very fact that there are scores of women (see Silent No More for testimonies; Operation Outcry for affidavits) who have had negative experiences because of their abortions and were not properly prepared for such effects disproves the notion that abortion is a harmless procedure.

This article was borne out of frustration that a) women’s post-abortion wellbeing has not received its due attention and b) the pro-life community is often presented as anti-women. As I stated before, I wouldn’t have written this article if I weren’t deeply concerned about my fellow women who find themselves unsure what to do about their unwanted pregnancies. Some women feel relief, other women become depressed, etc – every woman has a different experience, but the important thing to note is not every woman is unaffected by having an abortion, as is often claimed by the pro-choice community. The only side that seems to be actively concerned about the potential for negative side effects is the pro-life side (of course this stems from their angle general anti-abortion angle, but I feel it is necessary to point out that they do also have views that can be perceived as pro-women). I am first and foremost concerned about the mental and physical health of women, and I apologize if that wasn’t properly communicated.

I closed by arguing that we need greater resources for women because that’s really the most important part. If we had greater access to and education about preventative and supportive resources, every woman would be in a better health situation. Preventing situations that could lead to abortion is, in my mind, the most important problem to tackle. The next thing to insure is that, because abortion is still a legal procedure, whatever decision the woman does make is informed by a comprehensive understanding of the effects of any decision. I go back to my main argument, that the negative effects of abortion have been largely suppressed, and that women have the right to know that there are a long list of potentially (though not necessarily automatic) life-altering after effects of having an abortion.

One final note: this debate has highlighted the generational shift that has occurred on abortion. The Baby Boomer generation is much more pro-choice than the younger (18-30) generation, and it is likely that, though we both have the health of women as one of our foremost concerns, we will never understand why the other generation perceives the issue as they do (and certainly will not in the space of a mere few paragraphs).

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

You begin by denying an overwhelming body of evidence in #1. It isn’t just one study, and of course they’re peer reviewed and published by top scholars of psychology, medicine, and neuroscience. Abortion is highly destructive. If you ever met someone who can even talk about having had an abortion, this should be common knowledge. Since it’s not, I suggest that you read the literature. You’ll find it. Lots of it. And you won’t find overbroad conclusions by crazy whack jobs, either. The fact of the matter is that “choosing” to terminate one’s pregnancy is not something that women take lightly.

There is no law nor requirement for them to advise you as to anything. You pay them about $400 and they will give you an abortion.

Clinical depression and progesterone are not heavily correlated, to my knowledge.

Next you mount an attack on a three word phrase taken out of a several hundred word post. Is that really all you have? And are you really trying to claim you’re objective after you just attempted to question the credibility of studies that show emotional trauma from abortion?

“Where is the description of the women who had abortions and were relieved to have it done, fared better than if they had not, don’t suffer depression, insomnia, etc. –are just at peace with their decision?”

They’re notably absent from the empirical evidence (aka, they don’t exist). As I stated before, even rape victims, on average, regret aborting their rapists’ fetus.

If you think the 24 hour rule is a sufficient response to a life-changing decision like this one, often made by very young people, sometimes not even adults, etc., you’re even more ignorant than I thought before. Plenty of people raise their right hand and join the military. If you think they feel the exact same way after they watch their friend bleed out on the battlefield, you’ve got something coming.

You continue to make false analogies and the best you have is to try to attack the credibility of the peer reviewed journals in which these studies exist. You obviously can’t respond to the facts, so you resort to this. I have to say this is shameful fundamentalism on your part.

I think this article is among the most thoughtful I’ve ever read on the topic. Your attacks are weak at the very least.

4. Mounting body of evidence that..abortion hurts the woman. (note the bias by use of hurt the baby)
What evidence? Where? Show me the studies– the breast cancer link has been completely debunked-I can send you the studies.. Hormonal induced depression? You bet your bippy-any pregnancy termination-by abortion, (induced or spontaneous) or child birth results in hormonal changes, that can include depression (perhaps we need a label on child birth? May cause depression! I had kids, I still bear the emotional scars!)
A business- of course–don’t you guys advocate capitalism?! Shouldn’t they get paid for providing safe, clean medical care?
“instead steers them blindly into having an often-traumatizing procedure” How does the author know this?
Pressure? How?
Of course, I wholly support prenatal care, maternity/paternity leave–my friends in Sweden think its great–but then they have government supported healthcare and benefits…
And finally, TIm, I did see what they were giving for birthcontol. I was there in early 1970′s, I marched for women’s right to safe abortion in a medical facility-if she chose it. I remember friends having abortions, and I remember the difficulty in getting contraception, even when married–that a husband had to agree and sign for certain forms for the wife.

Only choice: the author went to pains to argue that these wonderful prolife groups are out there just waiting to help…so PP and abortion are not the only choice.
Where is the description of the women who had abortions and were relieved to have it done, fared better than if they had not, don’t suffer depression, insomnia, etc. –are just at peace with their decision?
There are lots of reasons for induced abortion, failed birth control, rape, health of the mother, unfortunate problems with the pregnancy, yes even timing, bad relationship-it’s a decision that should be weighed (hence the 24 hr rule), but it is also private, personal for the woman inconsultation with her doctor, and performed in facility on par with any other medical issue. I think informed consent is essential, but make sure the informed is truly scientific, evidence based data that is being used, not half truths, and generalizations.

This is a wonderful analysis of one of America’s toughest problems.
You raise an excellent point, that even pro-choicers should be concerned about: women after abortion.

Planned Parenthood seems only concerned with the 2,000-5,000$ they get from each abortion – rather than warning a women what might be coming her way. I wouldn’t have such disdain for the organization if they treated abortions like the life-altering decision that it is, rather than just a “procedure”

Where is the counseling from PP? Where is the post-abortion support groups? Where is the outcry about women going into post-abortion depression? It’s the pro-life groups, who are against abortion in the first place, who actually end up helping those women who struggle after abortion (not all do) to get back on their feet and back to where they want to be.

Who is more pro-woman there, Debra?

Planned Parenthood, who acts like the pregnant girl simply had a band-aid put on, or the pro-life groups who, despite their opposition to abortion, continue to reach out to post-abortion women who struggle.

Are you serious? Do you really want to compare these statistics from prior to 1973 to now, and claim that abortion is the causal factor that makes the biggest difference?

You’ve got to be kidding me. Let me know how many people die from bubonic plague this year compared to the 1300s, or the proportion of the world that does.

Since fewer people died in 2008 from bubonic plague than in 1340, it must be because the sky is blue. There couldn’t possibly be a world of difference in technology.

The strides made in human reproductive biology ince the Roe days are truly astonishing. The Y chromosome wasn’t even discovered until the 1950s. And it wasn’t until the 1980s that the gene on the Y chromosome that is the determinant of the male sex.

If we just discovered 20 years ago how biology makes a man into a man pre-birth, it should be obvious why women’s reproductive systems are much healthier in 2009 than they were in 1973.

I guarantee you wouldn’t have taken the birth control pills they had then, either. Yeah, they worked, but if you think modern birth control has side effects, you should see what they were giving women then.

“I have seen read the studies on breast cancer and have a quarrel with the stats. Just because something is statistically significant doesn’t mean its clinically significant or really relevant.”

This is nothing but ignorance about inferential statistics and how they are used, combined with general ignorance about the philosophy of science. While one can never guarantee that a single study has a truly random and representative sample, this is the reason why experiments must be repeatable. And while the evidence may, as of now, be inconclusive, the damage that abortion has caused to women worldwide is real and not yet fully understood.

“The unfortunate outcome of your line of reasoning is that abortion hurts women, so lets outlaw safe and effective abortion so we don’t hurt women.”

This is wrong as well. I haven’t observed anyone jumping to conclusions except you here. I have even said that I’m not taking a side. I’m merely pointing out that denying that there exist negative consequences on both sides is irresponsible.

Countries throughout the world have much stricter laws on who can get an abortion and for what reason, and there aren’t 13 year old girls getting closet abortions with coat hangers in the alley. This is nothing but a fear ploy to convince people that have a legitimate point (that there should be fewer abortions because it is highly correlated with bad things) that their point is entirely illegitimate because the only other option is a coat hanger in the alley.

Abortions are safer because they are legal, but the tradeoff is that they are much more popular. Additionally, whatever psychological harm may come from abortions (which can range from none to suicidal and everywhere in between) is a factor that has to be weighed in any serious, pragmatic analysis of the social consequences of any policy.

I’m not saying that anything should change or that it should stay the same. But to suggest that the current status quo or coat hangers are the only option is ridiculous. If a constitutional amendment banned abortions in the United States tomorrow, there would not be a million abortions a year in this country. There probably wouldn’t even be a hundred thousand. Yes, some truly awful things would happen to some people if the black market couldn’t take care of the ones who sought a legitimate, qualified abortion doctor. But you’re completely lying to yourself if you think that we’d have anywhere near the numbers of abortions we have without robust protection for the “right” to abort one’s fetus on demand prior to viability in this country.

We wanted available, safe, and rare. What we got was underground (because social conservatives cant stand that abortion clinics even exist), quite a bit safer, and anything but rare. Was it worth it? You decide. I have no clue. But I can honestly say that if even 20% of what the psychology literature is correct about what abortion does to women (even putting aside the physiological factors), the social consequences of abortion and the negative effects it has had on the population must be immense.

I used to think all Pro-lifers were “right wing,” whack-job, religious, fundy wing-nut men. And while the most vocal opposition to abortion might come from these people, I’m willing to bet that the largest demographic of Pro-lifers (the plurality of Americans) simply view it as an interest balancing where the fetus outweighs the other consideration.

Like I said before, I think th entire issue is screwed up in this country because the people controlling the debates are people like you with signs bearing coat hangers and red circles and cross lines in them, and the other side are fundamentalist, religious nut jobs that are trying to enforce their moral code on everyone.

I’ve never considered myself pragmatic, but this is an issue that the sides have no common ground on and no reason to budge.

True, that there is trauma from the procedure and afterwards. I would argue that the trauma is not much different than trauma experienced after any other life changing medical condition/procedure. HAve you compared, say the depression rate, for women who have repeated miscarriages, without abortion? or insomnia post partum (that’s a joke) or after other trauma? Trust me, it happens.

I have seen read the studies on breast cancer and have a quarrel with the stats. Just because something is statistically significant doesn’t mean its clinically significant or really relevant. (Lies, damn lies, and statistics.)

Compare the statistics on infertility, death, and increased later miscarriages with the stats for the same effect pre-Roe.

Your sample seems skewed. Have you spoken to the same sampling of women at pro-choice rallies?

The unfortunate outcome of your line of reasoning is that abortion hurts women, so lets outlaw safe and effective abortion so we don’t hurt women.

The “choice” is defined incorrectly.It’s not about to have the baby or not have the baby, It’s about the right to have the procedure in safe, clean, medical facility with competent medical care for those who choose it/need it. You have had the luxury of growing up female in a post Roe world with access to medical care and lots of family planning options. Before Roe v Wade it was back alley type abortions, leading to infection, infertility, death of the woman with substandard medical care. Think coat hangers. And birth control was not that advanced beyond the pill, condoms, and contraptions that required some type of messy goop. Very romantic. oh, then there’s abstinence. (!)

One can be pro-choice and still be against abortion– all it requires is that one accept that the woman who does choose, is entitled to get appropriate medical attention.

By the way, have you spoken –first hand– to any of the women in the stats you cite? Believe me, I know lots of women that have the procedure. I have not heard one of them describe the ordeal you discuss. Regret? somewhat that it was necessary–birth control failed, inappropriate partner, whatever–. Right decision now in hindsight? maybe maybe not. Access to quality medical care–Very grateful.

Your view would send us back to coat hangers in back alleys.