The issue of abortion is a complicated one to address, leaving behind ideological filters. It has always aroused many passions and strong opinions, which has polarized the debate. This is partly why many women are very concerned about the prospect of abortion ; it is an option that has been given a lot of importance, either to portray it as a form of murder or to make it an expression of freedom to decide about one’s own body.

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

Abortion and psychological damage

Part of the negative factors often associated with abortion is the high possibility of becoming traumatized, depressed or generally damaging one’s mental health as a result of going through this process. However, the most complete research that has been carried out on this subject has concluded that no, there are no negative psychological effects that necessarily have to occur after a voluntary abortion.

Does this mean that the fear produced by the prospect of abortion was the fruit of a propaganda campaign against this practice? That is too complex an issue to have a clear answer for the moment.

But there’s more. Not only do the women they approach not present significant psychological discomfort years after passing through the clinic, but this occurs with the other group of women, those who cannot abort.

Thus, the women who are not allowed to have an abortion are those who present symptoms linked to mental disorders and malaise in general . In particular, these women were more likely to show low self-esteem, much greater anxiety and a high level of general malaise. In addition, their desire to have an abortion remained and their degree 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 were used and interviewed 11 times over 5 years. Some of them were able to abort, while others were not given that option, having attended the clinic at too late a stage of pregnancy.

Therefore, a large sample was used which was studied through a longitudinal study, carrying out two interviews per year in order to be able to follow up the state of psychological well-being of these people.

As the waves of interviews continued, a picture of the happiness (or lack thereof) of these women, as far as abortion is concerned, was created.

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

Psychological impact

These results are proof of the psychologically harmful impact of making abortion impossible for women who choose this option. Although it may seem that pregnancy is the “normal” option and that addressing it means going off the natural path, these data indicate the opposite: when faced with an unwanted pregnancy, the path is bifurcated into two options, and abortion does not produce the mental effects that according to the myth 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 made to favour one of these outcome options as being more likely to emerge.

In any case, in the end it is a struggle of moral ideas, and in this aspect science can only provide data that are used as a tool in this type of debate (without this having to be especially bad in itself).