Psychological Aftermath

Researchers investigating post-abortion reactions have reported women experiencing numerous emotions— relief being the only positive one. This emotion is understandable, especially in light of the fact that the majority of aborting women report feeling under the intense pressure to "get it over with."

Temporary feelings of relief are frequently followed by a period psychiatrists identify as emotional "paralysis," or post-abortion "numbness." Like shell-shocked soldiers, these women are unable to express or even feel their own emotions. Their focus is primarily on having survived the ordeal, and they are at least temporarily out of touch with their feelings.

Now, there have been studies done on this issue that show pregnancy is actually correlated with a dramatic decreased rate of suicide compared to non-pregnant women. This has led some psychiatrists to suggest that pregnancy somehow serves a psychologically protective role. The presence of another person to "live for" appears to reduce the suicidal impulses of a mentally disturbed or deeply depressed woman.

Although pregnancy weakens suicidal impulses, there is strong evidence that abortion dramatically increases the risk of suicide. In 1997, a government funded study of maternal deaths in Finland sent a tremor of worry through family planning agencies when it revealed that in the first year following an abortion, aborting women were 252% more likely to die compared to women who delivered and 76% more likely to die compared to women who had not been pregnant. Many of the extra deaths were due to suicide.

Sometimes a post-abortion suicide attempt is an impulsive act of despair. For example, 18-year-old "Susan" writes: "Two days after the abortion I wrote a suicide note to my parents and boyfriend. I just couldn't fathom how I could possibly live with the knowledge of what I had done. I killed my own baby! I went down to the basement and figured out how to shoot my father's pistol. Hysterical and crying I put the barrel of the gun into my mouth. All of a sudden I heard someone upstairs. For some reason my father had stopped by to pick up something. I stopped what I was doing and went upstairs. He saw that I was upset and asked me if I wanted to have lunch with him at noon. I felt I at least owed him lunch. By the time lunch was over I was too scared to do it."

Other times, the suicidal impulses result from years of repression, depression, and lost self-esteem. Granting the wish for suicide or abortion is not an aid to desperate people. It is abandonment. It is a false compassion that protects us from getting entangled in the "personal problems" of others. It is "cheap love." Reader, the above is only the psychological effect of abortion. Stay tuned for the physical.