Abortion: What you should know.

It may feel like abortion is a quick and simple answer when you are facing an unplanned pregnancy. But, like so many things in life, abortion can be a very complicated (not to mention, dangerous) answer. You may think it is a short-term solution, but abortion can have serious (even deadly) long-term consequences.

Think before you decide.

Possible problems after abortion:

Sterility.

Premature births.

Mental problems.

Guilt.

Anxiety.

Ups and downs.

Grief.

Alcohol abuse.

Breast cancer.

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 Further, research 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

Guilt is what an individual feels when she has violated her own moral beliefs. For the woman who has come to believe, at some point either before or after the abortion, that she consented to the killing of her unborn child, the burden of guilt is relentless. There is little consolation to offer the woman who has transgressed one of nature’s strongest instincts: the protection a mother extends to her young. In fact, many post-abortive women believe that any unhappy events that have occurred since the abortion were inevitable because they “deserve it.”⁹

Anxiety

Anxiety is defined as an unpleasant emotional and physical state of apprehension that may take the form of tension (inability to relax, irritability, etc), physical responses (dizziness. pounding heart, upset stomach, headaches, etc.), worry about the future, difficulty concentrating and disturbed sleep. The conflict between a woman’s moral standards and her decision to abort generates much of this anxiety. Very often, she will not relate her anxiety to her abortion but will unconsciously begin to avoid anything having to do with babies.¹⁰

Emotional ups and downs

Temporary feelings of relief are frequently followed by a period phychiatrists identify as emotional “paralysis” or post-abortion “numbness.”¹¹ 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. In a study of teenage abortion patients, half suffered a worsening of psychosocial functioning within 7 months after the abortion. The immediate impact appeared to be greatest on the patients who were under 17 years of age, and for those with previous psychosocial problems. Symptoms included: self-reproach, depression, social regression, withdrawal, obsession with need to become pregnant again, and hasty marriages.¹²

Grief

No matter when the abortion occurred -– a few days ago or many years ago, women who abort never forget the experience. They grieve for their unborn children. The grief of losing a child never ends, but for those who aborted, the grief, combined with guilt, makes 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 just to the woman who had the abortion. Grief may extend 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.¹³ Breakups are common, even among couples with previously stable relationships.¹⁴

Alcohol abuse

There is a significant link between abortion and alcohol abuse. Women who abort their babies are at a two-fold greater risk for alcohol abuse than non-abortive women.¹⁵ Abortion followed by alcohol abuse is linked to violent behavior, divorce or separation, auto accidents and job loss.¹⁶

Breast cancer

Dr. Joel Brind, an endocrinologist and biologist, and a leading expert in discussing the link between breast cancer and abortion, 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.

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