Jessica Stanton writes about a study on how postabortion women were coerced into abortions:
“In a study conducted by Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, Dr. Ian Gentles, and Dr. Elizabeth Ring–Cassidy published in 2013 in Complications: Abortion’s Impact on Women, the authors asked 101 women to share their abortion stories. When they were asked whether they were “coerced or pressured into having the abortion,” 48% of the women answered, “Yes,” and said that the pressure or coercion was in the form of violence or threat. Concerning adolescent abortion, 8% of minors whose parents learned about their pregnancies from a third-party felt forced to abort; 6% of that group stated they were subjected to physical violence.”
Jessica Stanton “Protecting Women and Girls from Coerced Abortions” The American Feminist Fall/Winter 2016
Pro-life doctor Marissa Ogle, M.D wrote about an abortion study that pro-abortion people tried to repress,by Dr. David Ferguson:
“A reputable research scientist attempted to publish results of a well-designed study that concluded, to his surprise, that abortion has a negative impact on the psychological well-being of women. This study by Dr. David Ferguson, a New Zealand pro-choice researcher who was attempting to disprove abortion’s psychological effect on women, found that 42% of women who have had abortions had experienced major depression within the prior 4 years – almost double the rate of women who never became pregnant. The study also indicates that women who have had abortions are twice as likely to drink alcohol at dangerous levels and 3 times as likely to be addicted to illegal substances. The study also found that the risk of anxiety disorders was doubled.
Dr. Ferguson’s study was well-designed, spanning the course of 25 years… The study was undertaken with the position of validating the viewpoint that abortion did not increase mental health problems, but to confirm that these problems were preexisting. Much to the surprise of the researching team, the exact opposite was true. When Dr. Ferguson’s results were presented to New Zealand’s abortion supervisory committee, which ensures that abortions in the country are conducted in accordance with legal requirements, Dr. Ferguson was discouraged from publishing the results. Fortunately, despite his political beliefs, Dr. Ferguson felt that this would be “scientific irresponsibility.” Ferguson himself stated that he remains pro-choice and is not a religious person. The findings were surprising to him, however in his opinions were very robust. He went on to say that abortion is a traumatic event, involving loss and grief that may, in fact, predispose women to mental illness.
The doctor found:
“The fact is that abortions are the most common medical procedure that young women face – by the age of 25, one in 7 have had an abortion – and the research into the costs and benefits have been very weak. This is because the debate between the pro-life and the pro-choice has, in a sense, driven the science out. It verges on scandalous that a surgical procedure that is performed on over one in 10 women has been so poorly researched and evaluated, given the debates about the psychological consequences of abortion.”
Quote is from Ruth Hill “Abortion researcher confounded by study” The New Zealand Herald January 5, 2006
The pro-life author says:
Ferguson then went on to experience a great challenge in finding a journal that would publish the study, very unusual for a research team who typically has research published with the first attempt. A subsequent study by Ferguson reiterated his findings.”
Marissa Ogle, M.D. Still Healing:(2016) 13 – 14
The studies are:
David Ferguson, M., L. John Horwood, Elizabeth M Ritter “Abortion in young women and subsequent mental health” Journal of Psychology and Psychiatry 47.9 (2013): 819 – 27
David Ferguson, LJ Horwood, JM Bowden “Does abortion reduce the mental health risks of unintended pregnancy? A reappraisal of the evidence” Aust N Z Journal of Psychiatry 47.1 (2006): 16 – 24
For a study, a 15-year-old girl named Beckie who had an abortion explained her feelings:
Q: When do you think, in the course of its development, that the fetus becomes a human life?
A: Three months.
Q. What makes it become a human life at that point?
A. Well, either when the heart starts beating, yeah, I guess when the heart stats beating, because that functions everything else, and I believe that starts around three months. Two and a half or three months….after that I consider it murder, whereas beforehand it’s not, you know. (51)
The heart doesn’t start beating at 3 months – starts beating in 3 weeks, and according to some research, even earlier. You can see a video of a baby’s heart beating 4 weeks in the womb. Beckie’s lack of knowledge of fetal development led to her having an abortion when she assumed the heartbeat started later than it really did.
The study also interviewed a woman named Barbara, who also had an abortion. She was also 15.
Q: When you decide that it’s a human being at three months, what things do you think make it human at that point?
A: It’s got a heart. It’s breathing, it’s got a brain, it moves.
Q: Do you think after that point it would be the same as killing?
A: Yeah.
Q: Do you think it would be the same as killing another human being?
A: Yeah. I don’t really think it should be done.
Q: In the first three month, why is it OK?
A: Because it’s just like an egg, inside of you. It’s just like a thing of fluid, almost. I guess that’s all it is. And it doesn’t really have any shape, it doesn’t really have a brain or anything.” (52)
This is what a baby looks like it 8 weeks in the womb. Brain waves start at 6 weeks.
Here is a picture of a baby’s fingers at at 7 weeks
Hands of baby at 7 weeks
Again, the study shows that a woman who had an abortion did so with a false view of fetal development
From another teen who had an abortion, Ramona, 17:
“Q: You’re saying it becomes a life around the fourth month?
A: Somewhere around, yeah, the fifth, sixth, and on. I mean that’s when it looks like something, you know. But I think that in the first three months, it’s a life, but it’s not, you know, really completely formed, or anything like that…in the lasts three months I don’t think it should be allowed.” (53)
Judith G. Smetana Concepts of Self and Morality: Women’s Reasoning about Abortion (New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1982)
The study shows how little these teens know about fetal development. Perhaps if someone had taught them more about how a baby develops, they would not have aborted.
Giving the reason why surviving siblings of aborted babies may feel grief and guilt, particularly when the abortion is done after the third or fourth month, researchers said:
“In the presence of prenatal life, young children do not separate the concept of “fetus” from the concept of “baby”. The conceptual difference between the two is a medical and social construct of adults and is not easily understood by children whose approach to the world is concrete.”
Furlong R M, Black R B. Pregnancy Termination for Genetic Indications: the Impact on Families. Social Work in Healthcare 1984, fall; 10 (1): 17 – 34
From one study that took place right before Roe v. Wade:
“In a series of 73,000 abortions one woman in every 20 had early complications; one in every 200 had major complications.”
These were legal abortions done in California, New York and several other states where abortion was legal before Roe V. Wade, not “back alley” illegal ones.
Christopher Tietze and Sarah Lewitt “Joint Program for the Study of Abortion (JPSA): Early Medical Complications of Legal Abortion” Studies on Family Planning 3, no. 6, June 1972
“One study cited the 3 most common reasons why young pregnant women had abortions without telling their parents. They were, in order, “Didn’t want to hurt or disappoint parent,” “Thought parent would be angry at me,” and “Didn’t want parents to know I was having sex.”
Allison Landes et. al, eds., Abortion: an Eternal Social and Moral Issue (Wylie, TX: Information Plus, 1996) 104
Quoted in Stephen Currie Abortion (San Diego, California: Greenhaven Press, 2000)
Pro-choicer’s argue that only children who are abused at home will not tell their parents. That is why they oppose consent laws, they say. These are the true, most common reasons teens have abortions without telling their parents.
In an older study (1992) posted her for readers to consider
61% of parents knew about their unmarried teenage daughter’s abortion – 45% were told by the girl, 15% found out some other way
half of teens 15 years old and younger told their mothers while only 2/5 of older teens told their mothers
reasons for not telling their parents:
73% did not want to disappoint them
55% thought they would be angry
32% didn’t want the parents to know they had sex
78% the minor’s boyfriend was involved with the decision, he was 3 times more likely than the minor’s father to be involved. 54% reported that someone had tried to convince them to get an abortion, 40% reported that someone had tried to convince them to see the pregnancy to term
Stanley Henshaw and Kathryn Kost “Parental Involvement in Minor’s Abortion Decisions” Family Planning Perspectives volume 24 number 5 September/October 1992
Quoted in Mei Ling Rein. Abortion: an Eternal Social and Moral Issue (Wylie, Texas: Information Plus Reference Series, 2000)
There was a 1977 study by sociologist Mark K Zimmerman, “Passage through Abortion: the Personal and Social Reality Women’s Experiences.”
The study was cited in David C Reardon Aborted Women: Silent No More (Westchester, Illinois: Crossway books, 1987)
The study was done with cooperation from two abortion clinics, Zimmerman sent letters to women seeking abortions. 6 to 10 weeks after her abortion, Zimmerman interviewed the patients. The study excluded women who had a previous abortion, women who had a second or third trimester abortion, and the samples were handpicked by the clinic workers to avoid people who are already displaying signs of being upset, guilty, or extremely ambivalent.
Even so, the results showed that women had a hard time with their abortions.
95% of the time the male partner, played a central role in the abortion decision. 80% of the time, he supported abortion as the decision and only opposed it 20% of the time. 20% of the men insisted on an abortion even when the woman’s initial decision was to continue the pregnancy. (122)
Over two thirds of the women stated that they had “no choice” or had been “forced” to have an abortion (193)
30% told the interviewer that there had been a strong desire to keep the baby, but they felt that circumstances did not allow it.
50% of the time, the abortion was quickly followed by a disruption or termination of the relationship with the man.
70% of the women expressed disapproval of abortion, seeing it is deviant and immoral. However, they saw themselves as forced by others, by their circumstances, or by society at large and attempted to deny responsibility for what they believed was an immoral act – 70% of those aborted women felt forced to compromise their own values and ideals.
No specific questions were asked about the unborn baby, to keep from upsetting the sample. But 25% of the woman volunteered the aborted fetus was a life, person, or human being.
Only 15% maintain that the fetus was not a person or human life.
Six weeks after the abortion, 48% described themselves as “disturbed by the abortion.”
One study showed that 70% of relationships broke up after the woman’s abortion. If the woman was in a relationship at the time of the abortion, it fell apart shortly after the abortion 70% of the time.
Vincent M. Rue “Abortion in Relationship Context” International Review of Natural Family Planning Summer 1985 p 105
