Category: Women and Abortion Regret

Counselor Ann Lastman discusses some of the emotional triggers that postabortion clients of hers have:

“The sound in common of a vacuum cleaner nearly always will trigger recall of those traumatic memories [of an abortion] ….

Clients have also mentioned that the noise of a kitchen blender will also do this. This usually results from the experiences of early gestation abortions where the clients are only placed under a ‘twilight sedation’ and are not unconscious….

Smell is one of the most powerful of our senses, so it makes sense that it will imprint so well in our memory, such as the smell of alcohol swabs or other substances used in a surgery.”

She also says:

“Contrary to the feminists who say that an abortion empowers women, in 17 years I have never heard one client tell me that they have seen a happy face when waiting for an abortion.”

Andrew Smith ‘Suction so powerful, it’s scary’: company advertises vacuum – on billboard outside abortion clinic” LifeSiteNews May 31, 2013

Nancyjo Mann, founder and president of Women Exploited by Abortion (WEBA), an early group for post-abortion women which had over 10,000 members and many chapters, gives her observations:

“One psychological effect we see almost all the time is guilt. Others are suicidal impulses, a sense of loss, of unfulfillment. Mourning, regret and remorse. Withdrawal, loss of confidence in decision-making capabilities. They feel that maybe they’ve made a wrong decision, maybe they can’t make another decision right in their life. Lowering of self-esteem. Preoccupation with death. Hostilities, self-destructive behavior, anger and rage. You could lose your temper quickly. A despair, helplessness, desire to remember the death date which is really weird, but you do that. You remember these dates very strongly. Preoccupation with the would be due date or due month. My daughter was due in early March, so in early March. It’s there…”

Nancyjo Mann, “Women From WEBA To Fight Abortions” The Washington Times, August 3, 1983. Quoted in Paul B Fowler Abortion: Toward an Evangelical Consensus (Portland, Oregon: Multnomah Press, 1987)

Pro-choice activists like to point to women’s testimonies that claim that they are happy after their abortions and do not regret them. What they ignore is that often guilt and grief set in many years later.

“Between 60 and 70% of women who eventually confronted negative feelings about their abortions admitted that there was a period of time during which they would have denied to others, and themselves, any regrets or negative feelings. On average, this period of denial was about 5 years, with a low of one month and a high of 20 years.”

David C Reardon, “Psychological Reactions Reported after Abortion” The Postabortion Review 2 no. 3 (Fall 1994): 4 – 8

There is evidence that pro-choice organizations know that abortion can cause serious emotional problems in women, even though they deny this publicly. In the article  “Post-Abortion Trauma:  Learning the Truth, Telling the Truth” Women exploited by abortion/Elliot Institute 1992 it says a document was leaked by Planned Parenthood worker. The document said the following::

” A number of anti-choice studies and surveys (including the Reardon study and the Grant survey) have shown that the incidence of post-procedural trauma for abortion clients may be as high as 91% of all cases.  Recent unpublished reports from the Alan Guttmacher Institute [Planned Parenthood’s research group] indicate that the scope of the problem may have been accurately tabulated in these studies. “

The report was originally published in New Dimensions magazine.

An abortion clinic worker posted on Reddit about her job and answered questions. You can read her post here.

Here is a quote of interest:

“Q: “Has anyone ever instantaneously regretted getting and [sic] abortion right after the procedure?

“A. There have been people who have been very upset by their decision. The importance of seeking post-procedure counseling is stressed to patients, because it is a very hard decision for a lot of people to make and sometimes it’s necessary.”

Studies show that regret after abortion tend to grow with time, and many women who initially felt only relief go on to experience sadness. But even this abortion clinic worker, dedicated to her job, has to admit that abortion is hard for women, and some women feel regret right away.

Carla McElhaney, director of Women Exploited by Abortion, talks about the women who come to her organization in search of healing after their abortions:

“If reality hits soon after the abortion a young woman is a bundle of raw emotions.  But she often doesn’t want to hear that healing takes time.  Abortion promised a quick solution to the problem of pregnancy.  Now she’s looking for a quick solution to the pain of having had an abortion.  But there isn’t one.”

Jim  Auer “You Can Save a Life” Liguorian January 1994

Read women’s post abortion stories here.

Read about studies and statistics about mental health after abortion here

From a researcher on the emotional impact of abortion:

“It has been noted by some investigators that even the determined woman experiences nagging doubts and eerie feelings regarding abortion surgery….”

“Counseling Single Abortion Patients: A Research Overview and Practice Implications” by Paul Sachdev  In Gail Grenier-Sweet, ed “Pro-Life Feminism: Different Voices” (Lewiston, NY: Life Cycle Books, 1985) 237