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Many pro-life groups conclude that a large percentage of women who have undergone an
abortion experience serious depression, and massive feelings of guilt that last
for years. This has been
called "Post-traumatic abortion syndrome," "Post
abortion
syndrome," "Post-abortion stress syndrome," "PAS," and "PASS". |
|
Many pro-choice advocates agree that PAS exists, but believe that it
is rare. |
|
A major longitudinal study by the American Psychological Associated was unable
to detect any evidence of PAS. |
|
A review of 216 peer-reviewed articles on the subject of abortion
and mental health found that: "... most well controlled studies continue
to demonstrate that there is no convincing evidence that induced abortion of
an unwanted pregnancy is a per se significant risk factor for psychiatric
illness." 2 |
|
A representative of the APA has testified before a committee of the U.S. House of
Representatives that PAS does exist, but is less common than postpartum depression after
a birth. |
|
A commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) points to PAS as a rare post-abortion phenomenon. |
PAS seems to happen primarily to women who, at the time that they had an abortion, experienced one or more of the following experiences: They
|
Believed that the fetus was not a human person, and changed their
beliefs later. |
|
Believed that the fetus was a human person, but proceeded with the
abortion anyway. |
|
Felt heavily pressured, either by family, boyfriend, husband, friends, or circumstances, into
having an abortion that the didn't want. |
|
Did not received adequate counseling and information before the abortion. |
Symptoms of PAS:
One writer, 3 a pro-life PAS counselor, lists about 2 dozen indicators of PAS. These were taken from a PAS checklist developed by Anne Speckhard and Vincent Rue. Some symptoms that she included are:
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Appearance since the abortion of at least three symptoms related to "persistent
avoidance of the stimuli associated with the abortion trauma or numbing of general
responsiveness" out of a list of 8 possibilities. |
|
Appearance since the abortion of at least two symptoms from a list of 10 specific behaviors. |
OCRT Note: We have serious reservations about the usefulness of checklists used in therapy and counseling. Four volunteers in our group compared our life experience over the past decade with the indicators in this checklist, and concluded that all of us are suffering from PAS. It is very likely that the checklist gave 4 false positives. One of us is a male, and none of the three female staff persons have ever had an abortion.
Statements by various mental health associations about the incidence of PAS:
|
1979 to 1987: The American Psychological Association conducted an 8 year study involving
almost 5,300 women, starting in 1979. The women were interviewed each year until 1987. The
researchers found that the best predictor of of the women's well-being during the study
was their well-being at the start of the study. Whether they had had an abortion or not
during the interval covered by the study did not seem to affect their mental health.
Neither did their income level, job status, educational attainment, marital status, etc.
In other words, they were unable to detect the existence of PAS from this size
of sample. |
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1989: Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, a famous opponent of abortion
access, was asked by
President Reagan to study the health effects of induced abortions. He responded in a
1989-JAN-8 letter that he could not form a conclusion from the available data. A year
later, Dr. Koop told representatives of some pro-life groups that the risk of significant
emotional problems after an abortion was "miniscule". |
||||||||||||
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1989: A panel of the American Psychological Association unanimously
concluded that legal abortion "does not create psychological hazards for most
women undergoing the procedure." They found that about 21% of US adult
women had experienced an abortion. If severe emotional reactions were common, then
they would have expected to notice an epidemic of women seeking treatment. No evidence of such a flood of
patients was observed.
The Associated Press reported that:
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1992: A review of an article in the Journal of Social Issues states that PAS:
The authors of the article concluded that: "at present, it
is impossible to estimate with any degree of accuracy the incidence of Post Abortion
Syndrome." They urge that more research be done. 5 |
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1995: Dr. Paul Sachdef, professor of social work at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada, conducted 70 in-depth interviews of women who had elective
abortions during the previous 6 to 12 months. 6 They are
typical of women who have sought abortions: aged 18 to 25, single, white females. All had
terminated their first pregnancy during the first trimester. This is when about 90% of
all abortions in North America are done. All gave mental health as their
reason for seeking an abortion. He concluded: 7
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1997: The American Psychological Association further analyzed the data from the
1979-1987 study and issued a press release on 1997-JAN-31. 8They
concluded:
This time they included an analysis of the woman's religious beliefs and practices - specifically:
They found that:
Thus, even religious women did not appear to suffer from PAS at a detectable level.
They further analyzed the data for the Roman Catholic women in the study. They found that
"highly religious Catholic women were slightly more likely to exhibit
post abortion psychological distress than other women..." But they
suspected that this is
probably explained
by the presence of a lower level of well-being at the start of the study, rather
than any after-effect of the abortion. |
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2008: The Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion of the The American Psychological Association (APA) studied all of the
empirical studies on PAS published in English in peer-reviewed journals since
1989 "...that compared the mental health of women who had an induced abortion to
comparison groups of women, or that examined factors that predict mental health
among women who have had an elective abortion in the United States. The task
force found "... no credible evidence that a single elective abortion of an
unwanted pregnancy in and of itself causes mental health problems for adult
women." They issued their draft report on AUG-14. Brenda Major, PhD, chair of the task force, said: "The best scientific evidence published indicates that among adult women who have an unplanned pregnancy, the relative risk of mental health problems is no greater if they have a single elective first-trimester abortion or deliver that pregnancy. The evidence regarding the relative mental health risks associated with multiple abortions is more uncertain." The task force's report noted that "... other co-occurring risk factors, including poverty, prior exposure to violence, a history of emotional problems, a history of drug or alcohol use, and prior unwanted births predispose women to experience both unwanted pregnancies and mental health problems after a pregnancy, irrespective of how the pregnancy is resolved. Failures to control for these co-occurring risk factors, the task force noted, may lead to reports of associations between abortion history and mental health problems that are misleading." They called for better designed future research into PAS. 9 |
References used:
The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.
- Serena, "New study debunks 'Abortion Trauma Syndrome,' Feminists for choice, 2009-AUG-24, at: http://feministsforchoice.com/
- Gail.E. Robinson, et al., "Is there an 'Abortion Trauma Syndrome'? Critiquing the evidence," Harvard Review of psychiatry, Volume 17, Issue 4, 2009-AUG, Pages 268 to 290. An abstract is available at: http://www.informaworld.com/
- David Reardon, "Aborted Women: Silent No More," Crossway Books, Westchester IL, (1987)
- "Study Finds Little Lasting Distress From Abortion," Associated Press, 1990-APR-06, at: http://query.nytimes.com/
- Anne Speckhard and Vincent Rue, "Post-Abortion Syndrome a Growing Health Problem," Journal of Social Issues, 1992-FALL. Available at: http://www.forerunner.com/
- Charlotte Parsons, "Guilt over abortion is rare...," The Globe and Mail, 1995-SEP-14
- Dr. Paul Sachdev, "Sex, Abortion and Unmarried Women" Unknown publisher, 1995
- "The American Psychological Association on post-abortion syndrome," APA press release reprinted at: http://www.catholic.net/
- "APA Task Force Finds Single Abortion Not a Threat to Women's Mental Health," American Psychological Association, 2008-AUG-12, at: http://www.apa.org/
- "Post Abortion Syndrome," Wikipedia, as at: 2010-AUG-12, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/
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Home page > "Hot" topics > Abortion > Medical problems > PAS > here |
Copyright © 1998 to 2010 by Ontario Consultants on
Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2010-OCT-10
Author: B.A. Robinson
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