A study at the University of California San Francisco, called ‘Decision Rightness and Emotional Responses to Abortion in the United States: A Longitudinal Study’, revealed that about 95% of the women who had an abortion, did not later regret doing it. This study surveyed 670 women for three years, after they had a first-trimester abortion or a termination close to the legal limit in their state. The study was published in the academic journal Plos One.
The women, who had an average age of 25 and were one-third were white, one-third black, 21 percent Latina and 13 percent other races, completed semi-annual phone surveys every six months after their abortion. There are facilities that allow a time frame of 10 weeks to the end of the second trimester to for abortion, and the participants were gathered from 31 of these facilities.
Over 53% of these women were categorized to have a lot of difficulties to finalize their decision to undergo the abortion but, they seemed to be overjoyed now that they did it. Surprisingly, there was no difference in “emotional trajectories or decision rightness” between those closer to the legal limit in their state and those who had earlier abortions.
There was no evidence indicating a post-abortion trauma syndrome , a scare tactic commonly used by Crisis Pregnancy Centers to discourage women from ceasing a pregnancy, in this study. Relief seemed to be the most overpowering emotion compared to all the other emotions these women experienced right after the abortion. The relief seemed to have lasted until three years, the time frame of the study. They seem to be thinking about the abortion less frequently as time passed.
Study researcher Dr. Corinne Rocca, an epidemiologist, feels that people generally feel that abortion is somehow emotionally harmful for women and others need to protect women from the abortions that they choose to have. She adds that despite of very limited data on how women feel after abortion; the legislations seem to have made up its mind that women have negative emotions after an abortion. She continues saying, the data from women who wanted abortions closer to the legal limit, who felt relief; questions the common belief that having a later abortion is emotionally harmful.
This study has raised various issues regarding the basis of many measures restricting abortion access that includes, mandatory waiting periods, pre-termination counseling, and medical “scripts” read to women that are often doubtful advice. Abortion related deaths are still uncommon, eliminating doubts and misconceptions about abortion which suggests vigilance against terminating, according to another latest study.
