News PTSD Rates Increased by 61 Percent After Abortion

[evergreen]

Thank you for posting this Anthony. Perhaps it is biased, honestly I haven't seen a study that ISN"T biased. But the truth of the matter is that abortion often does either aggravate PTS into PTSD or can cause it's own symptoms of PTS or PTSD. The first time I ended up in the hospital for depression and anxiety was the EXACT date I was supposed to deliver a baby I had aborted. I had forgotten about the due date. I pretty much forgot about the abortion. I didn't think I was effected by it. In fact, I became a strong supporter of the pro choice movement. So from personal experience, I have to say there is SOME accuracy to this study.

 

[2quilt]

I personally think that the OP article author was biased against abortion. I would have had PTSD from having the child! Some people shd not have children and I am one of them!

 

[Tessa]

Sorry anthony
Please remove my post.
Tessa

 

[Heather]

I have a story very similar to Ambience's about 8 years ago I found out that I was pregnant. I was already broken up with my boyfriend and when I told him he immediately wanted me to have an abortion. When I told my mother she was furious and also wanted me to have an abortion, practiacly demanded me to have one. I felt backed into a corner, like I had no other choice and I reluctantly agreed. It really was like a bad after school special. When we got to the abortion clinic there were protesters out front screaming and holding signs that showed pictures of mutilated babies - it was awful. I remember walking into the room and doctor doing the ultra-sound and stating I was 10 weeks pregnant. I always felt as if it was a boy. I don't know why I just had this feeling. I began to shake and cry hysterically as he began to begin and they asked me if I wanted to change my mind but I shook my head no. After it was over, I was wheeled to the recovery room with the other patients and I was still hysterical. The nurse said I could cry all I wanted but that I needed to calm down because my blood pressure was through the roof.

After we left the clinic my boyfriend dropped me at home. My was waiting for me with my niece and we went out to lunch and then shopping at the mall. I just had an ABORTION. My baby was in some bio-hazard bag in the trash and I was shopping at the mall. Who does that!?! We never talked about. It was like it never happened. That's how things are dealt with in my family. You act like they don't exist. You ignore it and hope it goes away. I just killed my baby....and I was at cracker barrel eating a hamburger. I walk through the door and the first thing my mother says to me is ,"you want to go get some lunch?" How f&$ked up is that? Afterwards I had such a hard time dealing with what I did. I had trouble sleeping, I couldn't eat and I was crying all the time. The worse time came was when I would have delivered the baby....I really struggled then my emotions were all over the place. I recently told my therapist about this and he asked me if I had forgiven myself. I didn't know how to answer that question. I'm still pro choice that hasn't changeed. I will NEVER have another abortion.

 

[BloomInWinter]

As a scientist, remember, a positive correlation never indicates cause and effect.

A lot is made of these 'studies' all over the news. I've had two abortions. Really, the least of the traumatizing things in my life.

This thread is very triggering for me. The 'science' behind these stigmatizing, biased 'articles' is of little benefit to fixing the issues that create the conditions likely to result in PTSD on all sides of this issue. There are so many logical fallacies here...as if we knew the rate of PTSD in women before? As if it was even studied before? As if it was PROPERLY DIAGNOSED BEFORE? As if women were given treatment before? As if it's DUE to abortion ...instead of the PTSD from being a pregnant woman in a terribly hostile culture that labels, blames, shames you for getting an abortion or blames, shames, and labels you for being a poor &/or unsupported mother while at the same time denying access to safe, affordable birth control? This article sheds NO light on causation.

I'm grateful for people who speak out on both sides of this issue. I fault NO woman for making this difficult decision one way or the other...both can result in PTSD. I believe NO PERSON has the right to judge any woman on this issue.

I have had to deal with this issue, and it truly is not about good v. bad to me. It's a million painful shades of grey...and blood red.

I was a child caught in a fight between the pro-life crowd vs. some really poor decision makers in charge of our school - pushing their own 'morality' agenda against unwed teachers. Suffice to say, part of it was greatly sensationalized - and included a made-for-tv movie, articles in tabloids, etc., an article in major women's magazines, and I was one of the children who ended up testifying against her in US District Court. I came out of it broken. Two of my peers who testified died within weeks of each other this summer. Just being in that issue as a child = 'adverse childhood event'. Yeah, good times.

It destroyed my family, caused me lifelong amnesia of my junior high years (until recently, lucky me), helped bankrupt my family, destroyed my high school years...We lost everything. Yet, I was one of the lucky kids - since my father was on the school board, she did far less to me than she did to others. UGH. Was going to tell this story but am getting too triggered.

I've had to deal with neglected, abused and murdered children as a paramedic. Some of my PTSD is from that. The life of an unwanted child is a PTSD $@#!! all it's own, and the paramedics, firefighters, and police officers who regularly go into these homes know just what hell on earth is.

I've had to deal with women mutilated by surgeries gone bad, reactions to birth control meds, rapes, attempts at self-abortion, women beaten by boyfriends & husbands because they became pregnant. If these women, who were unsafe to be pregnant, had the option of a safe, private, legal abortion...what PTSD might have been avoided in these lives?

I've held the hand of a teenager as her parents told her she was going to hell and they hated her - because she had a baby.

I've dealt with a pregnant teen dealing with carrying her father's baby. UGH. Can't go there either. Sheesh.

...and I've helped with the prelim autopsy of a beautiful full term baby boy murdered shortly after his death. A young woman, from a fundamentalist family, so scared & desperate that she convinced herself that she couldn't possibly be pregnant - delivered this child alone, with no assistance nor support, then wrapped him in a sheet and suffocated him. UGH...can't face the rest of this mem...see, PTSD plays into this on all levels.

I was on the trauma team that worked for hours trying to save a young woman - who committed suicide after the father of her baby completely rejected her. It was an awful, painful, bloody horrible death. Then, I had to deal with her broken father...ugh. Can't go there either.

I took a woman bleeding to death from a uterine cyst to a hospital over 1 1/2 hours away because, thanks to the pro-life agenda, none of our doctors in town that weekend had the training/skills to do the type of D & C she needed to save her. She was screaming and in terrible pain the entire trip - over Illinois roads.

Yes, when I hear that doctors are prevented from learning these life-saving procedures just because they COULD be used for abortion...well, it's our mothers, wifes, sisters, daughters who will suffer from these skills being lost. Just how much PTSD is out there because of this?

We paramedics have the double trauma of having to try to save these women, AND listen to ignorant jerkfaces judge them for what happened to them.

I've had other patients lose their fertility, their uterus, their mental health because of this...and they wanted to be Mothers, just were unlucky enough to have complications while being pregnant in our area. Lucky for them that we're so 'moral'...the injustice of this makes me feel hopeless and like we women are just dirt beneath the feet of people making decisions that will never cost them THEIR life, THEIR wife, THEIR daughter.

Most of the worst of the judging people I see standing at 'signing ceremonies' and bashing women in public are male, white, wealthy and that's the gig...the wealthy get safe 'private' nice abortions and the poor women die. ...and we paramedics see it and have to somehow still keep our opinions to ourselves and deal with both groups. That MORE of us don't get PTSD is really amazing, I think.

This, I know for sure. Women get judged mercilessly on this issue from all sides. Where is the dialog on the million shades of grey on this issue? I feel sick when I see one side or the other use this issue to push a public policy agenda but those groups do NOTHING to support real women facing these issues.

Until birth control is free, 100% safe and effective, and all mothers and their babies are supported so no child has to live in poverty, I support choice. If these were in place, and safe, legal, private, NON-TRAUMATIZING ABORTION was available to women, I wonder what the rates of abortion-related PTSD?

I work hard to make sure that choice is available for all women who want one. It SHOULD be safe, legal, widely available, and rare. ...AND nobody should make it psychologically traumatizing for women, unlike what happens now.

I support them ALL...those who decide to have the baby, those who don't...and I fight for better child support, free childcare, better medical care, public option for birth control. Because I don't have any other idea how to begin healing my own PTSD without seeking justice where I believe it needs to come from. A change in how we value (& show our values!) towards our Mothers, Wives, Sisters, Daughters, Friends.

 

[Philippa]

Wow. Interesting thread.

I have a horror story of my own that involve abortion, but I think I will leave it for my trauma diary, when I start one.

I don't usually believe anything christian fanatics say or try and pull to make their agenda stick, but I have to say, that my troubles all started when I had my abortion. I was a totally different person before that. I don't even remember the person I was...it was so long ago now. I've gotten used to the person I became, and she's angry...all the time it seems. I've been angry for years, and like ambience, even though I am pro-choice, I know that I have had to live with some horrible consequeces and hauntings because of the choice I made...which was influenced by my parents at the time, but I also know that I wasn't ready for a child. I think it's important for women who have these after effects to remember why they chose to go through with it in the first place...because they didn't have the means or the support to give a child what a child needs.

I may have ended up even more bitter and twisted, and took it out on my child. From reading some of the people here's posts and stories...I know that there are people out there who grew up feeling unwanted and unloved...and when I think of that, I know I made the right choice for the child, as well as for me.

to conclude, I think it's is highly likely that abortion does cause PTSD, and clinical depression as well, if the woman is constantly berating herself with thoughts that she is bad for going through with it.

I don't think I need to be shown a study to know that the process of having a foetus aborted is traumatic, whether you are awake or asleep. In my case, there were no anaesthetics stocked where I went for mine, so I was 100%awake for the whole horrible thing!

 

[anthony]

Getting an abortion by choice would not warrant under the diagnostic criteria for a PTSD diagnosis. There would have to be other trauma that fits abnormally traumatic, as a chosen abortion does not fit abnormal trauma. There are caveats to this though, and every case would have to be assessed individually as to circumstances in order to be defined as abnormally traumatic for a PTSD diagnosis.

It is only therapists and few physicians who water down abnormally traumatic to fit things, which they typically mistake telling someone they have PTSD instead of PTS.

 

[Philippa]

Getting an abortion by choice would not warrant under the diagnostic criteria for a PTSD diagnosis. There would have to be other trauma that fits abnormally traumatic, as a chosen abortion does not fit abnormal trauma. There are caveats to this though, and every case would have to be assessed individually as to circumstances in order to be defined as abnormally traumatic for a PTSD diagnosis.

It is only therapists and few physicians who water down abnormally traumatic to fit things, which they typically mistake telling someone they have PTSD instead of PTS.

How bout choosing to have an abortion and being told you were actually 4 months pregnant instead of 7 weeks, and then not given any anaesthesia during the procedure? I think that warrants severe traum, even if I did choose to go ahead with it. They told me the gas would work, it didn't. I was awake and felt everything for the whole 40 minute procedure...and it definately traumatized me!

 

[anthony]

3rd sentence, first paragraph... Same response.

 

[Philippa]

Gotcha! It's kinda embarrassing, but I didn't know what caveats meant:oops:...and I was too lazy to look it up:D

Thanks.

3rd sentence, first paragraph... Same response.

 

[Xibalba]

The giveaway to the bias was when they referred to an "abortion industry."

The article also leaves out a tremendously significant factual data point: South Africa (where the study was conducted) has the WORST rate of female rape per capita on the entire planet ([DLMURL="http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap_percap-crime-rapes-per-capita"]link to data[/DLMURL]). Perhaps the abortions are the results of rape, and the RAPE is the source of the PTSD, not the abortion.

If we look at world abortion rates, Greenland tops the list at 51%, with South Africa at 7.7%. This means that a greater percentage of people in Greenland have abortions than in South Africa, but the number of rapes in Greenland is so insignificant (statistically, not ethically), that it is not even measured. (One report showed 44 in a given year, compared with South Africa's 52,000.) Of course, South Africa has many, many more people than Greenland, but a more accurate study would analyze women from across various countries with differing abortion rates vs. rape statistics.

Interesting aside: the US tops South Africa in total number of rapes (2nd per capita), and has a higher reported abortion rate. A US study along the same lines would be worthwhile.

What this means, in short, is that the source of the pregnancy must be considered in any abortion study of statistical seriousness.

 

[anthony]

Please also remember, this was posted in 2008 here.

The only problem with statistics is that some countries are simply not reported, ie. Africa reported incidents are lower than actual incidents, where the US, more incidents are reported than not reported, yet still a significant proportion goes unreported. The only way these statistics get reported are through the medical system, whether hospital or mental health. Some countries, ie. Africa, has little real reporting measures in place due to the majority of poverty.