Consecuencias mentales de un aborto-en ingles

Women are not being fully informed about all consequences of abortion: Literature Review

Iliana G. Villegas

November 19, 2011

HL S 380V – Women’s Health



















Women are not being fully informed about all consequences of abortion. Whether abortion is legal or not, women are not being fully informed of a procedure that many times can cause mentaldistress, and reproductive system damages. The media only provides contrary and bias information about some of the consequences and literature hardly gets written on the subject. Most clinics provide partial information and there is plenty of contrary information on the internet regarding consequences including mortality after an abortion procedure. The idea given has been that giving birth cancause more mental distress on the woman but they fail to mention when it happens after either procedure. Planned Parenthood for example, provides very limited education about side effects that some women may develop either immediately or years later. This organization does not even mention reproductive damages such as infertility.

The British Journal of Psychiatry published a study byresearcher Dr. Priscilla Coleman, who stated that women face almost double the risk of mental health problems after an abortion in comparison to women who give birth. She analyzed 22 peer-reviewed studies, fifteen from the U.S. and seven from other countries, covering an enormous sample size of 877,181 participants, of whom 163,831 had undergone an induced abortion, and selected five mental healthoutcome variables: anxiety, depression, alcohol use, marijuana use and suicidal behavior. She determined that overall the experience of abortion led to a staggering 81% increased risk of mental health problems and the effects were strongest when women who had an abortion were compared with women who chose to carry to term. Her results indicate that abortion is associated with moderate to highlyincreased risks of psychological problems subsequent to the procedure. That the results revealed that women who had undergone an abortion experienced an 81 % increased risk of mental health problems, and nearly 10 percent of the incidences of mental health problems were shown to be directly attributable to abortion. The numbers are high.

Doctor Coleman argued that numerous studiesillustrate that women who are pregnant and actively contemplating abortion face very high levels of stress; and many are in abusive relationships. She mentioned that the studies her continuants have made against her research include no women with psychiatric histories prior to nine months before their abortion and that only the healthiest of women are included, stating that women who have standinghistories of mental health problems are most likely to be affected by an abortion. She believes there is considerable evidence showing that mental health issues arising from abortion do not manifest themselves sometimes for several years, meaning that many women will not feel the depression or the guilt until they start a family and get pregnant again. She noted that in her study the death of a babycauses a woman much grief especially if death was at her own hands.

In fact, abortion advocates mention that a woman experiences relief after the procedure because most of them have a mental state of mind of being defeated. It is known that most women who end up getting abortions do it because of the pressure of raising a baby alone, because of interference with a career, because of age,or simply because they are not ready to have a baby when in reality who is ready? There is a no way of feeling ready because there is no guide to raise a baby and the nervous feeling of the unknown is always there. What advocates forget to mention are the consequences that some may experience immediately or some years after the procedure. The Media advertises more frequently that having a...