Do women suffer mental health issues after experiencing an abortion - Research Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages The way in which an abortion impacts a woman is founded in the external support and the internal ability to cope that she has available. Mental health issues after abortion Introduction The issue of abortion concerns a great number of factors that involve both moral and ethical social considerations. As a medical procedure, abortion is an effective means of terminating a pregnancy with the result of little to no ill physical effects in the long term. However, do women suffer mental health issues after experiencing an abortion? While both sides of the issue have research that has validity in regard to the effects of an abortion on mental health, from a psychosocial point of view the answer of the potential for mental health being affected by the event of an abortion is clearly possible. Yes, women may suffer from an impact on their mental health from the experience of having an abortion. The effect on having done the procedure on a woman’s psychological health may create problems as her emotional state, where it concerns her reproductive health, can be affected. In addition, guilt and shame may impact her psychological profile over the long term. An abortion also has the potential of complicating an existing mental health issue through emotions that come in conflict with the manifestations of the disease. While there are some studies that show that there are little to no psychological issues after an abortion, it is more likely that such a socially controversial decision which is accompanied with enormous levels of guilt and shame will have long-term psychological ramifications on the mental health of a woman who undergoes the procedure. Reproductive emotions Miller and Green (2002) conducted a meta-analysis of 24 studies which concerned the mental health of women after they had gone through an abortion. In an inquiry that asked the question of ill effects in mental health after an abortion, their conclusion was that, “the simple answer to this question in the vast majority of cases is no” (p. 313). They furthered their broad based, simplified answers on this subject by suggesting that most women felt better after their procedure than they did while they were still pregnant. Posavac and Miller (1990) found that levels of well-being had little measurable difference between women who have had an abortion and women who have not had an abortion. Mental health differences were observed to be less than one tenth of a difference. Because of the criteria and methodologies of these studies, the conclusions found little to no difference in the mental health and well-being of women who took their pregnancies to term in comparison to those who had abortions. One of the issues in measuring post-abortion emotions is that the disruption that pregnancy causes within a woman is so extreme that differences between those who have had an abortion and those who have not had an abortion are difficult to measure. According to Hewson (2001), “Attitudes to pregnancy are, however, inextricably bound up with how society views sex, women, and the fertile woman in particular. Pregnancy and birth are not minor ...Download file to see next pagesRead More