Do Women Regert Abortions?

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“We find that the negative emotions experienced at the time of the abortion wane/decrease significantly over 3 years afterwards. Notably, relief remains the most common emotion.”  

New research has found that more than ninety five percent who have received an abortion have no regret about it, feeling that their decision was the right thing for them. Researchers found no difference in mental health outcomes between women who had first-trimester abortions and late-term abortions.

thirty seven states currently require some for of mandatory counseling  for a woman before an abortion can be performed, seven of which require a woman be told of possible psychological responses to abortion, stressing negative emotional responses such as "post traumatic stress disorder", a term adopted by pro-life supporters but has not been accepted by the American Psychological Association or the American Psychiatric Association, and is basically debunked by this study.

The study, commissioned by advancing new standards in reproductive health (ANSIRH), a think-tank at the University of California, San Francisco, confirms thirty years of research explicitly pointing towards there being no adverse mental health effects from abortion. 

“As we note in our 2013 paper on women’s emotions one week after the abortion, we found that many women experience negative emotions (anger, sadness, guilt, regret), as well as positive emotions (relief, happiness), with relief predominating,”corrin rocca, PhD, MPH, an epidemiologist at the University of California-San Francisco and part of the ANSIRH research team, tells Yahoo Health, noting that in the team’s new research, “we find that the negative emotions experienced at the time of the abortion wane/decrease significantly over 3 years afterwards. Notably, relief remains the most common emotion.”

In 2011, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AMRC) in London reviewed all studies about the emotional effects of abortion that had been published in English between 1990 and 2011; from this, they concluded that it is an unwanted pregnancy that increases a woman’s risk of problems with her mental health. AMRC researchers also deduced that a woman with an unwanted pregnancy is as likely to have mental health problems from abortion as she is from giving birth.