West Palm Beach, Florida (JusticeNewsFlash.com – News Report) – In a recent study, psychologist and medical experts debate about whether or not women experience post-traumatic stress disorders after enduring an abortion. The American Psychological Association (APA) Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion (TFMHA) voted at the association’s annual convention that “There is no credible evidence that a single elective abortion of an unwanted pregnancy in and of itself causes mental health problems for adult women.” Yet, of course this was met by opposition from the Justice Foundation, which released a joint report stating that abortion hurts women mentally and physically; 100 scientists, medical and mental health professionals signed the document. The Justice Foundation also has sworn testimonies and legal evidence from 3,000 women who say abortion affected their mental health. TFMHA argues: “Women obtain abortions for different reasons; at different times of gestation; via differing medical procedures; and within different personal, social, economic, and cultural contexts. All of these may lead to variability in women’s psychological reactions following abortion,” according to the study. TFMHA continues to argue that there is “no evidence sufficient to support the claim that an observed association between abortion history and mental health was caused by the abortion per se, as opposed to other factors,” and that if the woman freely elected to have the abortion, she is highly unlikely to experience severe mental problems.
An additional study was published by the BMC Psychiatry, which stated that women who have experienced abortion have high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). There is also much documented information, which found more post-traumatic stress (including nightmares, flashbacks, guilt, nervousness, sleep disturbances, and feelings of regret) in women who received general anesthesia compared with women who received local anesthesia. Symptoms before abortion and after abortion were looked at in 155 women in South Africa. Almost one-fifth of the women had symptoms that met the criteria for PTSD, which further proves that “high rates of PTSD characterize women who have undergone voluntary pregnancy termination.” Further, at three months after the abortions, the number of women with PTSD had increased by 61 percent compared to before the abortion.
These results seem to suggest that the TFMAH is slightly incorrect in their observations. Of course each women’s case is different, but overall, the studies and evidence appear to suggest that the findings of the Justice Foundation are more credible and more apparent in more cases.
