The subject of abortions is an intense political debate in the United States and across the entire world. It seems like almost all politicians and citizens believe choosing to have an abortion should be the right of every women who thinks they can’t handle raising or giving birth to the child. On most occasions, these women most likely conceived their children willingly, but they were not wanting to conceive them on purpose. They feel as if abortion is the only solution to their unexpected “problem,” which is everything but true since adoption and a great amount of pregnancy crisis centers that want to help do exist. The few that do believe abortion is wrong probably have the belief due to morals or religious backgrounds. It is most likely these religious people see the unborn fetus as human life, which it is, and the act of abortion is just murdering precious, innocent life. Whether one believes abortion is right or wrong, the effects of the procedure go well beyond the extreme pain the innocent being in the woman’s uterus is subject to feel throughout the entire procedure. 

Most politicians, men, some doctors, and almost all women, especially ones that are debating if they want to abort their unborn children, do not realize the extent of how harmful the effects abortion has on one’s entire body. This is partially due to doctors not fully explaining or talking with a patient about the procedure, before performing the abortion on her body. An abortion is a medical procedure, and all medical procedures will have negative effects to one’s body; especially those where blood is lost from the body. Most of these effects are minor, but they can be detrimental to a living creature. Unfortunately, a great number of people do not realize the effects abortion has on a woman’s body and her mental stability, even those who are deeply involved in the pro-choice or pro-life movements. The effects of an abortion can be short-term, like bleeding or nausea, or cause problems on the woman for the rest of her life, like developing an infection that results in a hysterectomy, which is the surgical procedure to remove a female’s uterus. Without the most important part of her reproductive system, a woman will never be able to carry a child and give birth to her own child/children in her future life, which may cause the woman to develop anxiety, depression, or just become mentally unstable due to a bad decision she made very early in her fertile part of life. Because abortion causes many harmful physical and psychological effects on women, laws in America involving abortion should be created and/or changed to protect all women from these consequences.

The laws of abortion are different in each state in the United States of America. Abortion was banned by about 1880, except in the rare occasion of it being a necessity to save the mother’s life. The procedure was a shockingly common choice between women before the ban of it, even though religion was one of the most important parts of that time. It was not until 1973 that abortion laws would be decided upon by the Supreme Court. The case the court decided upon was called Roe V. Wade, which allowed the court to conclude that the it was the woman’s choice to have an abortion, only in her first trimester, under the right of privacy in the United States Constitution. However, states are allowed “to place restrictions in the second trimester to protect a woman’s health and in the third trimester to protect a viable fetus” (Blanchard). The laws of abortion were created mostly to please women who believed it is the right of a woman to have access to an abortion, no matter the reasoning behind her needing or, most likely, wanting to have the procedure done. While some laws were made to inform a woman about the developmental stages of a fetus and the psychological effects she may suffer from, laws have not been created to truly protect a woman from the consequences of abortion (Monahan). Many women are told lies about all of these laws. They’re told it’s a “tiny mass of tissue…” and some even admit that they were “not told the truth about what an abortion means to the life of an unborn baby” (Flanders). While there are laws in place that are there to attempt information to be told to all women who are wanting an abortion, the policies are not strict enough to protect women. Federal laws should be passed, so all women are told the same about abortion throughout the country and the information given to them is the truth. They are often not given the all the information on the recovery from abortion. Sometimes, it is unknown to the woman of how long her recovery will be and what may happen during the process of recovering from the traumatic procedure performed on her body.

Abortion is guaranteed to cause harmful physical effects on the female body, as it is a medical procedure. The effects it has on a woman’s body could either be easily resolved and healed, or they could eventually result in an unfortunate death. Bleeding and contraction-like pain are very common after receiving an abortion, but heavy bleeding and severe pelvic pain are indications of other complications. It is possible that a woman’s “uterus relaxes too much (uterine atony) or if some fetal or placental tissue is retained in the uterus (incomplete abortion) if heavy bleeding does occur. Severe pelvic pain is a reoccurring result from infection or clots trying to pass through if an incomplete abortion happened” (Blanchard). Usually these effects are only minor, but they can lead to other major complications. Infection can spread through a woman’s body and cause her to become very ill, while heavy bleeding can also have other extremely serious consequences.  

Some women can have physical effects that may have a final result of death. Women who have received an abortion are “2.3 times more at risk of having cervical cancer compared to those who” have never had an abortion (Amad). Cervical cancer then results in going through chemotherapy and/or radiation treatment, which have even worse physical effects than abortion. Many people go through obvious hair loss, nausea, and their immune systems may even deteriorate. Someone going through chemo may catch the common cold and die due to how weak his/her immune system because of the treatment, which kills both bad and good cells in one’s body. 

Along with the many physical effects women deal with, abortion causes even more psychological issues for women. These effects range from regret all the way to suicidal thoughts. Depression, anxiety, and even deep guilt are common issues women will development after having an abortion. These issues can develop after being denied an abortion, having a miscarriage, and even after giving birth. It seems as if women who give birth develop the issues quicker, but over a long period of time, women who have at least one abortion have a lower satisfaction of life at least 5 years after choosing to have the procedure (Nordal). These women think they are just quickly “resolving” the issue of becoming pregnant with an unplanned child or with the child of a man they do not want to father their children, but they do not realize the issues they will be forced to deal with more than five years after aborting their children. Due to how long abortion can affect the mental stability of a female, laws should change immediately to protect these women. To start protecting women from mental instability from abortion, politicians should begin the process of passing laws to, at minimum, inform women about the psychological issues they will most likely have an effect from when getting an abortion.

There has been a great amount of studies done comparing the effects of abortion, giving birth, and having a miscarriage. One study done involved about 40 women who had miscarriages and around 80 women who received an induced abortion. While women who had miscarriages showed more signs of depression shortly after their miscarriage, women who received an abortion showed more signs of depression years after the incident happened compared to the women who miscarried. Women who went through with abortions had higher levels of anxiety immediately after the incident and years after according to the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, also known as HADS (Nordal). While the psychological effects of abortion are not immediate, the symptoms will develop years after the procedure and can cause a woman’s “normal” life to quickly crumble down because of a quick decision she made without being informed about all the risks she decided to take. It is unfair for a women to be put at risk of these consequences without any knowledge of these dangerous effects of abortion. 

There is recent research which argues against abortion being linked to diagnosis of mental illness. In fact, this three-year study of under 100 women concluded that the women were more likely to be unhappy with life if they were denied an abortion due to be too far in their pregnancy. There was a 5% increase in both the diagnosis of depression and anxiety for women who were denied abortions rather than those who could have an abortion (Biggs 2557). While this study was able to conclude this, the study was extremely short with a small sample size. Many women who receive abortions will not develop the regret for years, as they never fully know what their decision was for that long. In fact, one woman by the name of Tewannah Aman had an abortion when she was 18 after being pregnant for three months. She was fine for years, until “about seven years later … [her] heart broke… [and she] was overcome with grief” (Flanders). The reason many women aren’t phased immediately after going through with an abortion is because it is what they wanted in the moment, and they also do not realize the decision they just made. Once a female finds a man and marries him, the couple will most likely have their own child together. This will cause a lot of emotion for the woman, as she will realize she should have another child in her arms. With post-partum depression, these feelings will more than likely cause the mother to have a breakdown and begin regretting the decision she made years before. This will cause “the pain of abortion [to] stay with [her] for the rest of [her] life” (Flanders). While abortion may not affect a woman’s stability immediately after she makes her decision, it will most likely affect her later in her life when she gives birth to her first child. The new mother will become overwhelmed, which is not good for her baby or the baby’s father. IT is best that laws on abortion are changed or revised to protect the stability of women, especially those who are new-mothers.

Many women, especially in the 1900s, who received abortions were never completely informed what an abortion is and/or the consequences it would on their bodies and minds. This has caused many of these women to develop a deep regret knowing they aborted their own children and never even gave their children the chance to take their first breath (“Women Hurt by Abortion”). The regret of knowing oneself has not only murdered a living being, but their own child, is an obvious challenge that will almost always be unbearable to deal with for an entire lifetime. This regret can lead to worse effects like drug abuse or maybe even suicide. More than often, these effects will not happen for years. The young girl would have already “moved on” from the decision she made, maybe have a career and even started a family with someone she loves. This causes even more problems once the effects of the abortion settle in for her. If she falls into a depression and can no longer function due to a choice she handled years before, it no longer just affects her. This will then affect her, her parents, maybe a spouse if she’s married, and it will definitely cause issues for children, if she has decided to give birth to any. The guilt she will deal with eventually will cause deep sadness and she may even be traumatized from her old decision. Policymakers should begin more research to immediately have reasons to revise the laws already developed around abortion. The current laws allow abortion to be accessible to almost any female wanting an abortion, even though the consequences they will face can be detrimental and ruin the rest of their lives. 

Abortion has been a problem for hundreds of years in all societies. There is a very small chance that humanity will ever agree on whether it is right or wrong, but that is not the main issue with the procedure. Whether it really is killing a human being or if it just disposing a clump of cells, the main goal humanity should think of when created laws or policies around abortion is the health of the woman receiving the procedure. There still is not enough psychological research to completely ban abortion, but more needs to be done to allow everyone to agree on if abortion should be outlawed (Leask 81). The physical consequences can change overtime due to medically, advanced technology, but women will always suffer from the psychological effects of this outrageous “solution” to now wanting to give birth to a child. Women aren’t getting abortions because they can’t handle raising the child, as they could give the baby up for adoption and place it with parents who can give it a wonderful life the child deserves. Women choose not to be inconvenienced by their actions of conceiving the baby, usually willingly, and decide they won’t give birth to it, even if this means they will deal with regret and guilt for the rest of their lives. Therefore, the laws should change and/or be revised to protect the women who are not informed about the outcomes of their decisions. Abortion is easily accessible to the majority of women, whom do not know the consequences they will face after aborting their child, and policymakers should change the accessibility of the procedure to prevent and protect more women in the future from the consequences that come with deciding to have an abortion.

The laws of abortion are not made to protect the bodies and minds of women, but rather for women to have access to the procedure whenever they need or want to abort their children. Unfortunately, American women are not the only women who suffer through the horrible psychological affects and physical effects of abortion. Americans are lucky abortion is legal, as it is mostly safer than abortions that are done illegally; citizens in America also have access to more advance medications when dealing with complications of abortion. Women in developing countries most likely will receive an illegal and extremely unsafe abortion, which result in worse complications than those that are received safely. The complications of abortion should be taught more around the world, and all of humanity should make an effort to change the laws involving abortion to protect all women.
