WHAT HAPPENS to a woman after she undergoes an abortion? What does a woman experience in the days, months and years after she is driven out of the clinic parking lot? Is it relief? Pain? Regret?
For some women, they will leave the clinic without a backward glance and rarely think of their abortion again. For many others, however, their abortion decision will press on their minds and hearts for years to come.
Nearly 35 years after Roe v. Wade, growing evidence suggests that many women who have had abortions encounter negative reactions afterwards. It is documented that a large number of women feel anger, guilt, depression or even have suicidal thoughts after abortion. Their self-worth becomes so low they become addicted to drugs or alcohol. Some women experience a wide range of symptoms including eating disorders, trouble sleeping, nightmares, difficulty bonding with children, intensified grief around the anniversary of the abortion as well as anxiety around vacuum cleaners or blenders whose sounds resemble the suction machine used to perform most abortions.
Together, these symptoms are referred to as Post Abortive Syndrome (PAS) or Post Abortive Stress Syndrome (PASS), and closely resemble Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome often experienced by soldiers returning home from war. While some women report symptoms as early as the day after the abortion, it can often take 5, 10 or even beyond 20 years for PASS to appear.
Though not all women who have abortions experience PASS, more and more women each year are reporting PASS and are seeking help and counseling. These women are finding comfort and consolation through post-abortive counseling programs and even in online chat rooms that aim to break down the barrier of silence that has stifled the grief and pain of post-abortive women for too long. There is a growing awareness of the needs of post abortive women as thousands of programs across the country, including afterabortion.com and the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, have stepped up to meet the needs of these women.
A Google search of PASS yields page after page of such counseling and awareness Web sites, right alongside links to sites that deny the very existence of PASS. Why this dichotomy? Why this denial? Because most supporters of abortion refuse to acknowledge that women may, and often do, experience long-term negative reactions to abortion. The denial of PASS by abortion advocates such as Planned Parenthood is summed up in a 2001 Ms. magazine article that flatly claims, "Abortion does not 'hurt' women and there is no such thing as 'Post Abortion Syndrome.'"
A simple Internet search reveals that in fact, there are thousands of women at this very moment taking part in online message boards and local counseling programs in search of healing and comfort following their abortions. If PASS did not exist, there would be no need for such Web sites or programs. If PASS did not exist, an increasing number of post abortive women would not be seeking professional help for emotional problems. If PASS did not exist, thousands of women would not be breaking their silence and sharing their testimonies in an effort to raise awareness of this syndrome.
Pro-choice individuals claim that because the mainstream medical community does not currently recognize PASS, it does not exist. This is the same medical community that fifty years ago believed schizophrenia was caused by bad parenting and for many years did not acknowledge PMS (now called premenstrual dysphoric disorder). Any girl (or guy for that matter) will tell you that PMS is real and affects women's lives. And according to those post-abortive women who experience it, PASS is very real and directly affects all aspects of their lives.
When it comes to taking care of women who are in need of healing and help after abortion, it does not matter whether you are pro-life or pro-choice. What matters is that we acknowledge the suffering of these women (and sometimes men, too) and do our part to alleviate it. Awareness is the first step to assisting post-abortive women. Denial of PASS only fortifies the wall of silence that prevents many women from finding help.
It is undeniable that women who are hurting after abortion surround us -- perhaps we even sit next to such a woman in class. It is time that we focus attention on the needs of post-abortive women who suffer silently among us. We must extend a hand of comfort and concern for these women and provide the support they need, the lack of which may have forced them to abortion in the first place. For if we deny their suffering, we deny them the ability to heal.
Elyse Smith is a second year in the College of Arts and Sciences and Vice President of Hoos for Life
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