Do you require psychological counseling after you have had an abortion?

[ismnotwasm]

Most women do not need any psychological help after an abortion. Feelings of regret after abortion are rare. Indeed, the most common emotional response after abortion is relief. Transient feelings of guilt, sadness, or loss are common but most women can overcome negative feelings that might affect them. It is normal to feel emotional after an abortion. While you may experience sadness or grief, these feelings usually go away after a few days. But in countries where the taboo and social stigma is big, it is more common for women to suffer feelings of guilt and shame.
If you are not sure if a medical abortion treatment is right for you, we encourage you to discuss it with a trusted friend.

How do women feel after an abortion?
Every woman is unique in how she feels after an abortion. Most women report feeling a sense of relief that they have made the best decision under the circumstances. This is the most common response. For some women, however, abortion can raise a number of emotional responses including sadness, guilt, rage, shame and regret. Some women feel bad about themselves because they don’t feel guilty about having an abortion, but think they should feel guilty. In general, understanding your emotional pain can help you to begin to let go of the grief, guilt, rage or shame you may be feeling. It is important to acknowledge that you are hurting and to take good care of yourself if you are experiencing difficulty.

You are not a bad person because you had an abortion. You are also not alone in having chosen abortion. Many women are surprised to learn that about 42 million women worldwide have abortions each year.

What kinds of things might contribute to a woman feeling distress after an abortion?
Your hormones are changing back to their pre-pregnancy state. This chemical change can cause feelings of sadness and weepiness. Someone else may have pressured you into having an abortion, rather than letting you make the decision for yourself
You might not have much support from your friends or family. Isolation is a major reason that women may find themselves in distress after an abortion.

http://www.womenonwaves.org/en/page/999/do-you-require-psychological-counseling-after-you-have-had-an-abortion

[NYC_SKP]

1. Not insignificant is that last bit:

You might not have much support from your friends or family. Isolation is a major reason that women may find themselves in distress after an abortion.

[ismnotwasm]

2. Exactly

Woman on waves is an incredible organization.

http://www.womenonwaves.org

While there are obviously and clearly number of emotions a woman may feel after abortion, pro-choice activists have been having to counter an incredible amount of RW rhetoric about abortion emotional "damage".

While I agree every emotional experience is different, I don't appreciate shit-stirrers and I despise anti-choice ideology.

[uppityperson]

3. There are lots of feelings and it is highly individualized. Yes, some are distressed because of

what is copy/pasted here, and some for other reasons. There is no one right way to feel. This part is oh so true...

Every woman is unique in how she feels after an abortion. Most women report feeling a sense of relief that they have made the best decision under the circumstances. This is the most common response. For some women, however, abortion can raise a number of emotional responses including sadness, guilt, rage, shame and regret. Some women feel bad about themselves because they don’t feel guilty about having an abortion, but think they should feel guilty. In general, understanding your emotional pain can help you to begin to let go of the grief, guilt, rage or shame you may be feeling. It is important to acknowledge that you are hurting and to take good care of yourself if you are experiencing difficulty.

[ismnotwasm]

4. "Oh so true"--this

I agree. No woman should be tossed into an emotion box. We are allowed to feel the way we feel. It has nothing to do with purity tests

[BlancheSplanchnik]

8. and no ideologues/politicians/fundies should be attempting

To PROTECT US FROM OUR EMOTIONS.


Which is part of their scare tactics--warning us of terrible dangers as they pretend to be " concerned for the woman's wellbeing."

[ismnotwasm]

13. And there's the rub

The RW falsity of the presentation of the emotions surrounding abortion. It's disgusting bullshit. If every woman had the right to choose, without shame, without coercion, without interference from assholes who think they have the right to choose for her, every woman is also capable of emotionally supporting whatever her choice might be.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

15. they use every manipulation possible to get/keep control

Part of that is distraction. Stir up the traditionalists and force repressive values.

Lie. Create stigma. Withold freedoms from everyone but themselves. And crow about "liberty".

It's frustrating seeing what's going on ahead of the curve--as most of us here have for decades now.
At least the hypocrisy has gotten brazen enough that most people can see it by now.

[pnwmom]

22. The OP seems to be the flip side of that, telling women

who are contemplating or have had abortions that they shouldn't require counseling.

Some will need it, some won't. Much depends on the whole shape of her life ASIDE from the abortion.

[pnwmom]

20. +1

[broiles]

5. No, but it was a tough decision.

After it was made, I was okay because I knew it was the right thing to do for me and my family.

[ismnotwasm]

6. ..

[Manifestor_of_Light]

7. We didn't call it "date rape" when I was young.

We didn't have terms like "date rape" and "sexual harassment."
Those situations fell under "bad stuff that some men do to some women."

That was in the seventies and eighties.

Now those bad situations have names and that helps a WHOLE lot.

[Beausoir]

9. Cookie-cutter arm-chair psycho-babble.

Some women are fine emotionally after aborting, some women are not fine. My best friend in high school aborted 4 times and was perfectly fine with that. My college roommate aborted once and never got over it.

This one size fits all attempt to marginalize women who chose to abort is not progressive.

Stop this attempt to score cheap political points.

[ismnotwasm]

12. First, don't tell me what to do or post.

Second, this is from WomenOnWaves, a wonderful organization to provides help to women in need all over the world. They will sail to countries where abortion is illegal and help women who desire abortions obtain one.

Third, it's always best to read before you speak.

[pnwmom]

19. +1

There seem to be a lot of people lately who are trying to fit women into a one-size-fits-all box.

[Vashta Nerada]

21. Wow.

What I got out of the article and what you got out of the article are on opposite sides of the spectrum.

What this article showed me was that, despite what many Republicans and religious fundies say, many women don't have mental health issues after an abortion.

[idwiyo]

33. Yeah, but you see, it just isn't right if you don't suffer before, during, and after!

It simply must be hard! Don't you even dare to suggest you gave it less thought than you give to clipping your toenails. Noooo... It should be as hard as chopping one's arm off without any reason. Or something like it. 'Cause abortion is shameful, and shouldn't be taken lightly, and if you have an abortion you must suffer to make forced-birthers happy. And some of the so-called 'allies' or 'forced-birther light' want you to pay for your 'sins' too.

[fadedrose]

10. Everyone is different

There is no template for this, just as there is not just one reason why someone opts to have an abortion.

It's between a woman and her doctor, her age, her lover, husband, parents and her god, and how she perceives these factors to have feeling negative or positive toward her.

So many reasons and different kinds of worries come from these feelings. A rapist is no doubt a cause for needing conseling in all cases.

[alp227]

11. the supposed lack of support comes from obsessive busybodies seeking self-validation

from controlling others. It disappoints those radical religious folk that (gasp!) NOT ALL WOMEN WANT TO BE PARENTS! or NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO START A FAMILY. That's that.

[AtheistCrusader]

14. Maybe if such a large percentage of the population didn't

spend an inordinate chunk of its waking hours trying to guilt trip women about abortion, this wouldn't be an issue.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

16. and maybe if our culture didn't romanticize motherhood and babies so much, too.

Maybe it's a human thing or maybe it's an American thing, I'm not sure which--but we have totally fantasized and romanticized ideas as a society about Motherhood and Babies.

[AtheistCrusader]

17. Possible. I would need to immerse in another culture for a while to see.

It would make an interesting research project, and you raise a good question.

[idwiyo]

34. +1 Exactly!

[pnwmom]

18. Is something wrong with the women who do?

One of my friends was suicidal before her abortion -- and for a while, afterwards. Should she have avoided counseling because you're just supposed to tough it out? Or because it's not supposed to be tough at all?

[ismnotwasm]

29. Of course not

This is one part of a website from WomenOnWaves--an activist group that provides abortions in clean safe medical facility on boats to those women living in countries where abortion is illegal.

[SheilaT]

23. There's this notion out there that women have abortions as casually

as someone might smoke a cigarette. No matter how unwanted the pregnancy, no matter how much the woman does not want the pregnancy or baby, it is simply not a matter taken on lightly. Even though it can well be absolutely the best choice possible. And even though forever afterwards the woman would say that she did the right thing. Trust me, it wasn't done lightly or casually.

No one has any right to imply that a woman should feel any particular way because of an abortion. The circumstances are almost infinitely variable.

Women absolutely must have control over their own bodies, and NO MATTER WHAT THEY choose, they need to be supported and affirmed in that choice.

The real issue is that women are often left abandoned, either for the pregnancy, the abortion, the baby. There is this expectation that there is one correct way to feel. No, there is not. Life is full of variables. There is no one correct way to feel, no one correct response to a pregnancy.

What I might do may well not be what you would do in the same circumstances. That does not mean that one of us is right and the other is wrong. All that means is that your decision is yours, and mine is mine.

[PumpkinAle]

24. Well said Sheila

+1

[SheilaT]

25. You're welcome

This is a topic I've thought about many times over many years. I'm 65, so I well remember before Roe v Wade.

[ismnotwasm]

27. Exactly

One of the reasons I posted from this particular site is because this group supports women where there is NO choice. As much as our right are currently being attacked and eroded, there remain large parts of the world where abortion is illegal, dangerous and having one could land women in jail.

We here have the luxury of discussing what an individual response to abortion may be. We can talk about the whys and wherefores of our responses. We can point out anti-choice lies, and disinformation.

I think we can agree to trust women to make their own decisions.

I like to keep in mind I have sisters all over the world who lack this human right, here disguised as luxury.

[idwiyo]

32. Stop insisting that abortion is always a matter of agonising decision. It is simply bollocks.

It maybe a difficult decision for some. It sure as hell is easy for others (like me), and THERE IS NOTHING BLOODY WRONG WITH IT.

PS Yes, I'd give more consideration to smoking a cigarette, than I would give to having abortion done. Any one has problem with it?

[liberal_at_heart]

26. I didn't have any counseling afterwards but it did take me a long time to actually

feel completely confident in my decision. I kept second guessing myself. At one point I even thought I did regret my decision and actually joined a pro-life group. I was a teenager at the time. I am almost 40 now. After all these years of living life and reflecting on my circumstances that I was in, I finally did become completely confident that I had made the right decision for me. I think people do the issue a disservice when they claim that most women never give it a second thought. I'm not saying that most do, but this is not an issue where you can just draw black and white lines. It is okay to have complex feelings about it. We are human beings. We feel things. We experience every emotion that every other human being on this Earth feels. There is nothing wrong with feeling whatever you feel. There is no right or wrong feeling after having an abortion. You feel what you feel.

[ismnotwasm]

28. And this this is truth

What's problematic is anti-choice co-opting of the complexities of emotion and the reasons for them. I felt relief and have never regretted my abortion.

[Kurska]

30. If you feel you need it, then you need it. It is in my opinion irresponsible to say anything else.

Some people need counseling over car crash, most don't, but I don't think there is any profit in giving blanket statements about in what situations mental help might be required. I'd be far happier if someone who doesn't need therapy gets it (and honestly, therapy would probably help most people regardless of whether they "need it&quot , than if someone who does need it not get it.

[idwiyo]

31. I was HAPPY. It's about as 'traumatic' as getting rid of benign tumour, IMNSHO.

There is enough solid evidence that abortion does not cause any mental damage, and that majority of women feel relief, nothing else.


Mind you, I can see why so many women in US might feel like crap.

Where I came from abortion was nothing special. Just a medical procedure to treat a specific condition. No stigma attached.

When I look at US though, it's like a Twilight Zone. 'You shall agonise over your decision as it MUST BE hard, and difficult one!' 'You shall feel like shit after you done it, because that's the right way to feel!' 'Having abortion means you FAILED at using birth-control!' And loads of other crap. Never mind 'It's a baaaabeee' forced-birthers bullshit.


That's why I absolutely hate 'abortion should be rare' message. It helps to perpetuate the stigma. It promotes unsubstantiated belief that easy access to birth-control will lower number of unwanted pregnancies to almost nothing. It places unfair burden on women, because if they do require abortion it means they personally failed at using birth-control. Never mind that women are the ones who have to stay on birth-control pills for majority of their lives. Even condom failure is blamed on women, as in 'she should have made sure it was done right, AND should have used another form of BC.'

Sorry, only total moron would believe that easy access to cheap or free BC is the alternative to abortion. Not now, not in a near future, or ever.

Simply because even planned, and wanted pregnancy can easily become an unwanted one, and there is no other solution but abortion if woman doesn't want to play 'incubator with legs' game.

[jmowreader]

35. It's possible...

the anti-choice protesters in front of the clinic holding up those pictures of dismembered fetuses and yelling "mommy, mommy don't kill me" would give me a pretty good case of PTSD.