Abortion regret is real, no matter what Planned Parenthood would have us believe. Post-abortion syndrome is a form of post-traumatic stress disorder and can affect a woman or man immediately after the abortion or even years down the road. The statistics are staggering and the stories are heartbreaking.
Symptoms of post-abortion syndrome may include guilt, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, thoughts of suicide, and an inability to bond with future children. In fact, one study found that 60 percent of post-abortive women had thoughts of suicide. And a 13-year study in Finland showed that the suicide rate among women who had abortions is six times higher than that of women who had given birth in the prior year. In Great Britain, researchers at the South Glamorgan Health Authority reviewed their own data and found that there were 8.1 suicide attempts per thousand women who had abortions, compared to only 1.9 suicide attempts among women who gave birth.
Statistics aside, it is post-abortive women who are crying out that abortion is bad for women and that they regret their own abortions. It is the post-abortive women we should listen to. Mainstream media ignores them and Planned Parenthood tries to silence them, but they have been turning to social media to share their pain.
[#ShoutYourAbortion–#Regret] #AbortionRegret: “I just wished that I listened to myself and to my gut. But I didn’t.” https://t.co/fiTcZNdEhL
— #ShoutYourAbortion (@abortion_hurts) April 4, 2017
#WednesdayWisdom If I say:I regret my abortions, other women will come forward&say: Me too! The trauma&grief are real.Our feelings are valid
— Béatrice (@BeatriceFedor) January 4, 2017
My #abortionptsd recovery group had a memorial for our unborn murdered babies. Lots of tears. Don’t believe #abortionregret is a minority.
— M (@Youronlymisha) November 13, 2015
#abortionregret is hardest on Mothers Day, bcuz not matter if the baby never came, you were still a mom & u still remember u had a ?
— Zombie Hajde (@ZHajde) May 8, 2016
In addition to Twitter, women have shared their stories of regret on Facebook:
Post-abortive women haven’t stopped at a single tweet or Facebook post. They have also created videos sharing their abortion regret in order to help other women choose life and avoid the trauma of abortion.
A group of post-abortive women agreed to share their stories in a film to help others, many saying that they were told, and truly believed, that their babies were just “blobs of tissue” or “clumps of cells.” They also shared stories of the depression, nightmares, and infertility they have faced as a direct result of their abortions.
“All the feminists said, ‘It’s my body, my right. This was gonna help me. Why didn’t I feel that way?” said one post-abortive woman in Life After Abortion.
“It finally just got to the point where I no longer wanted to live. I felt I could no longer go on,” another admitted.
A 20-year-old woman poured her heart out on Facebook to share her regret after an abortion she had after becoming pregnant by a man she had only been dating for a couple of months. She felt abortion was the right decision for her even though she didn’t truly want to go through with it, now she says it is the worst mistake of her life.
When women are too scared to voice their regret out loud, they turn to a website called “I Regret My Abortion” to share their pain.
“It was when I was 8 weeks pregnant. I took the abortion pill. I came home that same day and experienced what was the worse thing I’ve ever done. I couldn’t bare to see what I saw, even my fiance. I started to hate myself and praying God for forgiveness.[…] No one knows about what is going on but my finace, not even my own parents. […] still to this day I hate myself thinking what have I done, that could have been my child.” – Andrea, age 28
“I had my 8 week 5 day old aborted on Tuesday. The most horrible day of my life and I am filled with such deep regret and sorrow and just want my baby back. I too had Hyperememis Gravidarum and was in hospital for 3 days. I too wish I had ran as soon as I was hesitant. I had booked in for counselling but couldn’t get in until next year. Our decision was because we would have gone bankrupt if we proceeded and the whole family would have suffered. I wish I had of been strong enough to find a way. I miss my baby every day.” – “Empty”
“I regret my abortion. There, I said it. I have a really hard time looking at babies or interacting with children. It makes me miss my would of been daughter (I felt girl, not for certain). I’ve never expressed this outside of my mind, and here I am on a public forum. […] A friend of mine gave birth around the time I would have. I am so jealous sometimes. I randomly cry thinking about this. […] I don’t know what to do or who to talk to. This is sad. I live a good life and love many friends and family and am loved by many too. My life has gone on, but I don’t know where to go to talk about my secret. And I’m fed up of the stigma, making people keep it secret.” – Mari
Men, too, have expressed their remorse over past abortions. Recently, Operation Rescue interviewed a man whose wife had an abortion just days before.
“She immediately regretted it,” he said. “We both sat down and cried and we spoke about it. It’s a big mistake. […] I’m really sad about the whole situation. I don’t know how to live my life now – how to move on. But I will fix that. Hopefully, God will forgive us.”
Despite the media spin that women need abortion in order to become successful and achieve their goals, the truth is that abortion doesn’t fix any problems, it creates new ones. Any woman who eventually understands that the life of her child was taken through abortion will suffer from abortion regret.
When Planned Parenthood and other groups that make money off of abortion claim that abortion is good, they are only looking out for themselves and their own financial interests. In the end, women regret abortion and they are the ones suffering in the aftermath.
