AboutPat G Expertise I can help women with the consideration of their decision, and with resources, and I can share my own experiences as the mother of seven and grandmother of six. My approach is to show love and concern, and help women work through the issues, emotional, spiritual, practical. I also help women deal with boyfriend and family issues.
Experience I have been working with women who are considering abortion for several years. I also work with women who have had abortions. Our family has also experienced adoption, so I can talk about that as well.
Education/Credentials I am mostly self-taught. I also studied midwifery for awhile. I have spent years doing research on this topic. In fact, I have been doing research and working in this area since the early 1970's. I have been helping women online for a few years, under the guidance of a woman who was formally training in counseling.
Question My 18yr old who is very very young is pregnant; we are all devastated. I want to know: if she were to have an abortion now at a reputed clinic by an experienced team, what are the chances of her having fertility/miscarriage/pregnancy problems later on. I know there are no guarantees but I just want to know the odds. Also, what are the psychological effects of undergoing an abortion? Please help us.
Answer Hi, Dee,
If you can find a reputed clinic and an experienced team, you are already way ahead of the rest of us. Obviously, there are experienced teams out there. But reputed is not the same thing as a clinic that meets local health standards. A good many of them don't. How will you find out? Beats me! Don't expect the well known abortion clinic chains, for example, to meet local health standards. Often they don't. Yes, they have the reputation. A good many practitioners are very fast, and can do an abortion in five minutes. These are five minutes that can change her and your life forever.
As for the psychological effects, they can be severe. The likelihood that a woman will die a violent death in the year following abortion is several times what it would be if she carries to term. She can decide to become careless with her life, and can start driving recklessly, become promiscuous, or resort to drugs and alcohol to hide the emotional pain from herself. Some women commit suicide. One of the women we were helping became suicidal, and another woman and I stayed up all night exchanging messages with her over the internet to keep her from doing it. I was never so scared in all my life! She and I have kept in touch, and at one point, she told me that her abortion ruined her life. Abortion can drive a wedge between you and your daughter, and it can last a long time. We told our children never to get involved in that; we'd disown them if they did! And they never did. Seriously, I wouldn't do that to a dog, let alone my daughter and grandchild! Obviously, I have a perspective, but it comes from having studied this issue for nearly 40 years.
On the other hand, some women act like they are emotionally normal after abortion. We say these women are in denial. Some women will be in this state all their lives. Who can say that there was any emotional damage? One psychiatrist said that such women usually pull away from feeling. I knew a woman who had this consequence. She had no emotions anymore. And sometimes something will suddenly bring a woman out of denial with no warning. I call this "being blindsided". The cause can be anything from seeing a movie, seeing young children the same age as her own would have been, reading a biology textbook with pictures, or a chance remark. And women who come out of denial can have lifelong regrets.
For more information about the emotional consequences, visit this web site: http://www.afterabortion.com/ . The woman who runs this site favors legal abortion, and she has had five abortions herself. There are extensive archives of discussions among women. If you can get access to that, you can read women's personal stories. Otherwise, there is plenty of other information there.
One of our sons had a baby out of wedlock. We didn't find out he existed until he was nearly a year and a half old. That was, from my standpoint, most disappointing, because I missed a year and a half of enjoying him. Obviously, it's not something I wanted for him, but it happened. Fortunately, both he and the mother are taking excellent care of him, and he is a fine boy, very good, very happy. We have five other grandchildren. We don't look at them any differently. I personally thanked his mother for having him.
I once faced the prospect of having an abortion myself. I didn't have it, but I did have horrible nightmares for months afterwards. I still remember some of them vividly, 30 years later. And I did have a medical condition. The man who would have done the abortion tried to lead me to believe I would die if he didn't operate. Well, I'm still here.
About the medical consequences, like the emotional consequences, they are no respecter of persons. They can happen to anybody. Since your daughter won't be making the decision here, this heightens the chance of adverse consequences emotionally. Medically, abortion can cause hemorrhage, which can necessitate a hysterectomy to save a woman's life. Or it could necessitate blood transfusions, and a woman could get an STD, hepatitis, or HIV from it. It can cause damage to other internal organs. It can cause scarring so that a woman can experience miscarriage or placenta previa (a condition that threatens her and her baby's life in a future pregnancy and often requires a Caesarian section). The chance of miscarriage in a future pregnancy is greatly increased. And the scarring can also cause the opening to a Fallopian tube to become smaller, so sperm can get through but the egg cannot, and this can result in tubal pregnancy, which is a death sentence for the baby and a life-threatening condition for the mother. It can cause labor in a future pregnancy to be prolonged. This can lead to Caesarian section, the leading cause of death in mothers who give birth. The incidence of tubal pregnancy is about 400% greater after an abortion. Sometimes when there is a tubal pregnancy, the abortionist won't diagnose it, and this can be life-threatening. I had a friend that happened to. Her tube ruptured. She came so close to death in subsequent surgery that she had an out of body experience. Sterility occurs in approximately 14% of women having one abortion. Don't be surprised if your daughter gets pregnant again right away. A substantial portion do so within a year. And if she has three abortions, her odds of becoming sterile are about 50%.
Abortion can also cause extreme prematurity in future pregnancies, which can result in mental damage to the baby, such as cerebral palsy. In the United States, the incidence of cerebral palsy is about double what it would be otherwise. The likelihood of that also increases by about 400%. Permanent damage to a woman's reproductive system occurs in about 1/3 of women. These figures come from studies done on medical papers from industrial nations.
One of my closest friends had two abortions, and she carried her next child, and he was born prematurely, and developed apnea. He had to be hospitalized for three weeks to save his life.
A woman can get a nasty STD from abortion, even HIV. Since many of the clinics do not properly sterilize their instruments, this is a real danger. Infection can also cause uterine scarring, and make it impossible for a woman to conceive in the future. I know of at least one clinic, run by feminists, who allowed the abortionist to operate even though they KNEW he had HIV.
Abortion disrupts a woman's delicate hormonal balance, and this can cause all kinds of problems.
Another danger they won't usually tell you about is the danger of breast cancer when a woman is in her 40's. The way this works is that pregnancy causes the cells in the breasts to begin to grow. But they don't become mature until the third trimester. In the meantime, if the pregnancy is ended, they stay in this state, and they are very susceptible to cancer. About 1/4 of the women who get breast cancer from prior abortion die from it. If it is a woman's first pregnancy, the risk is greatly increased. In that case, if there is a history of breast cancer in the family, getting breast cancer is a virtual certainty.
Another immediate consequence of abortion can be complications from anesthesia. This can cause death or deprive a woman of oxygen and then cause brain damage. Abortion can cause serious disability that isn't related to reproductive issues.
From a medical standpoint, abortion for social or personal reasons (which would be the case here), is poor medicine. You don't have a medical condition to counterbalance the risk, and no doctor who follows the precept, first do no harm, would do it. And in fact, to go back to your comment about experienced staff, they found in England that the more experienced practitioners caused more complications.
Let me address your concern about your daughter's immaturity. Sometimes having a baby changes all that drastically. I have seen young women really change their lives because they have a baby to protect and care for. Again, obviously, there are no guarantees. Don't worry about her education. If she wants one, she'll get one. You can certainly help and be supportive. I got my college degree when we had four children, three of them preschoolers. Sure, it makes things more challenging. But by far, the biggest challenge will be your attitude toward her.
You have every right to be upset. Give yourself time. I'm sure she is upset, too. But knowing what it's like to be the grandmother of a child born out of wedlock, I can tell you that there is no difference in the love I feel for him as opposed to the love for our others. And I have seen relatives of mine become very loving and supportive under similar circumstances. Unfortunately, there is pressure on a woman (and her family) to have the abortion before there is really time to sort things out. But you have time. Two weeks considering the issue won't materially affect her risks. In the meantime, research the issue on the internet. Find out what abortion is and what it does, about the development of your grandchild, and so forth. The decision to have an abortion must be your daughter's. If you go against her will, you are putting her seriously at risk for future emotional consequences. Make sure she knows the facts as well. Read both sides, but remember that the side that supports abortion will make money, so there's a conflict of interest problem.
Every woman who considers abortion should see an ultrasound. And so should you. A woman will find out all of these things afterwards. It is much better if she finds out while she still has a choice.
If you would like documentation for any of this, let me know. Good luck with your deliberations, and feel free to ask questions. If you do decide to let her carry to term, there is help available, which will help with financial and practical problems, and with emotional problems. This help is free or available for barter in most cases. You can talk to the staff and let them share with you about how the women mature when they face these challenges. Let me know if you need this type of information as well.
I am so glad you are researching this and not just jumping in and taking what seems to be the easy way out. Please be aware that there are NO easy answers to this situation, and some women don't mature, though many do. But abortion isn't an easy answer, either. I realize that this is mostly negative. But I hope it helps. Take care of your daughter, and keep her safe.
