Research
Psychiatrist Professor
Philip Ney says:
'From clinical and research observations, I have concluded that abortion is
the most deeply damaging trauma that can happen to any human.'
Read the following articles:
- Who is at Risk
- Manifestations of Post Abortion Trauma
- Post Abortion Syndrome
- The Effect of Abortion on the Mental Health of Women (external link)
Manifestations of Post Abortion Trauma
Some or many of these symptoms may be displayed by the woman who has had an abortion and is experiencing trauma. Keep in mind, many women do not break denial and begin the healing process until seven to ten years after the abortion. These manifestations may occur much sooner and she may seek help for one of these problems without revealing her abortion.
- Low self-esteem
- Depression
- Guilt
- Grief
- Suicidal ideation (in the USA 1800 to 4000 calling Suicide Anonymous in a 35 month period had prior abortions. Research by Meta Uchtman, Suicide Anonymous in Ohio).
- Broken Relationships
- Anger
- Flashbacks
- Drug/Alcohol abuse
- Sexual dysfunction or promiscuity
- Eating disorder (Anorexia, Bulimia)
- Phobias
- Atonement or replacement baby (many women become pregnant within 1 year of the abortion. Emergency Pregnancy Counsellors report that as many as 50% of their clients have had a previous abortion.)
- Fear for her surviving children
- Inability to express emotions
- Psychic numbing
- Possible physical pain (Psychogenic/Psychosomatic pain such as cramping and cervical pain.)
- Difficult labours
- Premature deliveries
- Repeated miscarriages
- Infertility
- Sleep disturbances (baby dreams, auditory hallucinations of an infant crying, nightmares.)
- Hyper alertness
- Trouble concentrating
- Avoidance of activities that remind her of children/abortion/pregnancy
- Lost relationships
- Self punishment
- Anxiety in subsequent pregnancies
- Creation of phantom child
- Fascination with children and birth which could become an obsession. (She may fixate on a child of a similar age to hers or fixate on a doll or some object that weighs what her aborted child would have weighed.)



