For years, women have been receiving abortions. Whether it is because of incest, rape, or financial problems, women tend to go through this procedure. Many times when a woman gets an abortion, it seems to be the right choice because the pregnancy may be a risk to their health or the child may have deformities. However, some women don’t understand how much harm an abortion can do to them. All forms of abortion are a risk to the woman’s health and can even be fatal. These risk can be either short- term or long-term, depending on the type of person, and can affect them both mentally and physically.
An abortion is the termination of an unborn fetus or embryo. There are many different techniques of abortion. One technique called RU 486 (also known as the medication abortion or the abortion pill) is a nonsurgical abortion. When the pill is taken by the pregnant woman, who is no more than seven weeks pregnant, the woman will extract the embryo from her body. Many have died from this method and the FDA revises their warnings to all women that it can cause “serious side effects”, (Marcovitz, 92). Some of the most popular methods are D&X, D&C, and D&E, vacuum aspiration, and prostaglandin.
Many women who receive these types of abortions might deal with complications such as an incomplete abortion (meaning the woman still have some parts of the fetus left inside of her), infection, bleeding, damage to the uterus, complications from anesthesia, and death, (Costa, 174). The D&X, D&C, and D&E procedures all require surgery. The D&C, dilation and curettage, is used for uterine conditions in non-pregnant women. However, as an abortion method it dismembers the baby. This can cause hemorrhage and sepsis for the woman, (Abortion). The D&E, dilation and evacuation, technique is performed on women that are 13 to 20 weeks pregnant.
The D&E and D&X, dilation and extraction, procedure are quite similar to each other and both are late pregnancy abortions. However, D&X is the removal of the fetus intact and is rarely done by doctors. It is said in a study in 2000 that only, “31 doctors, hospitals, and clinics…practiced the procedure,” (Marcovitz, 84). Sometimes after the D&X procedure, the baby is still alive but is often left to die. Vacuum aspiration is known as a suction abortion and, also, dismembers the fetus. Unlike the D&X, D&C, and D&E, the vacuum aspiration is most commonly used on women for non-medical reasons, (Abortion).
With the vacuum aspiration women say that the pain feels like strong menstrual cramps and some say that the pain is a lot worse than just cramps. Because of that complaint, numbing medications are used and the doctors use relaxing medication while the patient is awake. Prostaglandin is an alternative late abortion drug. The prostaglandin method causes strong contractions in the womb expelling the fetus, which most likely kills the fetus in the process. However, sometimes the fetus is born alive. In later abortions of the prostaglandin, the doctors inject a poison urea into the womb to ensure that the fetus doesn’t survive, (Abortion).
There are many techniques to getting an abortion. By choice any woman can have one, but that doesn’t mean that the government can’t deny them the right to. Laws and Policies in the United States include that all abortions are to, “be performed by a licensed physician in a medical setting,”, abortions are only to be done in the second trimester (12 through 24 weeks) to protect maternal health, and the state can limit abortions to women when the fetus is capable of living independent without artificial life support if only their continued pregnancy is life-threatening, (Costa, 103).
The United States believes that women should only get abortions if their situation is life-threatening and makes an exception for women to get them in their first trimester of pregnancy. When a woman goes to the clinic to get an abortion she is informed of the different types of abortion methods and is told the side effects and consequences of undergoing the procedure. The government knows what can happen to a woman who gets an abortion and has strict laws that every woman knows them too. Additional regulations that some of the U.
S. states require on abortion is to, “require counseling and/or a cooling-off period before an abortion is performed, require an underage woman to notify, or obtain permission, from a parent, guardian or court, end government financial support for women in poverty who seek abortions, ban abortions after viability of the fetus unless required to preserve the woman’s life or health, ban all abortions, and/or ban a D&X abortion procedure, except when performed on a dead fetus or to save the life of the woman,” (Robinson).
Today it is still an ongoing debate about whether abortions should be allowed in America or if it should be banned. | | | | | | | | | | | | Even though any woman can get an abortion, there are still dangerous and fatal side effects for the woman who receives them. Right after the abortion, a woman can bleed to death (hemorrhage) or can get an infection through the tissues being scarred during the procedure. Abortions can even cause death. A study was done to show the number of deaths from legal and illegal abortions between the years of 1972-2002.
However, in the table, it shows that in the year of 1972 abortions was more risky than it is now, (McBride, 207). With an abortion, there are also several other physical “complications” that occur. Things like the woman having blocked fallopian tubes a weakened cervix, and there can also be a lot of uterine scarring. A doctor that was interviewed stated that, “There are only two kinds of doctors who have never perforated a uterus. Those that lie and those who don’t do abortions,” (Marcovitz, 85).
When women have abortions, the women’s reproductive system gets messed up and destroyed, that in the future, there can be a possibility of the woman not having the ability to ever have children. Women also have a higher possibility of having “tubal” babies, which is when the egg fertilizes in the fallopian tube, rather than in the uterus. This method of being pregnant is bad because if the fallopian tube, it won’t go into the uterus and then the fetus can grow in the tubes and as a result, don’t have any other choice but to get rid of it. There are also several other things that an happen which include a hysterectomy. A hysterectomy is the removal of the women’s uterus, still birth, and premature births. Each year more than 600,000 hysterectomies are done and one out of three women has had a hysterectomy by the age of 60, (Hysterectomy). In addition to these, women have a greater chance at getting breast, uterine, and cervical cancer. Not only are there physical problems, there are emotional problems that come from the result of having an abortion. Having an abortion can even cause emotional problems with you, your partner, or your family.
It can also cause the woman to become distanced from her spouse and family. After an abortion many women tend to show signs of guilt and shame for what they did because it is wrong to have an abortion. A common emotional effect that comes after having an abortion is called post-abortion syndrome. Post-abortion syndrome is when the woman starts to experience grief, depression, anger, guilt, and discomfort with small children and pregnant women. It is also said that the woman may have, “alleged behavioral manifestations [which] include frequent crying, flashbacks, sexual inhibition, and alcohol abuse,” (Knowles).
Some women claim that they weren’t thinking at the time of the abortion. Many claim that when they were going through the process of having an abortion, they thought it was the best thing to do at the time. But then when they start bleeding buckets and start getting infections, they realize that getting an abortion was way more risky than they thought it was. In an essay called “Personal Belongings” a woman named Kimi Hemingway states that even though she knew that not having a child was her choice, she still felt deep remorse, (Bender, 93).
When women feel guilt, then they also begin to feel anger and like to express it towards their friends and families, which involve them into the woman’s personal situation. Usually after the woman gets an abortion, her partner and she will most likely end their intimate relationship. The reasons why they do so are because the man can be so full of shock or because they both may have the feelings of loneliness. The most dangerous symptom of an abortion would be suicide. Nowadays, most women are fully informed of the psychological and physical effects of abortion.
Abortion is completely up to the woman to decide and in some cases women have no other choice but to have an abortion. Many people also think that it is ok to have an abortion if they are a victim of being raped. The woman that is the victim that went through a lot and may believe that the best choice is to get rid of her unborn child. Another reason why the woman may believe that it is ok to have an abortion would be because she may not be able to afford having another child in her household. A lot of times or the biggest reason would be because the parent(s) aren’t ready to bring a child into their lives.
When relationships break up because of an abortion, a single person doesn’t want to be the only person responsible. They don’t have the ability to take care of a child on there own or maybe, just maybe a couple has too many children and don’t have the ability to take care of another child. According to the National Right to Life, statistics show that about 25% of women are not ready, 23% can’t afford it, 19% already have too many children, 8% have a relationship problem or are single, 7% feel they are not mature enough, 4% say it’s an interference in their careers or education, less than 1% have someone stopping them, and then less than 6. % have other reasons. The other 7% do it for health reasons, (Why do Women). A lot of times abortions occur due to the fact that “children” are the ones getting pregnant. A really reasonable reason would be that people (especially teens) don’t want anyone to know that they had sex and got pregnant. There can also be health problem that lead to people going through abortions. Sometimes women have problems in their wombs, which also causes there to be problems or it can be a defect that the fetus has. National statistics often do have an effect on women and abortions.
However, the statistics aren’t the only thing stopping or pushing women to have abortions. In the U. S. there has been a debate about whether women should have the right to even have abortions. People that are for abortion are pro-choice and the opposing side is called pro-life. Both sides make good statements about how they feel and often this can effect what a woman will do to her baby. In a way it affects the pregnant woman mentally. Violence that has been contributed to abortion has been affecting women for years. Protesters block abortion clinics because they try to stop women from killing their babies.
They claim that they are saving society. According to a poll taken in 2000 by the Gallup Organization, 83% of people in the U. S. believe that the protesters attitudes at the abortion clinics are reasonable, 14% believe it is unreasonable, and 3% are unsure, (Marcovitz, 73). When some women get pregnant they are split between the decision of whether to keep their baby full term or to get an abortion. Many people that are pro-life often try to intimidate the women into not getting an abortion. And sometimes they go as far as threatening the doctors who perform the procedure.
These types of actions affect what women should do with their pregnancy. Women who are pregnant usually let others decide for them, for whether they get an abortion or not. People like their mom, dad or spouse can have a huge effect on their child’s outcome. Conversely, some women believe that others cannot intimidate them into making their decision and they also feel that their pregnancy only concerns them and their unborn child. These women believe that there are no major mental effects of abortions. They claim that the reasons why they get abortions does not make them regret it.
Even though some women get abortions for financial and personal reasons, some women believe that they will get over it. Some women claim that getting an abortion was the best thing that happened for them. In an essay, a woman states, “I will never be sorry that I don’t have children,” (Bender, 74). Many women state that getting an abortion was the right decision. They know that there are bad side effects from getting an abortion, but that is the risk they are willing to take whether it is to save their life or to keep their unborn child safe from the embarrassment or struggles of their defects.
Some women claim that getting an abortion helped them from getting into deeper financial turmoil. They say that getting an abortion will save their child from having to deal with the struggle of not living in a stable household. Intimidation will not work on a woman who has already set her mind on what she wants to do. Many women believe this statement and when it comes to abortion, they also believe that if they do choose to have one, it will be their own choice. It is true that if a woman lets another person make up her mind for her and goes through with the procedure the abortion will affect her in a bad way.
That’s why women pronounce that if women do get an abortion, she should do it on her own will and for a reasonable reason. A woman that is not entirely sure why she is getting an abortion should not go through with the process because she, more than likely, will regret it later on. Other than that if the women is getting an abortion for a logical reason, then she will not have any problems later on in life and will not have any psychological issues. Abortions affect women negatively in a mental and physical way.
Many times after a woman gets an abortion she will continually bleed heavily for days and or, sometimes, months. In other cases women obtain infections, either mild or fatal, and may have to undergo a surgical operation to clean out her uterus from fetal parts. These types of situations happen a lot to women who get abortions. Some know that getting an abortion is very serious and risky, while others who get them are not fully aware of the many different side effects. Other conditions that can occur are breast and/or cervical cancer and infertility.
The worst effect that can come of abortion is death, which is increased if a woman was to get an abortion illegally. To prevent people from getting illegal abortions the government is regulating abortion laws and policies instead of banning it. Mental side effects can cause a woman to commit suicide and to go into a long or short term depression. This can affect the way she acts towards others and change her outlook of conception. On the other hand, some women are not badly affected from abortions. Some women who get abortions claim that their reasons are justified.
But, still, there are many women that are dying from abortions and are getting serious diseases. No matter what they do, they will live with regret and may even be physically scarred forever. . Works Cited “Abortion Methods” Planned Parenthood. 11 Dec 2008. . Bender, Karen E, and Nina de Gramont. Choice: true stories of birth, contraception, infertility, adoption, single parenthood, & abortion. San Francisco: Macadam Cage, 2007. Costa, Marie. Abortion. Santa Barbara, Cali: ABC-Clio, Inc, 1996. “Hysterectomy” The Federal Government Source for Women’s Health Information. 2 Dec 2008 1 April 2008>. Knowles, Jon. “The Emotional Effects of Induced Abortion”. Planned Parenthood. Dec 5 2008 . Marcovitz, Hal. Abortion. Boomall, PA: Mason Crest Publishers, 2007. McBride, Dorothy E. Abortion in the United States: a reference handbook. Santa Barbara, Calif. : ABC-CLIO, 2008. Robinson, B. A. “Abortion access: Major U. S. laws concerning abortion”. Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. 12 Dec 2008 . “Why Do Women Have Abortions? ” National Right to Life. 12 Dec 2008 .