Some Psychiatric Aspects of Abortion

The psychiatric elements found in or attributed to women who request and obtain abortions under regular medical auspices are presented as distilled from relevant literature and experience with several hundred unwillingly pregnant females. The confusion of the present situation prevailing in most states and consisting of a conglomerate of medical, legal, and sociocultural traditions and beliefs makes strictly professional judgments impossible. The importance of abortion as a stopgap for contraceptive failure in the broadest sense and hence as a significant family-planning measure with inherent benefits for the emotional health and welfare of all family members has been neglected. Abortion in itself is a safe, simple procedure without clinically significant psychiatric sequellae, but it becomes an emotionally traumatic experience because of the medicolegal obstacles which lead 1,000,000 or more women to seek illegal abortions in contrast to some 10,000 legal abortions performed annually. Psychiatric considerations must extend to the unhealthy consequences of unwanted pregnancy and motherhood and the attendant risks for the emotional development and personality of the unwanted offspring.