By Olivia Gans

Editor’s note. Yesterday we talked about an op-ed written by pro-abortion Dr. Brenda Major for the Sunday Washington Post. Dr. Major occupies a key position, having chaired an American Psychological Association Task Force that concluded “There is no credible evidence that a single elective abortion of an unwanted pregnancy in and of itself causes mental health problems for adult women.” Dr. Major continued that mantra in her op-ed piece. I asked Olivia Gans, director of American Victims of Abortion, to respond.

Olivia Gans

Since 1982 women from across the United States have been privately and quietly meeting and sharing the stories and sadness that they associate with memories of their own abortions. While the mainstream social structures and medical institutions continued to mouth the party line that abortion does not have any long-term negative effects for women, the mothers themselves have different stories to tell.

Since those early meetings in the 80s we have continued to meet to share our painful and tragic stories.

The medical community continues to bury their heads about the long-term effects of abortion, even though abortion is the most common medical/surgical procedure performed on American women. Abortion remains the most under-reported, unregulated, and under-investigated medical “procedure”!

Fortunately, there is now a groundswell of peer-reviewed studies that demonstrate that approximately 20–30% of women who have abortions will have serious mental health problems.

Pro-abortionists cling to the sad truth is that often when faced with the fear and stress of a troubled pregnancy, women do feel a kind of relief in the first days after the abortion. But what worries those of us that have lived beyond those first illusory feelings of relief is what happens as time goes by.

What those of us that have spent countless hours compassionately listening to our peers know is that abortion does hurt!

Abortion does leave scars that may never go away.

Take away all the jargon that the abortion industry and their apologists use to dissemble the reality and you are still left with the story of a mother making a life and death decision about her child.

Abortion providers don't like it when women that have had abortions try to talk about our pain. According to them we were already troubled before the abortion, so our voices ought not to count.

This is not true, as carefully-controlled studies have demonstrated. My pain is real, and I would ask those who deny that abortion not only kills babies but hurts their mothers to show some true concern

The pain I have heard voiced from thousands of women since I helped form the first post- abortion support group in America in 1982 must not be dismissed as irrelevant to this vital debate.

Women deserve the truth about abortion. Good medicine should want to know!