Study from Norway finds difficulties two years later

Abortion's Lingering Psychological After-Effects Documented

By Randall K. O'Bannon, Ph.D.

A Norwegian study that compared the psychological reactions of women who had miscarriages to women who'd had abortions found that the women having abortions had significantly more avoidance issues two years after the event than women having miscarriages.

The study, "Psychological Impact on Women of Miscarriage Versus Induced Abortion: A 2-Year Follow-Up Study," authored by a team of researchers from the University of Oslo, appeared in the March/April 2004 issue of Psychosomatic Medicine.

The study followed 120 women between the ages of 18 and 45 treated at a local Norwegian hospital between April 1988 and February 1999.

Eighty of the women had undergone abortions, while 40 experienced miscarriages. Women were interviewed at 10 days, six months, and two years after the event and were asked a series of questions to determine the nature and intensity of feelings they experienced as a result of their losses.

At each interview, researchers employed an "Impact of Event Scale" (IES), a widely used measure of stress reactions that follow traumatic events. The IES looks both at "intrusion" events - - flashbacks, bad dreams, and strong feelings related to the traumatic event - - and evidence of "avoidance" - - avoiding thoughts and feelings related to the event. For each question, researchers assigned responses a numerical value, with higher scores indicating more serious stressors.

When they began their study, the authors appeared to have assumed, as do many abortion researchers, that those women having miscarriages would experience the most difficulty, in that the loss of their child was generally undesired and unexpected. "Seemingly," the researchers write, "the event generates a problem for women who experience a miscarriage, whereas it solves a problem for women who sought an abortion."

Short-term, the data appeared to bear out this assumption. In the first interview, 10 days after the abortion or miscarriage, those having miscarried reported significantly more "intrusion" events, such as flashbacks, bad dreams, and strong feelings related to the event. With respect to avoidance scores, 10 days later aborting women had higher "avoidance" scores, but not large enough to be statistically significant.

At six months, interviews showed that while women who miscarried still had higher intrusion scores than did women who had aborted, the difference was no longer statistically significant. Avoidance scores remained higher for women who aborted than for those having miscarriages and were now "statistically significant" (as opposed to a chance occurrence).

However, when interviewed two years after the event, women who aborted displayed significantly higher total scores than did their miscarriage counterparts. Their avoidance scores, for example, were nearly three times higher than those who miscarried.

The outcomes are even more dramatic when the data is re-examined in terms of percentages. At 10 days, 47.5% of women who miscarried reported high intrusion and/or avoidance scores. At six months, 22.5% did so, less than half what it was at 10 days. Two years after the event, just 2.6% were reporting high intrusion or avoidance scores.

Other data indicated many of those who miscarried still felt a sense of loss, grief, or emptiness, but these did not appear to result in significant trauma scores.

On the other hand, a high percentage of those having abortions were still reporting high avoidance and intrusion scores two years after their abortions. While scores did decline over time, 18.1% of aborting women (nearly one in five) were still recorded as having high avoidance and/or intrusion two years out.

While most of these were due to a significant percentage of aborting women with high avoidance scores (16.7%), at least 1.4% were still reporting significant intrusion events (the flashbacks, bad dreams, etc.). None of the women who miscarried were reporting intrusion events at two years.

Cross-referencing with demographic data obtained from study subjects, researchers uncovered findings that challenge at least one of the claims made by those who seek to dismiss evidence that there are negative post-abortion psychological reactions. Against the suggestion that prior mental health issues, rather than abortion, may be the critical factor behind post abortion trauma, the researchers state, "In our study, mental health before the event surprisingly had no significant independent influence on the IES scores."

In the end, the authors conclude, "The avoidance may represent shame over the abortion procedure and over being in the situation of having an unwanted pregnancy. It may also indicate a greater long-term emotional disturbance that what has been described in the literature so far."

Those who have worked with post-aborted women tell us that sometimes it may take a woman five to ten years to face and emotionally react to her abortion. This report from Norway gives solid scientific evidence that documents the reality of post-abortion syndrome.