Pharmaceutical companies likely would prefer advertisements for their newest wonder drugs to leave out mention of possible side effects, but the public has a right to know and that’s why television commercials expose viewers to long lists of things that can go awry, everything from “may cause pain at the injection site” to “may lead to thoughts of suicide” to “can cause death.”
In that same spirit of informed consent, women should have the right to know what can happen to them after abortion. But in what can only be interpreted as a conspiracy of silence, lawmakers, media, and the abortion industry itself do a terrible job telling women what they might expect.
The most recent example of this head-in-the-sand attitude is the relative silence that accompanied the release of a study from Canada that followed 1.2 million women for an average of nine years before concluding that women who have abortions are more than twice as likely to end up on a psychiatric unit as those who gave birth. Among women with prior mental health issues, the risk of psychiatric hospitalization was nine times greater.
These are significant findings, backed by exhaustive research and it’s something every woman, of every age, should know. Catholic and pro-life news outlets reported on it; the mainstream media ignored it entirely.
Contrast that with the way the Turnaway Study was received. This was a study performed by researchers who make no secret of their abortion advocacy and funded by foundations with the same ideology. The study was so deeply flawed that only half of the women who started it remained through its conclusion, and they were given $50 gift cards for each interview.
It has been covered extensively, beginning with a New York Times story from 2013, is still cited frequently by the media and has even been turned into a play!
What makes one study attractive to the media and the other guaranteed to be ignored?
The Turnaway Study has only good things to say about abortion while the Canadian study dared to suggest that the aftermath for women who choose to end their children’s lives is not always relief and a renewed vigor to go on living.
Choice is not easily made or readily forgotten, despite abortion advocates’ insistence otherwise. I didn’t need a study to tell me that. I have been working in the pro-life movement for more than 30 years, and in 2002 co-founded the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, which gives mothers and fathers a public platform to discuss how much and in how many ways they regret making the choice for abortion.
The Canadian study mentions that substance abuse and suicidal ideation can be found in many women after abortion. The Silent No More website is full of stories of women whose lives were derailed by abortion and who turned to drugs, alcohol or other behaviors to cope. Many of them attempted suicide.
The Canadian study mentions that the risk of psychiatric issues increases for women who had more than one abortion. Again, this is mirrored in the Silent No More stories. We didn’t need Canadian researchers to tell us what those of us in pro-life already know: Abortion hurts women.
What we do need is for that message to be heard loud and clear by every woman who might be contemplating abortion or who has one or more in her past.
Honest reporting on abortion saves lives. Truthful coverage empowers mothers, exposes abuses, corrects myths and ensures debates are based on facts, not propaganda or political pressure.
We need our lawmakers, the media and the abortion industry to tell the whole truth about abortion.
Janet Morana is the executive director of Priests for Life and the co-founder of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign. She is the author of Recall Abortion; Shockwaves: Abortion’s Wider Circle of Victims and Everything You Need to Know About Abortion – For Teens.
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