BioMed
Diana Greene Foster’s ten-year study follows women seeking abortions, showing how denial affected their finances, physical health, and existing children.
In this study of women who sought abortions in the United States, those who got one did no worse on health and wellbeing. Those turned away fared worse financially, physically and in family life. Common claims of harm were aimed at the procedure, but the measurable damage came from being refused it.
Women forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term had four times greater odds of living below the federal poverty line. The financial hit lasted for years rather than fading after the birth.
Women denied an abortion were more likely to suffer serious complications at the end of pregnancy, including eclampsia and death. A policy that blocks the procedure in the name of safety moves people onto a riskier path.
Individual cases that reach the news show that a harm can happen, but not how often it happens or how large it is. Only systematic tracking of many people can count the added risk a law creates and show how to reduce it.
Women who had the abortion were no more likely than women who were refused to report depression, anxiety, or thoughts of suicide. This directly tests the claim that ending a pregnancy causes lasting psychological damage, and the claim fails.
Five years on, about 95% of women said the abortion had been the right decision for them. The feared wave of later remorse did not show up when the same people were asked again and again over time.
Women refused an abortion were more likely to stay bound to an abusive partner. A child in common keeps contact and dependence going long after someone would otherwise have left.
Being denied an abortion affected the child who was born and also the children already in the family. Many women sought the abortion because a new baby would take money and attention from the children they already had.