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- Title
Postabortion Syndrome: An Emerging Public Health Concern.
- Authors
Speckhard, Anne C.; Rue, Vincent M.
- Abstract
The article reviews the pertinent literature on postabortion syndrome (PAS), and defines and describes PAS as a type of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Elective abortion, the most common surgical procedure in the U.S., continues to generate considerable moral, legal, medical and psychological controversy. In the U.S., prior to the liberalization and legalization of abortion, permission for an abortion sometimes required psychiatric determination of individual psychopathology. When abortion became decriminalized and liberalized in the U.S. in 1973, psychiatric indications for abortion were eliminated. Today the abortion decision is private and requires no evidence of psychological impairment. In fact, psychiatric illness may be a contraindication. Like the decision to abort, the scientific study of the stress effects of abortion does not occur in a vacuum. The politicization of abortion has significantly restricted scientific investigation of the effects of abortion, and has produced a profound interpersonal and inter-professional schism in American society, including media reporting biases and public misinformation. There is a reluctance to call attention to negative consequences of abortion for fear of providing support to anti-abortion groups. Minimizing acknowledgment and discussion of postabortion trauma may result in women feeling abandoned by their counselors and isolated from other women experiencing similar difficulties.
- Subjects
UNITED States; POST-traumatic stress disorder; ABORTION complications; BIRTH control; ABORTION counseling; CLINICAL sociology; WOMEN'S health
- Publication
Journal of Social Issues, 1992, Vol 48, Issue 3, p95
- ISSN
0022-4537
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1540-4560.1992.tb00899.x