95% of Women Don't Regret Abortion; Believe It's the Right Choice

A new study by the University of California reveals that 95 percent of women who have gotten abortions believe that "it was the right decision."

The three-year study, commissioned by Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) and published in the journal PLOS ONE, found that women did not regret the decision to terminate their pregnancy.

For the study, researchers from the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at UC San Francisco's School of Medicine enlisted more than 600 women who are having abortions across the US. In the course of the study, the women were asked regularly about their abortions. Although 53 percent of the women struggled to make the choice, the researchers found that 95 percent of the women who participated felt that it was a correct decision.

"Women in this study overwhelmingly felt that the decision was the right one for them: at all time points over three years, 95% of participants reported abortion was the right decision," the authors wrote in the journal.

The study also proved that there were no mental health side effects of getting an abortion. According to Time, the researchers wrote that as time passed, the intensity of emotions that the women felt, whether relief or happiness, after the procedure waned after three years.

This is in contrast to anti-abortionist/pro-life groups' belief that abortion may have negative long-term effects on a woman's mental health.

Washington Post reports that the emotional response was similar in the two groups of women who had early abortions and in those that had the procedure after their first trimester. Additionally, women who experienced regret are in the minority, as revealed by the new study.

The researchers implied that negative feelings after an abortion are normal, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they may regret it.

"Certainly, experiencing feelings of guilt or regret in the short-term after an abortion is not a mental health problem; in fact, such emotions are a normal part of making a life decision that many women in this study found to be difficult," the researchers wrote in the journal.

Yahoo reports that the perceived stigma surrounding abortion in women is more damaging to their mental health than the procedure itself. Other factors that could produce a negative mental impact are getting pressured by one's partner to terminate the pregnancy and having pessimistic views about abortion.