Are Women Damaged by Abortion?

Not according to the Guttmacher Institute website, in its article "Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States," here.

But if you go to AbortionFacts.com and click on "Effects of Abortion" on the left, you find a long list of articles detailing abortion's negative effects on women. For example, the Guttmacher article states that fewer than 0.3% of women having abortions experience a complication requiring hospitalization. But "The Aftereffects of Abortion" by David Reardon of the Elliot Institute on AbortionFacts.com indicates that the rate is 10%.

It makes me wonder if apples and oranges are being compared. Are the abortions compared all safe and legal? Were abortions at different stages of pregnancy compared?

I did notice that a couple of the sources dated from the early 1970s, before the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, meaning that the articles were about women who had illegal abortions. That would definitely affect the safety rate and the psychological consequences for the woman. Also, the article uses the phrase "aborted women," which I find offensive, as if somehow they had the procedure done to them instead of choosing it for themselves. As if all that mattered about them afterward was that they'd had an abortion.

This subject is tremendously frustrating for me. I'm inclined to think AbortionFacts.com is full of shit, but I ought to take the time to actually check out the sources on at least one article and see if the author is cherry-picking.

If you'd like to read some stories by women who don't regret their abortions, try this site.