Right-wing media outlets and anti-choice activists continue to argue that abortion harms women, and that clinic regulations protect everyone. But an avalanche of research shows that abortion improves women’s health, prevents maternal deaths, and that women denied abortions are more likely to suffer mental health problems than those who receive abortions.
Two new studies reveal how the fight against legal abortion harms women. One, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that states more stringently regulate abortion clinics under the guise of patient protection. These regulations may actually harm women’s health by decreasing abortion access. A second study, published in Psychology of Women Quarterly, found that the more a woman internalizes stigma about abortion—such as the belief abortion is a sin—the more likely she is to experience mental health issues following an abortion.
How Abortion Stigma Hurts Women
Publishing their data in the Psychology of Women Quarterly, researchers surveyed 155 women with a history of abortion. They presented the women questions about their views on abortion, and their physical and psychological symptoms following an abortion.
The data shows a clear relationship between abortion stigma and psychological distress. Researchers also found that women with high rates of psychological distress were more likely to experience physical health symptoms. These symptoms, the study argues, are a somatoform manifestation of psychological pain.
This suggests that women with negative views about abortion may actually be more likely to suffer physical problems following abortion. While more research is needed, this could mean that widespread abortion stigma increases the likelihood of abortion-related complications, as well as other physical ailments following an abortion.
Anti-abortion views are making women unhappy and sick.
A Pattern of Discrimination at Abortion Clinics
One of the ways that anti-choice activists stigmatize abortion is by treating abortion clinics differently from other outpatient clinics. Research consistently shows that legal abortion is an extraordinarily safe medical procedure. Not only is it significantly safer than childbirth; it may also be safer than minor oral surgery and other everyday medical procedures.
Anti-choice activists counter that abortion clinic regulations are necessary to protect women’s health. Research published in the American Journal of Public Health argues otherwise.
The study compared targeted regulations of abortion providers (TRAP) to regulations of similar providers who offer outpatient procedures under sedation or anesthesia. Researchers looked at 55 TRAP laws in 34 states. They found that legislators were much more likely to pass legislation regulating abortion clinics than other types of clinics. These regulations often regulated clinics that, if they offered a procedure other than abortion, would not be regulated. TRAP laws were also more stringent than laws affecting clinics that do not offer abortion.
Given that abortion’s risk profile is similar to or even lower than that of other outpatient medical procedures, this points to a clear pattern of discrimination against clinics. The purpose of these laws is to make abortion less accessible—a move that research consistently shows can kill women.
55,000 women worldwide die each year from unsafe abortion, often because of strict abortion laws that make safe, legal abortion inaccessible. 25 million unsafe abortions are performed each year. Clinic regulations drive up that figure.
Idaho Works to Increase Stigma and Discrimination
In the wake of this research, Idaho has passed legislation that seems tailor-made to hurt women. The new legislation, which has not yet been signed by the governor, would require abortion clinics to provide the government with much more data about patients and outcomes than similar clinics must offer.
Even more troubling, Idaho abortion clinics would have to collect personal, medically irrelevant data on women seeking abortion: details about their abortion history, number of children, and whether any of the woman’s children have died. Clinics providing care to pregnant women who don’t have abortions are not required to maintain such data. Critics have called the legislation an invasion of privacy designed to shame women.
That’s not an accident. With research clearly showing that abortion stigma harms women and that discriminatory clinic regulations offer nothing of value, Republicans can no longer insist they want to help women. This legislation, and other bills like it, is designed to punish women for seeking abortions. If you can’t stop women from controlling their bodies, you might as well make them suffer for their choices.