Abortions are a complex and hindering issue for women in terms of psychological experiences. The reasons for this lie in the stigmatization of the termination of pregnancy, which affects women when making a decision on an abortion, going through the process, and living after it. Their psychological well-being might be negatively affected by the beliefs of women making an abortion being inferior to an ideal of a woman according to society’s perceptions. Another issue regards the unavailability of abortions and the consequences of women being denied in abortions, and the necessity of choice for women to terminate or not terminate a pregnancy.
Stigma is a dynamic process that is continually challenged, not a set of unchanging ideas, attitudes, or traits. Even within certain geographic places, abortion stigmatizes individuals differently, and stigmatizing discourses, and subject positions coexist with normalizing and non-stigmatizing ones. Stigma has infiltrated the popular understanding of abortion, which can offer consistency and weight to the norms that produce stigma, as well as inspire researchers to hunt for stigma even when there isn’t any. Goffman’s stigma-as-attribute framework has led to a concentration on identifying the consequences of individual-level phenomena, including attitudes, judgments, and emotional reactions to abortion; such studies approach the effects of stigma as if they were stigma itself. Stigmatizing judgments are clearly passed onto persons in the stigma-as-attribute framework, resulting in possession of adversely valued identities. Abortion, on the other hand, is made understandable through a variety of discourses and subject positions. Individuals might be subjected to stigmatizing discourses while simultaneously developing positive identities (Beynon-Jones, 2017). Abortion stigma seems to be a socio-cultural phenomenon linked to the concepts of difference that establish and legitimize power relations.
Stigma is one of several mechanisms by which abortion is rendered invisible, dependent, and disputed. This concept of abortion stigma is purposefully wide in order to account for cultural differences and numerous objects. When making a decision on whether to make an abortion or not, many women are concerned about the social consequences of their actions. They might be worried that they will be judged because of their beliefs based on the society’s many beliefs regarding gender standards. There are various researches proving the negative effects of the stigmatization on women’s mental health.
Women who are denied in abortion are another group of risk for the negative changes in their mental health. It is proven that women who were denied in an abortion eventually develop higher levels of anxiety (Biggs et al., 2017). Experiences occurring in women who make a decision to make an abortion might hinder them for a long time because of them feeling sadness, grief, and loss after terminating their pregnancy, and some even develop symptoms of depression and anxiety. Yet, these cases are rare, which proves the point of abortions being legally available to women is safe in terms of their mental health after the termination of pregnancy (Reardon, 2018). Besides, it is important to note that most women who developed mental disorders after abortions were prone to such illnesses because of the history of their illness occurring previously in life or genetic predisposition.
Reproductive freedom is an important aspect of society in general. Yet, women confronting inequality in medical services when they can’t afford an abortion or it is prohibited in their place of living is still a common occurrence in modern society (Adair & Lozano, 2022). The lack of choice is another hindering factor that might affect the psychological well-being of women as well. Women are also experiencing social problems after abortions. These include employment, discrimination in medical care, and financial issues (Marecek, MacLeod & Hoggart, 2017). Some reported problems in their relationships with the family of origin as well.
Speaking of stigmatization, it is necessary to address the possibilities to cope with the stigma. Women’s ability to overcome it is related to many factors, such as social context and a person’s own beliefs (Marecek, MacLeod & Hoggart, 2017). It was found that helping women to overcome the stigma was more difficult when they had negative prejudice toward abortions themselves. The other way of coping with the stigma is justifying the choice with the conditions that a woman has to go through during pregnancy and after it. The approach of working with a stigma seems the most appropriate in terms of psychological assistance. The reason for that is the dynamic nature of a stigma and the possibility of changing it towards contents that are more suitable for an individual’s psychological well-being.
References
Adair, L., & Lozano, N. (2022). Adaptive choice: Psychological perspectives on abortion and reproductive freedom. Women’s Reproductive Health, 9(1), 1-26.
Beynon-Jones, S. M. (2017). Untroubling abortion: A discourse analysis of women’s accounts. Feminism & Psychology, 27(2), 225-242.
Biggs MA, Upadhyay UD, McCulloch CE, Foster DG. (2017). Women’s mental health and well-being 5 years after receiving or being denied an abortion. A prospective, longitudinal cohort study. JAMA Psychiatry. 74(2):169–178.
Marecek, J., Macleod, C., & Hoggart, L. (2017). Abortion embedded and embodied in social relations: challenges for feminist psychology. Feminism & Psychology, 27(2), 133-143.
Reardon D. C. (2018). The abortion and mental health controversy: A comprehensive literature review of common ground agreements, disagreements, actionable recommendations, and research opportunities. SAGE open medicine, 6, 2050312118807624. Web.