Should A Woman With Bipolar Disorder Have An Abortion?
Abortion, a woman’s choice, is not a hard procedure to obtain. In general, for those who have some money, all that’s required to get an abortion in THE UNITED STATES is setting a scheduled appointment. What many women don’t realize when they’re making this choice – and of particular concern to people that have bipolar disorder – is the potential of intense, negative psychological consequences following abortion.
In the 1970s, in Vancouver, Canada, women considering abortion had to first get the permission of their family doctor, a gynecologist, and a psychiatrist. Some women found that it had been the psychiatrist who nixed the procedure, telling them they just weren’t capable of handling the trauma and that it could impact them for the rest of their lives.
Since that time, things have considered the opposite extreme. Now that abortion is becoming both legal and mainstream, it’s commonly viewed as nothing more than a simple procedure.
A female at the abortion clinic will most likely not find out of the chance of severe negative psychological aftereffects. Most women considering an abortion will never be informed of the documented risk factors of abortion, both physical and psychological. Unfortunately, these hidden risk factors can be a lot more severely damaging to a woman already suffering bipolar disorder.
The possible negative psychological impact of abortion goes on several names: Post Abortion Syndrome , Post Abortion Stress Disorder, Post Abortion Stress Syndrome, Post Abortion Stress, and Post Abortion Trauma. It’s categorized as a kind of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Clinically the recognized diagnosis is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, with abortion because the stressor.
While Labiaplasty Turkey price in post-abortion counseling have reported over 100 negative symptoms, the people most concerning to women with bipolar disorder will be the tendency to engage in self-destructive acts. In a report of 100 women who suffered PAS, findings reported feelings of self-hatred as most common, followed by substance abuse, and then alcohol. Some women reported becoming addicted to drugs or alcohol following abortion. 60 percent of the ladies reported suicidal ideation, and 28 percent attempted suicide – half of which attempted suicide twice or even more.
Usually the first symptom of PAS is denial. If and when this wears off, there might be grief, accompanied by depression, anxiety, irritability, and low frustration tolerance leading to the possibility of explosions of anger and even violence. There could be a lack of emotional connection, withdrawal in relationships, and sexual promiscuity.
Those acquainted with bipolar disorder will recognize these possible aftereffects as potentially serious complications in this illness. The girl with bipolar disorder is already at risk for most, if not all these psychological problems before she has an abortion. Having an abortion may in fact be what pushes her on the edge, and drives her to end her life in suicide.
Those who pressure the girl with bipolar facing an unplanned pregnancy into abortion could be well-meaning, but are uninformed about the danger of what they are attempting to convince her to accomplish. They may think she actually is ruining her life and the life span of the child by going through with the pregnancy, and consider abortion to be a simple and easy solution. Unfortunately, because the studies show, it isn’t quite so simple. Abortion may in fact become the factor that ruins the life of the girl predisposed to mental illness.
Even those who refute the existence of Post Abortion Stress/Trauma will admit that generally the women most negatively influenced by abortion are those who have lower self-esteem in the first place, those who underwent the abortion in circumstances of extreme pressure or abandonment, and those who had a mental illness before abortion.
In other words, even those that argue against the chance for a negative traumatic impact following abortion are saying that women who aren’t stable in the first place may experience this same negative psychological effect. This brings us back again to the abandoned logic of the 70s, when psychiatrists had to OK abortions.