SAN FRANCISCO — The University of California-San Francisco and Columbia University recently surveyed over 600 abortive mothers nationwide to learn about their emotional and mental state in the years that followed, and concluded that the majority of women had no regret for killing their unborn child, but some even felt “positive” emotions or no emotion at all as time lapsed.
The topic has been one discussed in recent years as some pro-life organizations characterize mothers who obtain abortions as “victims” and others say that most women know very well what they are doing and exemplify the wickedness of the human heart.
While the report is meant to remove the stated “stigma” surrounding abortion, it reiterates a common theme from many abortion “rights” advocates: that they are “not sorry” for ending their child’s life and some even rather happily “shout their abortion.”
“We found no evidence of emerging negative emotions or abortion decision regret; both positive and negative emotions declined over the first two years and plateaued thereafter, and decision rightness remained high and steady (predicted percent: 97.5% at baseline, 99.0% at five years),” an abstract in the report states.
“At five years post-abortion, relief remained the most commonly felt emotion among all women (predicted mean on 0-4 scale: 1.0; 0.6 for sadness and guilt; 0.4 for regret, anger and happiness).”
The study says that it asked the mothers the degree of emotion they felt in six areas: relief, happiness, regret, guilt, sadness and anger.
“At baseline, a week after the abortion, over half of the full sample expressed feeling mostly positive emotions (predicted percent = 51%), with 20% feeling none/few emotions, 17% feeling mostly negative emotions and 12% feeling both negative and positive emotions.”
“Over time, the percentage of women expressing feeling none/few negative or positive emotions increased sharply to 45% at one year, and 63% at three years, plateauing thereafter,” it continues. “By five years post-abortion, the large majority of women (84%) had either primarily positive emotions or no emotions whatsoever about their abortion decision, and 6% expressed primarily negative emotions.”
Women who said that it was a difficult decision to abort were more likely to feel sadness at first, but the feeling decreased over time, the report claims.
“The overwhelming majority of women felt that the abortion was the right decision for them at all times,” the report states.
The study also points to a 2015 report which similarly “found no evidence that significant numbers of women regret their abortion decisions” as 95 percent surveyed said that “abortion was the right decision” three years after ending their unborn child’s life.
“I perform abortions, and most people who come in asking for it know that it’s what they want,” Tristan Bickman, an OB-GYN in Santa Monica, California, told Healthline in an article on the study. “Of course, there are always exceptions, but most people feel that they can’t get it done soon enough and they’re all relieved [when it’s over].”
As previously reported, in 2018, Amelia Bonow, the founder of the “Shout Your Abortion” movement, released a book featuring stories from women who were “not sorry” for their abortion.
“One in four of us have had lives that were determined in monumental ways by our abortions, and the vast majority of us do not regret our decisions,” it states.
Bonow also wrote an article in 2015, published by Salon, entitled “My Abortion Made Me Happy: The Story That Started the #shoutyourabortion Movement.” The piece, which used profanity and crude language, expressed no remorse for the ending of her unborn child’s life after finding herself pregnant out of wedlock, but rather only bold-faced pride.
“I’m telling you my story plainly, proudly, flippantly even, because we have all been brainwashed to believe that the absence of negative emotions around having an abortion is the mark of an emotionally bankrupt person. It’s not,” she wrote. “I have a good heart and my abortion made me happy.”
In 2017, actress Martha Plimpton appeared at a “Shout Your Abortion” event in Seattle, telling the audience — when then broke into cheers and applause — that the city has “particular significance” for her as “I … had my first abortion at the Seattle Planned Parenthood. Yay!”
“Notice I said ‘first.’… I don’t want you guys to feel insecure; it was my best one,” she said, evoking laughter. “Heads and tails above the rest. If I could Yelp review it, I totally would. And if that doctor’s here tonight, I don’t remember you at all; I was 19. I was 19, but I thank you nonetheless.”
Last month, comedienne Michelle Wolf again refused to show remorse for her abortion, but stated during a Netflix comedy special that ending her unborn child’s life made her feel “powerful,” and “like God.”
“You know how my abortion made me feel? Very powerful,” she said. “You know how people say you can’t play God?”
“I walked out of there being like, ‘Move over Morgan Freeman, I am God!’” as a reference to the film “Bruce Almighty.”
Recently, actress Michelle Williams also implied that she may have had an abortion, declaring in her Golden Globe acceptance speech, “I wouldn’t have been able to do this without employing a woman’s right to choose. To choose when to have my children and with whom …”
The site “Not a Victim,” run by a Christian woman who regularly counsels mothers against abortion, provides numerous quotes from women who explicitly have stated that they know what they are doing in scheduling an abortion and just don’t care. The site opines that “calling [abortive] women victims not only murders babies, it aborts justice.”
“The Bible says that ‘murder stems from the heart’ (Matt. 15:19). Abortion is always a heart problem. The root sin issues behind nearly all abortions are sexual immorality, cowardice (Rev. 21:8), murder, idolatry, pride, vanity, and/or self-centeredness,” it states. “Many actively aborting mothers crack jokes about their babies and abortions. They design their abortion cakes or tattoos, shout their abortion stories with pride, and use the rhetoric taught by pro-abort celebrities like Michelle Wolf.”
“A subset of mothers do indeed exhibit a tremendous sadness and even loneliness in their wicked decision to kill their child,” the site notes. “However, for a larger number of aborting mothers, the spirit is not so much sadness and loneliness, as it is ‘I am woman; hear me roar!’ … They are haughty, vile, and proud of their sin as they boldly flaunt their decision to slaughter.”
Christian News Network has shared stories from both sides of the spectrum, from those who expressed regret (see here and here) and those such as the aforementioned and others who remained staunch in their sin (also see here and here).
Jeremiah 8:12 reads, “Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? Nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush.”
Jeremiah 17:9 also declares, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?”
1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 teaches, “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication, that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor, not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God.”
“For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us His Holy Spirit.”