How Does Abortion Restrictions Affect Womens Mental Health?

It is estimated worldwide that 48 percent of all pregnancies are unintended (Oluseye, Waterhouse, & Hoggart, 2021). A majority of unintended pregnancies are also unwanted. Unwanted pregnancies have a significant impact on womens mental health and wellbeing. The need for abortion services increases since most women get pregnant without planning and are not ready to raise a baby. In countries that restrict abortion, there has been a 50% increase in the procurement of abortion services for unintended pregnancies (Herd, Higgins, Sicinski, & Merkurieva, 2016). When women are forced to carry a pregnancy to term, adverse socioeconomic outcomes increase the risk of mental health problems. Many of the women will more likely reject maternalism since they feel forced to raise a child they never wanted and were never prepared to raise in the first place. Denying women abortion creates anxiety when pregnant since they are uncertain of what the future holds for them and the baby. Increased stress on the mother leads to worry and uncertainty, resulting in the mothers mental health deterioration. The current literature review seeks to determine if being denied abortion negatively affects a pregnant womans mental health and how states with restrictive abortion laws affect the mental health of women who are uncertain about becoming mothers.

Having a higher chance of being denied an abortion will negatively affect a pregnant womans mental health

According to Oluseye et al. (2021) when a woman is denied an abortion, the chances of her mental health deteriorating increase because she was not prepared to have the child and does not know what she will do next. By the time a woman seeks abortion services, they have made up their mind and analyzed their current situation to determine they are not ready to raise the child (Rocca, Moseson, Gould, Foster, & Kimport, 2021). Therefore, when they are denied the services, their whole world crashes, and they are forced to plan how they will raise the child. The pregnancy becomes a burden to the mother, and she might fail to care for herself and the growing child inside of her (Qiu, Zhang, Sun, Li, & Wang, 2020). Anxiety, stress, and depression increase, and the woman develops mental health problems since she has to carry the pregnancy to term....

…forced to bear children when they are not ready, and the consequences are dire. The women do not have the finances to raise the child, leading them to worry more about how they will provide for the child, and some even wonder why they are forced to bring a child to this world when they are not prepared (Herd et al., 2016). The states do not offer the woman any assistance when raising the child, increasing her depression since she cannot support the child.

Interestingly, Foster, Steinberg, Roberts, Neuhaus, and Biggs (2015) discovered that women denied an abortion had similar depression symptoms as women who received an abortion. However, anxiety symptoms were higher for women denied an abortion than those who had an abortion. The study results have been challenged because the researchers compared women who had late abortions with those denied abortions (Qiu et al., 2020). This demonstrates how the mental health of women is negatively impacted by being denied an abortion. Womens mental health is affected since any unwanted pregnancy means the woman will have to delay her entry into the labor market (Herd et al., 2016). Without financial security,…