Post Abortion Grief

Symptoms of Post Abortion Stress Trauma

If you've experienced an abortion, your life may have changed in the following ways. We can help.

• abusive behavior
• alcohol and / or drug use
• avoids baby reminders (like baby showers, baby stores, etc.)
• changes in relationship / marriage (70% of relationships/marriages break up within 1 year of an abortion, 90% within 5 years)
• control issues
• crying spells
• difficulty in all types of intimacy
• divides time into "before" and "after" the abortion
• eating disorders
• fails to bond with subsequent children
• loss of interest in sex
• loss of normal sources of pleasure
• marital stress
• need of financial success
• over-protective of living children
• promiscuity or frigidity
• reduced motivation
• secretive
• self-punishing and / or self-degrading behavior
• sleep disturbances
• strained relationship with living children
• suicidal impulses
• tolerates abusive relationships
• wants atonement / replacement child
• withdrawn

For Men

     The guilt and burden of a man who's pressured a woman into abortion, is unbearable at times. They feel guilty for their sexual irresponsibility and feel unforgivable for pushing the woman to take the life of their child (Jackson). Even if abortion was in a previous relationship, it can be divisive to later marriage/s.

     Other men, siblings, grandparents, friends, etc.; are left to handle the "aftermath" of an abortion when they would have rather the mother chosen "life." Maybe they tried to talk the mother out of the abortion, or found out afterward that she had made the choice without their knowledge. These people are touched by the abortion experience as well. They deserve to grieve the loss of that child, as much as the woman who laid on the table