What are the health risks to having an abortion?

Pain: Despite the use of local anesthesia, a full 97% of women having abortions reported experiencing pain during the procedure, which more than a third described as intense, severe or very severe. Compared to other pains, researchers have rated the pain from abortion as more painful than a bone fracture, about the same as cancer pain, though not as painful as an amputation. [1-4]

Studies also reveal that younger women tend to find abortion more painful than do older adults, and that patients typically found abortion more painful than their doctors or counselors expected. The use of more powerful general anesthetics can reduce the pain, but significantly increases the risk of cervical injury or uterine perforation. [5-7]

Common Complications: bleeding, hemorrhage, laceration of the cervix, menstrual disturbance, inflammation of the reproductive organs, bladder or bowel perforation and serious infection. [8-13]

Long Term Physical Complications: from abortion may surface later. For example, overzealous currettage can damage the lining of the uterus and lead to permanent infertility. Overall, women who have abortions face an increased risk of ectopic (tubal) pregnancy and a more than doubled risk of future sterility. Perhaps most important of all, the risk of these sorts of complications, along with risks of future miscarriage, increase with each subsequent abortion. [14-16]

Medical experts are still researching and debating the linkage between abortion and breast cancer. Here are some important facts:

• Carrying your first pregnancy to full term gives protection against breast cancer. Choosing abortion causes loss of that protection.
• A number of reliable studies have concluded that there may be a link between abortion and the later development of breast cancer. [17-18]

Death: Of course, death of the mother is the most serious of all complications. The risk of death increases according to the duration of pregnancy and the complexity of the abortion technique employed. [19-20]

1. Phillip G. Stubblefield, M.D., et al, "Pain of first-trimester abortion: Its quantification and relations with other variables," American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Vol. 133, No. 5 (March 1, 1979), p. 489.

2. Nancy Wells, D.N.Sc., R.N., "Pain and Distress During Abortion," Health Care for Women International, Vol 12 (1991), pp. 296-297. Actually, all 35 women participating in Wells’ study (100%) reported some degree of pain during the abortion, which 34.4% described as "intense."

3. Stubblefield, et al, cited in note 80, p. 493.

4. Eliane Bélanger, Ronald Melzak, and Pierre Lauzon, "Pain of first-trimester abortion: a study of psychosocial and medical predictors," Pain, Vol. 36 (1989), pp. 343, 345.

5 . Belanger, et al, cited above, p. 345, and Stubblefield, et al, cited in note 80, p. 495.

6 . See Tables VII, VIII, IX, X, and XIII, in Stubblefield, et al, cited in note 80, pp. 493-496.

7 . Kenneth F. Schulz, David A. Grimes, Willard Cates, Jr., "Measures to Prevent Cervical Injury During Suction Curettage Abortion," The Lancet, May 28,1983, p. 1184. See also Steven G. Kaali, M.D., et al, "The frequency and management of uterine perforations duing first-trimester abortions," American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, August 1989, p. 408.

8 . Schulz, et al, cited in note 87, p. 1182.

9.  Stubblefield, cited in note 9, pp. 1023-1024, and S. Kaali, cited in note 87 pp. 406-408.

10.  Stubblefied, cited in note 9, p. 1023

11.  L.H. Roht, et al, "Increased Reporting of Menstrual Symptoms Among Women Who Used Induced Abortion," American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Vol. 127 (1977), p. 356.

12. Ibid.

13 . David N. Danforth, Ph.D., M.D., ed., et al, Obstetrics and Gynecology, 5th ed. (Philadelphia: J.B. Lipincott, 1986), pp. 217, 257, 382-383. See also Jack Pritchard, et al, Williams Obstetrics, 17th ed. (Norwalk, CT: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1985), p. 484.

14. Danforth, cited above, p. 887, and David H. Nichols, M.D., Gynecologic and Obstetric Surgery (St. Louis: Mosby-Year Book Inc., 1993), p. 260, and Leon Speroff, Robert H. Glass, Nathan G. Kase, Clinical Gynecological Endochrinology & Infertility (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1983), pp. 156-157.

15. A. Levin, et al, "Ectopic Pregnancy and Prior Induced Abortion," American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 72, No. 3 (March 1982), pp. 253-256.

16. Anastasia Tzonou, et al, "Induced abortions, miscarriages, and tobacco smoking as risk factors for secondary infertility," Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Vol. 47 (1993), p. 36.

17. Daling, J. et al, "Risk of Breast Cancer Among Young Women: Relationship to Induced Abortion," Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Volume 86, #21, 1994

18. Howe, et al, Induced abortion and breast cancer; Int J Epidemiol 18:300-4; 1989.

19. Pritchard, cited in note 92, p. 483.

20. Hern, Abortion Practice, cited note 50, pp. 26-35. See also Centers for Disease Control, Abortion Surveillance, 1978, (November 1980) and Christopher Tieze, et al, "Maternal mortality associated with legal abortion in New York State: July 1, 1970-June 30, 1972," Obstet Gynecol, Vol. 43 (1974), p. 315.