The South African Parliament voted last week to allow girls as young as 12 to obtain abortions without their parents’ consent. The nation will provide for 24-hour abortion facilities. It will now eliminate the pre-approval processes. And now, all nurses, as well as doctors and midwives, can perform the procedure.
The Bill called, The Choice on Termination of Pregnancy, passed by a vote of 266 to 52 with 12 abstentions.
Legislation can be absurdly contradictory. A recently enacted law outlaws kissing in public for adolescents. This law ensures that 12-year-olds can obtain abortions. Another requires a woman to be 18 years or older in order to drink alcohol or enter a smoking area. One conservative called 
the measure another example government’s tendency to steamroller over the opinions of ordinary South Africans.
In the same nation, South Africa, and in the same week, a study published in the journal BMC Psychiatry has found that women who have experienced abortion have higher levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In follow-up studies before, and then one month and three months after abortion, the study found “high rates of PTSD” in women who had “undergone voluntary pregnancy termination.” At three months after the abortion, the number of women experiencing PTSD had increased by 61 percent.
The study noted that the form of pain management used during the procedure did not effect rates of psychological trauma after abortion. The abortion itself is the cause of trauma for women, not the amount of physical pain they experience.
A 2004 study published in the Medical Science Monitor had revealed that 65 percent of American women who had undergone abortions reported symptoms of PTSD which they attributed to their abortions.
Also linked to abortion are higher rates of sleep disorders, anxiety disorders, clinical depression, substance abuse, suicide, and other problems. One study found increased rates of death from cardiovascular problems among women who had abortions, up to eight years after the abortion, as compared to women who gave birth.
Tragically, and naively, the authors of the study suggest that more screening be done to “help identify women at risk of PTSD.” The real solution was ignored – don’t have the abortion.
The stress and trauma that the abortion is designed to alleviate, only rolls back onto the woman. Having the child, giving birth, may present its challenges in the short term, namely, child-rearing. But it is better for the mother, not to mention an alive child, in the long run, to have the baby.
Explicitly, “there is no evidence that abortion alleviates any psychological symptoms in women and abortion has been in fact linked to increased mental health problems – including PTSD – after abortion.”
More than a dozen studies document the psychological impact of abortion on women. A growing amount of socially repressed data, studies that have been culturally incorrect indicate “that many of these abortions are unwanted and the result of pressure or coercion from others.”
Adapted from LifeSiteNews.com