Women regretting abortion - but is this biassed?

Question

Reading in the Daily mail the other day there was a two page article about how so many percentage of women regretted having an abortion and were traumatised by it. Eg :

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-481313/What-WE-think-abortion--women-.html

But are their statistics & information biassed, because only the women that were really traumatised by it would write articles online and to newspapers. The other women that don't regret it wiouldn't have any reason to feel compelled to write an article about it?

Answer 1

Yes. Women who feel upset after an abortion are going to be more likely to write these kinds of stories. And I'd bet that a large majority of these women were actually backed into a corner and forced to terminate by parents, lovers which is going to add to their sadness because at heart, it wasn't their choice.

It's the same kind of faulty data collection that led to the abortion-breast cancer scare.

Women who develop breast cancer go into the doctor's and give a medical history. If enough of these histories contain an abortion then "Bing!" correlation! Pro-life groups make it causation. Meanwhile other women who got abortions but did not develop breast cancer do not give medical histories and their data is not counted.

The red light flashing in my head right now... no control group!

Answer 2

I doubt many people know how abortions are carried out, including the self-satisfied writers in the Daily Mail, a known fanatics' newspaper (or comic depending on your point of view).

The popular anti-abortion image of babies being hacked up whilst alive is simply untrue. I wouldn't hide the truth though: in late term abortions a solution of potassium chloride is injected into the heart and the foetus is removed as if stillborn. Note though, that it is very small and not fully formed. Others are suction abortions and these really are the 'masses of cells' unrecognizable to the untrained eye from other cell masses.

It's not a pretty business, but I'm more convinced that it's the guilt trips forced on these women by society that has more to do with their later misery. And in any case, hindsight regrets may well be real, but it matters whether the act was right for the moment. Later circumstances tends to make hindsight a bad judge.

Answer 3

Not all the women in the article had regrets, though mostly they represented those that were.

It's important to keep in mind that the Daily Mail is a tabloid with a nuclear-family bias and a little bit of sexism thrown in (though not everyone against abortions is sexist). Even if article were only about women without regrets, I would not trust it.

I do agree that it's self-selecting, Most women who have had abortions and don't regret it aren't very open about it, because they know they'll be attacked, whereas it's socially acceptable for a woman to have had an abortion if she's terribly sorry that she did and will regret it for her entire life.

Answer 4

Well, as is clear from that article NOT all women regret having abortions. Of course it's a difficult decision for some women to make. And in at least the first case it seems the woman was pressured into it by her boyfriend. I would imagine that most women who actually think about it and make an informed decision do not regret having abortions.

Answer 5

Yes its bias but at the same time, who knows what damage it can or can't do?

I'd like to see a bit more of a buzz in those waiting rooms, the women in these places are usually miserable looking.

Answer 6

There's a flip side to that yaknow.

Parents who raised kids when they had no business, and screwed themselves & the kid up in the process.

Answer 7

Some women do regret having an abortion. Others regret having children.

No decision any of us make that is of any significance in our lives is without the potential for regret.

Welcome to the real world, ladies and gents.

Cheers :-)

Answer 8

I don't think most women regret getting an abortion -- if they feel they gave it plenty of rational thought and weighed out all the options before hand.

I would go so far as to say, a lot LESS would regret it -- if society minded its own d**n business and didn't attach so much shame and disgrace to the procedure and kept their judgments to themselves.

  

Answer 9

it happens coz women r too emotional

Answer 10

If it's in the mail then i would be very suspicious because I know the daily mail does not approve of abortion.

Answer 11

yes it is biassed i think they should have shown statisics of people who regretted it to people who didn't