“Abortion is not a measure of our society’s success in meeting the needs of women, but of our failure,” observed Serrin Foster, President of Feminists for Life. After 30 years of legal abortion, the physical, psychological, and spiritual impacts on women are becoming more evident.

In January, the Women Deserve Better Campaign, supported by several pro-woman and pro-life groups, began a long-term public education campaign highlighting this failure of abortion. The campaign is an effort to refocus the nation on why women feel pressured into abortion and to promote women-centered solutions to these problems. Many women who have had an abortion carry emotional scars from the experience.

Studies from Finland, Great Britain, Canada and the United States reveal higher rates of suicide, attempted suicide, and psychiatric admissions for women who have had an abortion compared to women who gave birth. During 2002 alone, five new studies were published in major peer review medical and psychological journals showing that:

• Women who aborted a child are 5 times more likely to use illicit drugs and 2 times more likely to use alcohol during the first pregnancy they carry to term. The use of drugs or alcohol, of course, places their newborn children at higher risk of congenital defects, low birth weight, and death. (American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology)

• Compared to women who carry their first unintended pregnancies to term, women who abort their first pregnancy have significantly higher rates of clinical depression as measured an average of eight years after their first pregnancies. (British Medical Journal)

• Women who have abortions have an elevated risk of death from all causes which persists for at least 8 years. One factor in the elevated mortality rates was a 154% higher risk of death from suicide. (Southern Medical Journal)

• Compared to delivering women, women who have abortions subsequently require more psychiatric care. (American Journal of Orthopsychiatry)

• The children of women who have abortions have less supportive home environments and more behavioral problems than the children of women without a history of abortion. This finding supports the view that abortion may negatively effect bonding with subsequent children, disturb mothering skills, and otherwise impact a woman’s psychological stability. (Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry)

Women deserve better than this. Abortion is a symptom of, not a solution to, the problems faced by women. As Americans, we like to say that “failure is not an option.” 30 years of abortion is a tragedy. Abortion has completely failed as a social policy designed to help women. After 30 years, let’s put an end to this failure.