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Juwanna Porras

Professor. Oscar E. Martinez II

ENGL 1302 217

23 February 2024

The Debate of Abortion: Political and Psychological Approaches

The topic of abortion has been going around, sparking debates for a long time, and

whether politicians consider this a matter of women’s health or moral action requiring

legislation, there is no doubt that this issue will only cause more women to die due to the bad

conditions of making this procedure in a clandestine way and by becoming a threat to women’s

rights of reproduction (Roberti, Gutierrez, Looi and Weitz). Also, it’s relevant to mention that

the way lawmakers view this affects society and their perspective of this issue as well; the

different opinions regarding this issue had been mostly from each person’s background and their

own beliefs and stigmas, which can influence in the way they view women who have had an

abortion or have thought about it and start a chain were women suffer from mental health issues

thanks to these incorrect perceptions (Biggs, Bruce, Hadley, and Major). For this lit review, the

various sources will highlight how the legalization of abortion has positive consequences on the

mental health of women, which will also combat the stigmas that can affect women’s

reproductive decisions.

The role of political ideologies in societal stigmatization of abortion.

In the article by Amanda Roberti, she mentions how, historically, the different

perspectives regarding the debate on abortion are slowly getting further away from each other. It

is also mentioned that the fact that women have been left out of gender-based policies in the

United States, displays a threat to women’s rights because this goes against their reproductive
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rights. Also, Roberti explains that the anti-abortion movement has made lawmakers use a new

approach that seems more acceptable to society because it is being presented in women’s best

interests “there is significant co-occurrence of a pro-woman and fetal personhood frame, which

allows anti-abortion advocates to argue to “love them both.”” (218). To this, the author

advocates for women’s reproductive liberty, which allows them to participate in body politics

and to stop policies that continuously exclude women from the public sphere.

Likewise, Edith Gutierrez and Emilio Parrado used as an example the legislation of

abortion in the Federal District of Mexico to mention the impact of abortion by providing data

like teenage fertility and unplanned fertility before it was legalized to new statistical data about

the effects after its legalization. “In 2009, 34 percent of all pregnancies in Mexico were reported

as unplanned or unwanted” (113). The authors mention that unwanted pregnancies were more

common among teenagers, but even among women in their 30s or older represented around 32

percent of unwanted pregnancies. Similarly to Roberti, they concluded that there is an important

need for policies that allow the diffusion of reproductive health and women’s control over their

reproductive rights. This evidence shows how a change in the perspective that lawmakers use

when it comes to abortion, which is apparently less damaging to women, can influence the

acceptance rate from society and, in the long term, make a positive impact on women’s rights by

allowing them to participate in politics regarding childbirth decisions.

In addition to the previous facts, Mun-Keat Looi mentioned an occasion where the United

Nations had to intervene after five international charities requested them to act over what they

described as the “human rights crisis” in the U.S. where the Supreme Court wanted to restrict

access to the service of abortion. In the request, the charities wrote: “[t]he letter, from agencies

that include Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Physicians for Human Rights,
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said that the restrictions on abortion deny ‘women’s decisional and bodily autonomy in a way

that rejects the agency, dignity and equality of people who can become pregnant’” (Looi 1). The

author mentioned that the letter also listed some effects of anti-abortion laws on women’s health

and described cases where women had difficulties accessing this service and their health was put

at risk.

On the contrary, Tracy Weitz takes a different perspective and rather explains the

consequences of trying to end the debate of abortion, she mentioned as an example how this has

negatively affected even medical personnel. “This article examines how the desire to find an end

to the abortion wars led to the widespread adoption of the rhetorical mantra that abortion should

be ‘safe, legal, and rare’” (161). Throughout the article she explains the role that abortion has

had in society advocating in favor of women’s rights and health who are the most affected. She

explains different medical cases where medical staff who had practiced abortion on women had

suffered from harassment from people against this service. She ended her arguments by stating

that society and politicians should start looking for that desire to help an individual woman

achieve her reproductive rights by making abortion an accessible and legal service, not to make it

look like a goal, but rather to reduce the need for it. Similarly to Looi, this article explains the

importance of taking into consideration the positive things abortion can bring for women, and

how its legalization can make a better impact regarding teenage and unwanted pregnancies.

Psychological impact of abortion

Several authors like Antonia Biggs et al were in charge of evaluating the perceptions of

abortion stigmas after receiving or being denied an abortion over 5 years, and how they affected

women in a psychological way. They concluded that women who seeks an abortion perceived

that if other people knew that they were looking for one, they would be looked down by the
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people close to them, and their community. On the contrary, women who were once denied an

abortion had lower abortion stigmas from people close to them. According to Biggs, “[m]ost

people considering abortion perceive some abortion stigma, which is associated with

psychological distress years later” (2). The stigmatization of this service by society and politics

has been proved by these authors to be a factor of psychological distress for women who had or

were planning on having an abortion.

As for Tricia Bruce, she analyzed and explained how religion and race can create certain

attitudes toward abortion (stigmas). She explains that it’s wrong to think that people who belong

to the same religion or not have the same opinions regarding abortion, especially because of the

diversity of thought considering factors like race. The author analyzed data from the 2019

National Abortion Attitudes Study (NAAS) in the United States, and she concluded that in

America, religion still plays a big role when it comes to the topic of abortion and the attitudes

towards this service, “[h]ere, religion’s impact on abortion attitudes is revealed as complex: its

effect on attitudes strong but mediated through race. Efficacy, distancing, and reconciling signal

active and interactive processes not fixed or finished outcomes” (20). In conclusion, she

mentioned that even though religion can be an important factor when it comes to shaping certain

beliefs and opinions, what was more relevant was people’s background. Based on the

information from this source, that ties the environment to the attitudes and decisions towards

abortion, and on the information from the previous paragraph by Biggs, it can be argued that the

psychological impact that abortion has on women is strongly influenced by their race because of

the cultural beliefs that people from their sociocultural environment tend to practice.

Janet Hadley decided to make take a social viewpoint by analyzing the issue of abortion

in America and the different moral approaches (that have stigmas as a base) that have led
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fanatics to violate clinic workers. Hadley agrees with the argument made by Bruce that the

different sociocultural perspectives affect the stigmas on abortion, which can be a problem for

women specifically. As she expands on her research, she mentioned the different categories of

abortion dilemma while analyzing case studies as well, she concluded that “The views on

abortion are not immutable, and a paltry three paragraphs on abortion in America today mainly

about the activities of the ‘moral majority’ and the other campaigners, left me wanting more”

(356). Hadley concludes by saying that the moral approach that America uses to handle abortion

impacts society and creates rejection in some parts that affects women or even people in the

medical field negatively.

Similarly to Antonia Biggs et al, Brenda Major et al also had a psychological approach

where they mentioned the different approaches and frames that can be considered when people

talk about abortion. The authors mention that women experiences with abortion can be chapped

by their personal desires to be mothers. They studied different women who had an abortion and

tried to look for the relationship between having an abortion and their mental health. To this,

they concluded that “[t]he local and larger sociocultural contexts in which a woman lives also

affect her mental health following an abortion. Perceived social stigma surrounding either

continuing a pregnancy (e.g., in the case of an unwed teenager) or having an abortion can

influence the decisions that women make, how they feel about their decisions, and how they

cope with their feelings” (886). In other words, they concluded that the sociocultural background

could affect women’s mental health after having an abortion which ties to what Biggs and Bruce

said. The sociocultural stigmas create a certain pressure on women that can influence their

decision regarding their pregnancy, especially if the society that surrounds them looks down to

women or teenagers who get abortions.

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Conclusion

Based on the previous analysis of information that presents the two main viewpoints of

abortion, that are the political and psychological approaches, and as the sources showed, in

today’s society what is mostly taken into consideration when it comes to the topic of abortion, is

and should be women’s rights. As other researchers mentioned, these rights, over the course of

the years, have slowly been taken into consideration by some countries that have legalized

abortion and have showed less stigmas around the topic of abortion as well as an improvement in

decreasing fertility rates in teenagers. However, in countries like the United States, women’s

rights have been presented and advocated by different charities under the argument that the

government is violating women’s reproductive rights by not legalizing abortion due to

stigmatization. Similarly, other authors that adopted the psychological approach argue that the

background and sociocultural environment are full of people with different beliefs, races,

ethnicities, and stigmas, that women surround themselves with that can influence their decisions

and their thoughts on abortion which can also impact the decision from lawmakers on whether

they decide to legalize this service or not. The debate on abortion won’t end anytime soon, but it

is important to consider it with genuine care for women and their overall health and rights

instead of adopting a moral approach that can be subjective for different people.
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Works Cited

Biggs, M. Antonia, et al. “Perceived Abortion Stigma and Psychological Well-Being over Five

Years after Receiving or Being Denied an Abortion.” PloS One, vol. 15, no. 1, 2020, pp.

e0226417–e0226417, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0226417.

Bruce, Tricia C. “Efficacy, Distancing, and Reconciling: Religion and Race in Americans’

Abortion Attitudes.” Religions (Basel, Switzerland), vol. 11, no. 9, 2020, pp. 475-,

https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11090475

Gutiérrez Vázquez, Edith Y., and Emilio A. Parrado. “Abortion Legalization and Childbearing in

Mexico.” Studies in Family Planning, vol. 47, no. 2, 2016, pp. 113–28,

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728- 4465.2016.00060.x.

Hadley, Janet. “The Issue of Abortion in America: An Exploration of Social Controversy.”

Journal of Medical Ethics, vol. 25, no. 4, 1999, pp. 355–56,

https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.25.4.355-a.

Looi, Mun-Keat. “Abortion: UN Is Urged to Intervene in ‘Human Rights Crisis’ in US after

Ending of Rights.” BMJ (Online), vol. 380, 2023, pp. 521–521,

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.p521.

Major, Brenda, et al. “Abortion and Mental Health: Evaluating the Evidence.” The American

Psychologist, vol. 64, no. 9, 2009, pp. 863–90, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017497.

Roberti, Amanda, “Women Deserve Better:” The Use of the Pro-Woman Frame in Anti-abortion

Policies in U.S. States, Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 42:3, 2021, 207-

224, DOI: 10.1080/1554477X.2021.1925478

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Weitz, Tracy A. “Rethinking the Mantra That Abortion Should Be ‘Safe, Legal, and Rare.’”

Journal of Women’s History, vol. 22, no. 3, 2010, pp. 161–72,

https://doi.org/10.1353/jowh.2010.0595.