Abortion trauma is a myth, according to one reader. Sylvia Rose of Totnes, Devon, describes her own termination many years ago as a “very straightforward decision – I didn’t want to become a mother, so I didn’t. End of.” She draws a stark parallel to having a cancerous tumour removed: “something was growing inside me that I really didn’t want there, that would cause major impacts on my life if not removed, and it was a great relief when it was gone.” The only real difference, she says, was stigma. With cancer you get “sympathy and casseroles”; with a termination you have to be cautious who you tell. She imagines phoning work to say you are recovering from an abortion – “you just wouldn’t; you’d plead flu instead.” She insists the letter be published with her name, arguing it is time to let go of “this false shame.”
The myth of regret
The idea that abortion inevitably leads to lifelong regret is repeatedly contradicted by the experiences women describe. One anonymous letter writer who has had three abortions states bluntly: “I didn’t need three days to think. I had been thoughtful and I was certain.” That writer contrasts the mandatory three-day waiting period in Ireland – which the Social Democrats recently proposed abolishing, calling it “patronising and paternalistic” – with the lack of any such requirement for men seeking erectile dysfunction medications or a vasectomy: “Imagine the outcry if men had a mandated wait of three days.” The bill was defeated in the Irish parliament in May 2026. Supporters of the waiting period argue it provides necessary reflection time for an irreversible decision, and some data suggests a significant number of women do not proceed after the consultation. Yet the letter writers challenge the assumption that time is needed, with one noting she had already been thoughtful and certain.
Research on abortion stigma in the UK shows a disconnect between public opinion and personal disclosure. A high percentage of women identify as pro-choice, yet many would not tell family or friends if they were considering an abortion. The charity Abortion Talk works to combat this by providing a safe space for conversations and running a confidential Talkline. The stigma itself may drive distress: evidence suggests that post-abortion distress is influenced more by social judgment and secrecy than by the procedure itself. The British Medical Association has supported the decriminalisation of abortion since 2017, and legislative efforts – including an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill in 2025 – have aimed to remove criminal sanctions for women ending their own pregnancies in England and Wales, where abortion remains technically a criminal offence under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, except where allowed by the Abortion Act 1967.
A spectrum of experiences – and the emotions that don’t fit the legal narrative
While some women feel immediate relief, others describe a far more complex emotional landscape. A second anonymous letter writer, who identifies as firmly pro-choice, says she does not regret her abortion but calls it “painful, heart-wrenching and represents a loss that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.” She says this experience was made harder by the fear that her grief would be used as “fodder for anti-abortion groups or dismissed as ‘not real’.” Her sadness, she felt, “wasn’t allowed, because it didn’t fit neatly into a legalistic narrative.” She quotes Amanda Palmer’s song Voicemail for Jill, which Palmer herself has described as a “gift, a handbook” to remind women they do not need to offer “the right explanation” or “beg for redemption” – that there need not be “a courtroom inside of your head.”
A third anonymous writer, who has had three abortions, adds another layer: “Women choose an abortion and may never regret that they aborted, but may also be traumatised by the pregnancy loss.” They describe how being pregnant, even for a few weeks, changes the body – “flush with hormones and deep instincts” – and that to deny the physical reality is “a disservice to women.” Early pregnancy involves hormonal shifts in hCG, progesterone and oestrogen, which can cause fatigue, mood swings and nausea. In the context of an unwanted pregnancy, these normal changes add emotional complexity. After her first abortion, the writer says she felt “like an alien – stressed, fearful, changed and in hiding.” Later, when she tried for a second child and had to terminate again due to chromosome abnormalities, she experienced the same sadness “engorged on my new mother’s body and brain” alongside the same “100% certainty that my choice was correct.”
The letters collectively insist that there is no single “correct” emotional response. It is “OK to feel no attachment; OK if you felt ambivalent; OK if you cried at a makeshift grave on the darkest days.” This breadth of feeling, they argue, is obscured by a public debate that forces abortion into either a moral or a legal framing. The current Irish law allows abortion up to 12 weeks on request, and later in cases of risk to life or health or fatal foetal abnormality, but doctors must certify that death is likely within 28 days of birth – a criterion the Social Democrats proposed changing. The legal framework, critics say, reduces a deeply human experience to a checklist.
The need for support – not silence or judgment
What emerges strongly from the letters is a call for normalised, non-judgmental support. The third writer imagines how much better she would have felt “if support groups for abortion women were as normalised as alcohol or PTSD support groups, without the social judgment.” Services such as ARCH (Abortion Recovery Care & Helpline) and The Willow Tree Centre already offer free, confidential counselling and support groups for those struggling emotionally after an abortion, whether recent or long ago, while Rachel’s Vineyard provides healing weekends for post-abortion trauma. Yet the stigma means many women still do not access help. One writer could not even tell her friends. Another notes that when she compared her abortion to cancer treatment, the difference was not the medical procedure but the social response: cancer patients receive sympathy and casseroles, while women who have abortions must hide the truth. (Research shows that cancer stigma, though declining, can still affect patients – particularly around treatment side effects or perceived controllability of the disease – but the parallel is telling.)
The letters also push back against those who would use personal trauma to restrict the rights of others. The third writer, after describing her own sadness, adds a sharp warning: “If you’re experiencing post-abortion trauma which sent you into the anti-abortion ranks, please do work to heal your own psyche, but get your hands off my body.” It is a reminder that the debate often conflates individual grief with political opposition – and that the solution is not to impose waiting periods or legal barriers, but to make space for every woman’s experience, whether it is relief, grief or both. The call is for compassion that does not dictate a single emotional outcome, and for a society where a woman can say, as Sylvia Rose did, that her abortion was a straightforward decision – and not have to brace for judgment when she does.
