Shout Your Abortion serves as a striking example of how the pro-abortion narrative preys on women. The website claims to provide a space where women can discuss their abortions openly, whether their experiences were positive or negative, without facing judgment.
And indeed, women share their stories by the thousands. Many submit these accounts online and through social media, detailing what might be the most significant event of their lives. While numerous accounts exude triumph and defiance, many reveal deeply sorrowful experiences.
“I’m struggling to forgive myself,” writes one woman.
“I live with grief and regret every day for what I did,” writes another.
“My heart still hurts and grieves sometimes, but I’m mostly grateful for how much I’ve grown since,” writes yet another.
These sorrowful stories from grieving women contradict the very abortion industry they are expected to uphold.
Women grapple with post-abortive anxiety, grief, depression, and regret. The abortion industry often dismisses these genuine reactions as merely unfortunate but expected side effects of routine medical care.
This raises the question: do all women’s voices truly matter? Or only those that support the abortion industry?
We already know the answer. To the abortion industry, women suffering from regret and loss are just as disposable as their terminated pregnancies.
Furthermore, pro-abortion advocates hinder women’s mental healthcare by misleading them about the procedure and concealing its genuine physical and emotional impacts, particularly for post-abortive women.
Women deserve to understand that their loss is real, not imagined. They deserve truthful information about their bodies, pregnancies, abortions, suffering, and alternatives.
The reality is that pregnancy itself prompts a physical and psychological transformation, often starting weeks before the woman knows she’s pregnant.
Pregnancy significantly strains the body, alters a woman’s hormonal balance, and even changes the structure of her brain. These processes are natural and continue unless disrupted in some way.
It’s absurd to claim that abortion — the violent interruption of these processes — can be easy, noninvasive, or routine. Trivializing the various mental health ramifications of abortion, even indirectly, by portraying it as a routine medical procedure is cruel.
We know it is traumatic. We know it is not routine.
Research found that each abortion increases a woman’s risk of developing mental health disorders by 23%. Women who have abortions are three times more likely to use marijuana than those who haven’t, and twice as likely to use or abuse alcohol. They are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety, with suicide rates being even higher.
Yet the abortion industry would have us believe these are transient, acceptable side effects of a routine medical procedure.
If abortion is truly about “choice” or “freedom,” why shroud it in deceit and exploitation? Why are women fed jargon and branding in place of medically accurate information necessary for informed consent?
Pro-abortion advocates mislead women by dehumanizing the fetal heartbeat at six weeks as merely “electronic impulses that signify fetal cardiac activity.” They gaslight women into believing a fetus is just a “blob” of “pregnancy tissue” at nine weeks when major organs are already forming and developing, or, worse, prevent women from hearing their growing child’s heartbeat or seeing their sonograms.
We must do everything possible to help women understand the reality of abortion and prevent them from feeling like it is their only option.
We know that support structures improve overall well-being and can reduce emotional and physical stressors during and after pregnancy. Women often seek abortions due to a lack of support, fearing they can’t pay the bills, raise the child, or receive adequate medical care. But there are options to help them with all these needs.
The “Alternatives to Abortion” programs serve women nationwide. They exemplify the kind of supportive structures women need. More than 2,700 pregnancy resource centers across the country help women access employment, housing, counseling, mentorship, material support, and medical referrals. Women need support, not fear and loss.
Women’s empowerment entails education, healthcare, material resources, and mental health support. Empowerment means providing her with the truth about abortion — the harsh, ugly truths. It means affirming women’s capabilities and supporting them in whatever capacity they desire until they believe in themselves. Empowerment isn’t ending their pregnancies then abandoning them to deal with the consequences.
But the abortion industry isn’t offering meaningful options. Instead of liberation, it exploits women’s desperation. It is an industry built on deceit, profiting from women’s despair.
There is an alternative: a vast network of care that has been evolving for decades, ensuring women know the truth about abortion’s mental, physical, and emotional consequences.
These resources continue to highlight the untold stories of women devastated by the loss of their children. They share accounts of women who chose life after receiving truthful information. Contrary to the abortion industry’s foundation of deceit, this network is built on care and trust.
