4 ms·

Would anything which is traumatic, be able to lead to long term post-traumatic stress? And miscarriages are certainly traumatic.

• pacala 7y ago
  The A-word springs to mind. And yet the taboos are strong, not even a reference, either in the article or the HN comments.
  • i_haz_rabies 7y ago
    The long term emotional impact of abortion seems like it depends a lot more on the person and context than miscarriage, which is universally awful.
    • dragonwriter 7y ago
      Plus, its not a taboo at all; its been intensely studied, and there's no evidence that having an abortion increases post-traumatic stress compared to being pregnant and not having one, while miscarriage does increase it. Now, there are people who very much want that not to be true for political reasons, but wanting something to be true for political reasons doesn't make it true.
      • pacala 7y ago
        That's a good point. I forgot how highly politicized this topic is, which means there is a high likelihood for a flamewar, which means people would rather avoid touching it, which creates a conversation vacuum easily mistaken for a taboo.
        • scarejunba 7y ago
          Well, there's also a lot of other parallels to draw, right? For instance, rape can cause PTSD but consensual sex usually does not so prima facie I wouldn't jump to the spontaneous abortion carrying the same results as one induced at the request of the carrier.
          • deleted 7y ago
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      • pmiller2 7y ago
        I believe this, simply because the vast majority of abortions are elective. Explicitly deciding to do something invokes all sorts of defense mechanisms that don't come into play with something like a miscarriage. It doesn't mean that an abortion is any less of a tragedy than a miscarriage (and I say that as a pro choice individual), just that the ability to steel ourselves against the inevitable has some benefits.
        • easymodex 7y ago
          >I believe this, simply because the vast majority of abortions are elective. That can't be right, you're dearly underestimating the number of miscarriages or we live in a very crazy world.
          • pmiller2 7y ago
            You are correct, but I wasn’t counting miscarriages (“spontaneous abortions”) in with medical or surgical abortions.
    • ska 7y ago
      In fact there is at least some evidence: (e.g. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0128832 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...) that for the majority of women having an abortion does not even lead to regret, let alone anything as strong as PTSD. However, you always have to be careful with statistical measures like this, it's certain to have been a traumatic experience for some fraction of women experiencing it, no matter how small. For people in that position hearing 'oh, it's no big deal' must be pretty hard.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• elil17 7y ago
  Yes. PTSD does not discriminate based on type of trauma. Car crashes, for instance, are one of the most common events leading to PTSD.
  • pmiller2 7y ago
    Absolutely. Even though there's the perception that only military people get PTSD, you are right, it does not discriminate. Moreover, the definition of trauma is personal. That is, if it's traumatic to the individual, then it can cause a post-traumatic stress reaction, no matter whether it would be a traumatic event to anyone else.
    • ska 7y ago
      It's worse than a perception (that only front-line military people get PTSD), it often takes the form of gate-keeping.
  • sosborn 7y ago
    I know a guy who served two tours in Vietnam with no after effects. A couple years ago he was in an accident and his whole life now revolves around avoiding traffic because of the ptsd he now suffers from.