Psychiatric Illness Following Therapeutic Abortion

Forty-six women who had therapeutic abortions for a variety of diagnostic indications were evaluated from two months to ten years after the abortion. Two-thirds of the group had a diagnosable psychiatric illness prior to the abortion. Conflicts about sadomasochistic impulses and feminine biological role appeared frequently. Healthier women responded to the abortion with transient and self-limiting mild depression. Psychiatrically sicker women used a variety of defenses but for the most part remained stabilized or improved. There was little new psychiatric illness that appeared after the therapeutic abortion that could be related to the abortion.