When I had the opportunity to speak at March for Life in Washington DC with the Silent No More Awareness campaign, I was looking forward to meeting with other post-abortive women. I knew I wasn’t alone in my experience, but this was my first time meeting a group of post-abortive women who all were working together to end the lies of the abortion industry in our country. I was surprised to find that we had such similar experiences after our abortions. Many of us were unable to maintain healthy relationships. Some turned to drugs or alcohol, and many experienced depression. There is a name for this; it’s PAS (Post-Abortive Syndrome), a form of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). 

PAS occurs when the grieving process is not completed. The grief women may experience after an abortion is seldom recognized and is often repressed or denied. Because abortion is considered a voluntary act, a women’s grief after an abortion is often not understood or supported.

Some women experience PAS symptoms within months of the abortion. For others, the crisis occurs two to five years after the abortion – at the time the normal grieving process would have been completed. Sometimes women don’t experience PAS symptoms for ten, twenty, or thirty years because they are unable to deal with the deep emotions caused by the abortion.