One in three American women will have an abortion by the time they are 45 years old. That's according to the Guttmacher Institute, founded by the president of Planned Parenthood 40 years ago, now an independent research agency. [Editor's note: The original broadcast script indicated that the Guttmacher Institute was 'a research organization affiliated with Planned Parenthood.']
And many will feel relief -- not regret -- according to abortion rights groups.
Today, we continue our series, Choice and Regret: A Look into the Current Abortion Debate. Monday, we told you about a faction of the anti-abortion movement that believes most women regret their decision to have an abortion.
Now, the other side of the story. Reporter Joanne Faryon introduces us to a San Diego woman who became pregnant when she was a teenager.
Rhiannon Good: I had a steady boyfriend and when I told him I was pregnant he completely abandoned me to the extent he moved up to LA to go stay with his grandma. So that sucked.
Rhiannon Good was only 17 when she became pregnant. It was an unintended pregnancy. In fact, half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended, according to the Guttmacher Institute. And almost half of those pregnancies will end in abortion. That's what Rhiannon Good decided in the end, to have an abortion.
Good: I felt relieved. I was very, very relieved.
Research shows most women feel relief following an abortion. One UC Santa Barbara study followed post abortive women for two years. [Click here to read the PDF of the UC Santa Barbara abortion study].
Seventy-two percent of women reported more benefit than harm following their abortions. Only 1 per cent had signs of post traumatic stress disorder. But despite the science, the idea of post abortive syndrome is gaining popularity these days. It's even gaining credibility in the highest court of the land.
The notion of abortion regret was cited in an April Supreme Court decision which upheld a ban on a second trimester abortion procedure called partial birth abortion.
Amy Everitt is the state director of NARAL Pro-Choice California.
Everitt: It was really shocking to me that anti-abortion rhetoric could find its way into a Supreme Court decision when he also recognized there was no scientific evidence to support it.
Justice Anthony Kennedy was the author of the court's majority opinion. His words, that "some women come to regret their choice to abort" have steered the abortion debate into a direction few predicted. Especially abortion rights groups who have long discounted the notion of regret as being the mantra of a right wing religious faction within the anti-abortion movement. The so-called fringe movement asserts abortion ruins marriages, causes women to turn to drugs and alcohol, even suicide. They say the procedure causes shame and guilt.
Everitt:"They're out there and they're like this incredible vocal minority and doing things to grab headlines and they do things to put the most horrible framework around women's private decision making out there and the really important thing especially for the pro-choice movement is not to have our agenda out by these fringe people who really don't represent Americans in state of the country.
Womens' rights groups have launched their own counter attack. Last year MS Magazine asked women who've had abortions without regret to publish their names in a special issue of the magazine. Thousands came forward, including Rhiannon Good.
Good: "There are fewer women maybe who are willing to come forward and say I had an abortion and I became I wife and mother I had an abortion and I became a successful athlete or I'm a happy person and I think a lot of it has to do with what your motivations are and I think a lot of these people who are coming forward with I regret my abortion I became an alcoholic their motivation is really to outlaw abortion because they've determined it to be morally wrong, according to religion, they found religious afterwards, that type of thing."
Good is now 29, married, a campaign organizer with Planned Parenthood, and she's expecting her first child.
Good: I empathize with the fact that they have this regret and they feel like they made a bad decision, but I guess if I had to talk to one of them and probe into that and do they regret having the decision, do they regret being able to have that decision or do they regret the decision they made. Because that's a totally different thing and I think if some of them thought about it they would say, I regret the decision but maybe it was a good thing I was able to have that decision.
Perhaps the harshest criticism from Justice Kennedy's remarks came from the court itself. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who wrote the dissenting opinion, said the court revealed an anti-abortion shibboleth for which it had no reliable evidence.
With a Supreme Court that has revealed a majority willing to make changes to abortion law since Roe vs. Wade in 1973, anti-abortion and abortion rights groups are paying close attention to where the next President and Congress stand on the issue. It just may be the ban on partial birth abortion has been the call to arms for both sides.
Good: The fact that these people are gaining credibility saying women is morally wrong and women regret it and its going to ruin your life I think the fact that's gaining credibility makes me feel almost obligated to share my story and say no, there are people out there doing just fine.
Tonight on KPBS television, you can watch more of our series, Choice and Regret, on Full Focus at 6:30.
