Abortion, mental health and epistemologies of psychological knowledge and ignorance

Abstract

This article traces the origins and production of the Post Abortion Syndrome (PAS), a fallacious bio‐ideological construct which alleges a link between abortion and mental health risks. Through the work of social actors (anti‐abortion activists, policy makers, funders, advocates, and researchers) involved in its construction, this diagnosis was disseminated and diffused into public policy in the US and is used as ‘evidence’ in deterring people from having abortions. This is despite overwhelming evidence that abortion poses no greater mental health risks than carrying an unintended pregnancy to term. Circulation of this fallacious discourse invalidates, distorts, and homogenizes the lived experiences of reproductive people, contributing to epistemologies of ignorance as pertains to women's health and reproductive experiences. This article examines the invention of PAS, exploring its political underpinnings and ongoing effects. We unearth how psychology and medicine have been coopted to function as handmaidens in passing conservative legislation, attending to the process of willful distortion underpinning this history. Uncovering the systemic nature of the production of ignorance around reproductive people's bodies and psychologies is a necessary step in providing liberatory epistemologies for pregnant people and in enabling individuals to make their own meaning of their abortions.

Abortion Decisions as Humanizing Acts: The Application of Ambivalent Sexism and Objectification to Women-Centered Anti-Abortion Rhetoric

“…Integrating abortion stigma with ambivalent sexism theory can help us understand how both hostility and benevolence toward pregnant people can predict anti-abortion attitudes, though it remains unclear how this sentiment may manifest in the sexist treatment of pregnant people. One clue lies in the ways that women-centered anti-abortion rhetoric describes pregnant people as precious (Huang et al, 2014) and unknowing (Hooberman & Ozoguz, 2022) “vessels.” Women-centered anti-abortion rhetoric is not only benevolently sexist, but it is also inherently objectifying—describing pregnant people as objects, rather than as fully human (see also Moore, 2019). One promising path to illuminate the specific behaviors that follow from women-centered anti-abortion rhetoric is to incorporate objectification scholarship (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997; Roberts et al, 2018).…”

“…Women-centered anti-abortion rhetoric has provided supposed credibility to an array of anti-abortion legislation— such as state-mandated counseling, waiting periods, and parental involvement (Guttmacher Institute, 2023)— by way of constructing pregnant people as “‘unknowing’ [objects] in relation to their own bodies/minds, which leads to efforts enacted by the state to ‘protect’” those seeking and having abortions from nonexistent harm (Hooberman & Ozoguz, 2022, p. 8). Women-centered anti-abortion rhetoric has concrete implications for legislation concerning abortion, and thereby its accessibility, such as delays in or foregoing care (Jerman et al, 2017; see also Guttmacher Institute, 2023).…”

“…Ambivalent sexism, particularly benevolent sexism, has also been connected to objectification (see also Calogero, 2013; Calogero & Jost, 2011). Consistent with benevolent sexism, the notion that pregnant people are precious and unknowing objects is inherent to women-centered anti-abortion rhetoric (e.g., Hooberman & Ozoguz, 2022; Osborne & Davies, 2012). Thus, we submit that objectification may be another form of gender oppression that factors into and enables other gender oppressions (e.g., abortion stigma, benevolent sexism) and offers a route for conceptualizing the treatment of people seeking and having abortions under women-centered anti-abortion rhetoric through an objectification lens.…”