Abortion always has been and always will be a heated debate. Abortion is a very serious decision and if you're trying to decide what to do and you're responsible for another human being you should know the facts and the statistics and not the myths that people write/say to scare women into unplanned pregnancy.

So, lets debunk 5 abortion myths:

1. Abortion is baby-killing:

Um, no not really. A baby is not a fetus. A fetus is a developing blob of cells whose main life-source is the mother. A baby, on the other hand, is autonomous meaning it does not need a life source to survive. If you detach as fetus from its life source it will stop developing and die. A living, breathing baby is not the same as a fetus.

2. Abortion is dangerous

Well that is not true either and many studies will prove likewise. According to a study conducted by the University of California, San Francisco, in 2014 which tracked 5,000 women for six weeks after their abortion found less than one quarter of 1 percent of abortions that are performed in the United States lead to major health complications thus making abortions, statistically, about as risky as a colonoscopy.

3. Fetuses experience pain during abortions

This one is a heated debate. Many studies found that fetuses feel touch by the 8^th week of pregnancy meanwhile experts, ranging from Britain’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists agree on the timeline that fetuses cannot feel pain till at least the 24^th week of pregnancy. And according to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists report states that “Rigorous scientific studies have found that the connections necessary to transmit signals from peripheral sensory nerves to the brain, as well as the brain structures necessary to process those signals, do not develop until at least 24 weeks of gestation. Because it lacks these connections and structures, the fetus does not even have the physiological capacity to perceive pain until at least 24 weeks of gestation”

4. Only Selfish women have abortions.

Well isn’t that a sexist statement. Women who get an abortion are not, in any shape, way or form, ‘Selfish’ and quite frankly you don’t have a right to say that

You don’t have a small human being growing inside of you. You don’t have to support this child. Raising a child is expensive. CNN Money states that an estimate of $233,610 is spent, annually, to raise a child “and that only covers from birth to the age of 17” according to CNN Money. And that is for families with two incomes. Most often than not patients cite that they are getting abortions because they are young or because they have low income and can hardly support themselves. So, if anything, having an abortion is a selfless action because you don’t want the kid to be raised by a single parent who can barely provide for that child.

5. Women who get abortions will regret it, and are more likely to suffer a mental health issues.

Most women who get abortions will not regret their decision, and are no more likely to experience mental health problems than the women who carry an unplanned pregnancy to term. Women who get abortions rarely ever regret it because they know they did the right thing. Having an abortion has an emotional toll, no doubt about that but, statistically, 95% of women who have abortions feel like they ultimately made the right choice. According to a study conducted by UCSF in August 2013, “Experiencing negative emotions post-abortion is different from believing that abortion was not the right decision,” the researchers explained.

Furthermore, while unplanned pregnancies often cause emotional stress, there is no evidence to suggest that women who choose to terminate their pregnancies will be more likely to suffer from mental health issues, according to a 2008 report from the American Psychological Association that investigated all relevant medical studies published since 1989.

The APA found that past studies claiming abortion causes depression and other mental health problems consistently failed to account for other risk factors, particularly a woman’s medical history. The APA accounted for these factors and found that, among women who have an unplanned pregnancy, those who have abortions are no more likely to experience mental health problems than those who carry the pregnancy to term.

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