Before abortion was legal, abortion laws were regularly and more extensively enforced on doctors, yet were never actually meant to be used against women. In 1973, the Supreme Court's decision in the Roe vs. Wade case legalized abortion in all 50 states of the United States of America. Many people seemed to believe that the legalization of abortion was needed in order to decrease the amount of women using the "back alley" routine, reduce the number of deaths from women who had an illegal abortion, and to stop people from making a mockery of the law. The number of abortions needed in order to save a women's life had substantially declined by 1960 when the medical field advanced in knowledge and technology. .
The amount of women that died by illegal abortions had also declined by the year 1972. Since the national legalization of abortion the amount of abortions that are performed has significantly increased. The possibility of death and injury are still great when going through with the procedure. In fact, many women still die and obtain injuries during the process of abortion and along with the significant increase in the amount of abortions, the medical malpractice claims against the physicians who perform the abortions has also increased substantially (Stetson, 180). In addition to those circumstances, the knowledge of the negative psychological effects of abortion on women has also increased. It has come to attention that women do indeed suffer from different types of effects including depression, suicidal thoughts, remorse, avoidance behavior, and some even experience nightmares and haunting flashbacks. Although there are some disagreements on how the abortion directly affects the woman who it was performed on, there is an altogether agreement that abortions do affect the woman in one or many different ways. The claim I will try to prove is that an abortion does in fact have a negative effect on the woman's future and profound negative psychological effects following the procedure.
