Myth 1: Making abortion illegal will decrease abortions. Making abortions illegal does nothing but drive desperate women to unsafe abortions, often carried out by completely untrained people. That’s much more dangerous. Unsafe abortions lead to 30 deaths per 100,000 live births and are 16 times more likely in places where abortions are illegal.
Myth 2: Abortion leads to mental health issues
There are several studies that link mental health issues with abortion… they’re scientifically bogus. Credible studies done over the last two decades state that abortions don’t cause metal health issues and that the most likely determination of a woman’s mental health post-abortion is her mental health pre-abortion (assuming the abortion was her purposeful decision rather than the medically necessary abortion of a wanted pregnancy). Not only that, women denied an abortion face more mental health consequences.
Myth 3: Abortion causes breast cancer
At least three studies have proven this to be completely false. This is just an anti-choice scare tactic.
Myth 4: Women use abortion as birth control
The reality is, the majority of women who experience unplanned pregnancies and subsequent abortions were using a different primary method of birth control that failed.
Myth 5: Women who have abortions do not want children
Of the women who have abortions, in 2008, 61 percent already had children. This number increased after the 2009 financial crisis to 72 percent.
Myth 6: Plan B is the same as an abortion
There are medical (non-surgical) abortions that involve drugs, but Plan B (aka “the morning-after pill”) doesn’t cause an abortion. It prevents implantation that is it!
Myth 7: Most Americans think abortion should be illegal.More than 60% of Americans believe in safe, legal abortion.
Myth 8: Abortion is safest if performed in a hospital.Actually there are laws requiring facilities to adhere to hospital like standards. An office based surgical procedure performed by qualified personnel in an accredited facility is equally as safe as a hospital procedure.
Myth 9: People of color are more likely to get abortions
Non-Hispanic white women account for 36 percent (the largest segment) of all abortions. Non-Hispanic black women follow at 30 percent, with Hispanics (25 percent) and women of other races (9 percent) accounting for the remainder.
Myth 10: People who aren’t religious are more likely to get abortions
Sixty-five percent of women who have abortions identify as Christian.