Monday 14 November 2011

Myth Busting Monday – ‘Abortion makes you infertile’

Every Monday EFC busts myths and take names, cutting through the misinformation, disinformation, and straight up nonsense to bring you the facts.

We’ve talked about this before but we think it’s worth repeating: legal abortion doesn’t cause infertility. Young people and professionals often come to us with concerns that someone who has an abortion will not be able to have children in the future. In fact, as the RCOG point out:

“There are no proven associations between induced abortion and subsequent ectopic pregnancy, placenta praevia or infertility”

In fact, “ovulation occurs within a month of first-trimester abortion in over 90% of women” which means that those wishing to prevent future pregnancies should get information about contraception following abortion. Some contraceptive methods can be fitted or initiated at the time of abortion while a woman's motivation is likely to be high.

This myth may relate to times and places where abortion is illegal and thus unsafe. However, some organisations in the UK are still making this claim about legal abortion: Care Confidential talk about ‘relative infertility’ as a risk of abortion and a centre in their network recently gave out literature stating that ‘sub-fertility or infertility’ is a longer term effect of abortion.

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