Abortion

“By taking women’s conflicts seriously, psychiatrists were also among the first to articulate the hardship of forced pregnancy. . . . many psychiatrists supported women’s right to choose abortion without labeling them mentally ill or unstable. . . . Rather than look for indications of mental distress, psychiatrists stressed that patients were mature and mentally stable enough to choose pregnancy termination. . . . Despite the help that psychiatrists could offer women, the system of psychiatric consultation and referral was clearly limited in its ability to assist women in getting access to abortion. Psychiatrist were quickly overwhelmed with patients seeking consultations for therapeutic abortion, and at times such consultations became a charade, which frustrated both the psychiatrists and the women” (Schoen, loc 2427ff.).