Counseling and Abortion

For people who experience abortion, counseling can be helpful in guiding their decision-making process as well as making meaning from the experience moving forward. In an age where therapy is being increasingly normalized in social media and public discourse, it is reasonable to assume that some individuals may present to therapy prior to and following an abortion to assess and cope with the experience. This chapter provides an introduction to some counseling approaches that exist and may be helpful for these groups. Care is taken to distinguish between options counseling, abortion counseling, and postabortion counseling. Special consideration is provided for groups who are terminating a pregnancy due to fetal anomaly or the pregnant person’s health. In all cases, clinicians must adopt the perspective that any reason for an abortion is a valid one, and must be prepared to be person-centered, holistic, and empathic in their counseling work with abortion patients.