Woman who had abortion because of climate anxiety urged to seek counselling

A 37-year-old woman told columnist Annalisa Barbieri she had an abortion after being overcome by climate anxiety and is struggling to come to terms with her decision. She said she is happily married with two children, who arrived soon after she married in her late 20s, and that she developed postnatal anxiety.

Although she and her husband tried for a third child, within a week of becoming pregnant she felt an intense fear about the future and the impact of the climate crisis and opted for a termination. She described initial relief followed by devastation, treatment with antidepressants and counselling, continued sadness and regret, a later pregnancy that triggered the same anxiety and then a miscarriage.

Consultant medical psychotherapist and psychoanalyst Dr Jo Stubley told Barbieri she detected "loneliness in your letter as well as anxiety" and a sense of "breathlessness" and action rather than reflection. Stubley suggested the writer had "lost space for grief" and noted that "on some level we should all have climate anxiety.

Yet we all walk around with disavowal, dissociation and denial to not see how terrifying it is." Stubley advised the correspondent to work through what this means in the context of her life history, to face grief over the termination, the miscarriage and children growing up, and to return to counselling.

Key Topics

Health, Annalisa Barbieri, Jo Stubley, Climate Anxiety, Postnatal Anxiety, Abortion