A study has found that 95% of women who had abortion did not regret the decision three years later. The study, titled Decision Rightness and Emotional Responses to Abortion in the United States: A Longitudinal Study, involved 667 American Women.

The study researchers said that emotional support plays a crucial role to benefit women having abortions because of unwanted pregnancies or difficulty deciding.

"Claims that woman suffer from psychological harm from their abortions, and that large proportions of women come to regret their abortions over time, at least in these data, are simply not true", said study researcher Corinne Rocca, who is an epidemiologist with the University of California, in San Francisco.

Rocca, who is also one of the study's lead authors, said that depression, anxiety, substance abuse and suicidal thoughts may occur in women who have had abortion, but these are not necessarily permanent.

Rocca said that many women feel negative emotions, like anger, sadness, guilt, and regret, after one week of the abortion. However, they get over these behaviors over the course of three years and start feeling positive emotions like relief and happiness.

Rocca said relief is mostly experienced by those women at every time period over three years after the abortion.

The Guttmacher Institute has revealed that late-term abortions account for one percent or fewer of all abortions in the US, meaning that 99% of all abortions are done before 20 weeks' gestation.