Pregnancy Options: Myths
Myth: You’ll feel regret if you choose abortion or adoption.
There is no one way that people feel after having an abortion or putting a baby up for adoption. You may have strong feelings or you may not feel very much. You may feel a lot of stuff right away, or you may not feel things about it for a while. You might feel guilty, or you might feel relieved. It really is different for everybody, and your feelings are likely to come and go, or grow and change as you grow and change.
As with any big decisions or events in your life, you may experience a difference in how you expected to feel versus how you actually end up feeling.
Myth: Plan B and the Abortion Pill are the same thing.
Plan B and the Abortion Pill are not the same thing.
Plan B is an emergency contraceptive pill that is taken to reduce the risk of a potential pregnancy. It contains hormones designed to delay a person’s ovulation for up to 5 days, which is long enough for any sperm to disintegrate before an egg is introduced to a person’s system. Plan B is designed to prevent a pregnancy from happening, and does not end an active pregnancy.
The Abortion Pill is actually two pills. The first pill contains Mifepristone, which stops the pregnancy from continuing, and the second pill contains Misoprostol, which expels the pregnancy tissue. This is done to end an active pregnancy, and cannot be used to prevent a pregnancy from happening.
For more on Plan B, check out our page on Emergency Contraception.
Myth: You can only get a certain number of abortions in your life.
There is practically no limit to how many abortions a person is able to have in their lifetime. Getting an abortion through a medical provider is generally a very safe medical procedure, and does not have long-term negative side effects.
Myth: Precum can get you pregnant.
Precum is the pre-ejaculate fluid that can be released from the penis during sexual stimulation. It is supposed to lubricate a person’s urethra so that it’s easier for semen (which contains sperm) to exit the body during ejaculation. Precum itself should not contain any sperm and therefore cannot cause pregnancy on its own. Even in cases where sperm does end up in precum (like if it’s leftover in the urethra from a previous ejaculation), the risk of pregnancy from this does still tend to be low. For more information, check our article: Can precum can get you pregnant?
