One of the greatest modern-era Catholic theologians and teachers of our time, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, once prophetically stated during a retreat that when the United States decriminalized abortion, it would trigger a severe mental health crisis among women. Now, as the Catholic Church draws nearer to his beatification, people are sharing that statement all over social media. And for good reason.
In his address on confession, Sheen discussed sin and how the weight of its guilt affects an individual's overall health. He then turned to the topic of abortion. He delivered the address in the mid-1970s, not long after the U.S. Supreme Court issued the infamous Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion in America.
“Just think, my dear ladies, of how many mentally disturbed women we are going to have in the United States in the next 10 or 15 years when the guilt of abortion begins to attack the mind and soul,” the archbishop pondered aloud. “For the present, they justify it on the grounds that everyone is doing it, and it’s only ‘scar tissue’ anyway,” he continued.
We still see this kind of justification for the horrific slaughter of pre-born children today. How often do abortion advocates claim that an unborn child is nothing more than a clump of cells? Practically every time the issue comes up in conversation. Leftists have become even more extreme in recent years, going so far as to call a child in the womb a parasite since it relies entirely on the care of the mother, implying that people should legalize abortions up to full term and even immediately after birth.
“As one doctor said to a girl who came in and said, ‘Well, it’s only a little scar tissue. Would you dismember it?’” the pro-life doctor responded, “‘What did you intend to call the scar tissue?’”
“So in years from now, the guilt will come out in a peculiar way, though at present, there may not be any,” Sheen eerily predicted. According to a report from LifeSiteNews, studies have repeatedly shown since the Roe decision that women who get abortions suffer mental health issues far more often than women who give birth.
A study released in the summer of 2025 found that abortions doubled the rates of "mental health-related hospitalizations," including substance abuse, attempted suicide, and psychiatric disorders. Abortion advocates, who resemble pagan priests calling for human sacrifices, ignore this inconvenient truth because they do not want the innocent blood to stop flowing.
Another study released in 2024 found that a year after getting an abortion, women showed a 50% higher likelihood of first-time psychiatric treatment, along with an 87% higher likelihood of personality and behavioral disorders. It is almost as if killing your baby in the womb constitutes an evil, unnatural act. Like murder. We all recognize murder as abhorrent because God ingrained His commandments in our hearts. No matter how much we try to suppress that spark, it remains.
“These findings corroborated other studies that found post-abortive women experience an 81 percent increased risk of mental health problems, that almost 10 percent of all mental health problems in women link directly to abortion, and that such women have a 61 percent increased risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),” the report continued.
Reports are circulating online that the Vatican will announce a date for Sheen’s beatification, perhaps coming in the fall of 2026.
