After an abortion, some women may exhibit a form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) called post-abortion syndrome. PTSD is the result of having suffered an event so stressful and so traumatic that the person is taken beyond his or her ability to cope in a normal manner, and PAS affects post-abortive women in a similar way. Victims of PAS are unable to simply resume their lives where they left off before the traumatic event. Instead, they experience a variety of reactions that do not go away merely with the passage of time.