Building on Part I and Part II of this series, further evidence of orthodoxies in science and how they close the door to inquiry and debate, to openness regarding truth.
First, Consider the American Psychiatric Association’s Official Position Statement on Abortion:
“The emotional consequences of unwanted pregnancy on parents and their offspring may lead to long-standing life distress and disability, and the children of unwanted pregnancies are at high risk for abuse, neglect, mental illness, and deprivation of the quality of life. Pregnancy that results from undue coercion, rape, or incest creates even greater potential distress or disability in the child and the parents. The adolescent most vulnerable to early pregnancy is the product of adverse sociocultural conditions involving poverty, discrimination, and family disorganization, and statistics indicate that the resulting pregnancy is laden with medical complications which threaten the well-being of mother and fetus. The delivery that ensues from teenage pregnancy is prone to prematurity and major threats to the health of mother and child, and the resulting newborns have a higher percentage of birth defects, developmental difficulties, and a poorer life and health expectancy than the average for our society. Such children are often not released for adoption and thus get caught in the web of foster care and welfare systems, possibly entering lifetimes of dependency and costly social interventions. The tendency of this pattern to pass from generation to generation is very marked and thus serves to perpetuate a cycle of social and educational failure, mental and physical illness, and serious delinquency.
Because of these considerations, and in the interest of public welfare, the American Psychiatric Association
1) opposes all constitutional amendments, legislation, and regulations curtailing family planning and abortion services to any segment of the population; 2) reaffirms its position that abortion is a medical procedure in which physicians should respect the patient’s right to freedom of choice – psychiatrists may be called on as consultants to the patient or physician in those cases in which the patient or physician requests such consultation to expand mutual appreciation of motivation and consequences; and 3) affirms that the freedom to act to interrupt pregnancy must be considered a mental health imperative with major social and mental health implications.”
One of the fundamental difficulties inherent in this position is the classification of abortion as a medical procedure. It assuredly is not, as medical procedures promote health and treat disease. Pregnancy is not a disease, and the APA has not put forward the health benefits from having an abortion.
APA also presents a non sequitur in characterizing teen pregnancy as, ” laden with medical complications which threaten the well-being of mother and fetus”. This is an antiquated statement, relying on the state of the art from 1978. Prenatal care has changed in 31 years. No mention of how abortion is any less fraught with “complications which threaten the well-being of the…fetus”.
How exactly can one publish data dealing with PAS, when the accrediting body of those doing the research declares its support for abortion in such unqualified terms? The answer may reside in this 2008 APA press release:
Statement of APA President Nada Stotland, M.D. on Abortion and Mental Health
(Arlington, VA – August 14, 2008) – A recently released report on mental health and abortion confirms the position of the American Psychiatric Association: abortion is not a risk to a woman’s mental health. APA President Nada Stotland, M.D., an expert on women’s mental health, made the following statement today:
“As we have known, there is no convincing evidence that abortion is a significant cause of psychiatric illness. We must distinguish illnesses from feelings. A woman may have many emotional reactions to an unwanted pregnancy and abortion – most commonly relief, but also sadness and a sense of loss. These feelings can coexist and, like feelings about any important life decision, they can vary over time. Negative feelings often stem from the circumstances that led the woman to terminate the pregnancy, such as an abusive relationship or a lack of social supports, or from the circumstances of the abortion itself such as demonstrators at an abortion facility. Women have abortions because they understand the importance of good mothering; they want to have wanted babies and to be able to give those babies what they need to grow up loved, healthy, and happy.
Each woman contemplating abortion has her own history, circumstances, and values; no one else can fully understand her individual situation. Every pregnant woman who is considering abortion has a right to accurate medical information about the risks and benefits of either continuing or terminating the pregnancy and to whatever medical and mental health care she wants and needs.
Decisions about reproductive health should be made between a woman, her family and her doctor. The best way to protect the mental health of women considering abortion is to ensure that they have accurate, unbiased information, receive good medical care, and are given support by family and friends whether they decide to continue or terminate their pregnancies.
The American Psychiatric Association opposes all constitutional amendments, legislation, and regulations restricting family planning and abortion services to any segment of the population.”
This more resembles an imperial pronouncement than a scientific statement. This statement begs the question: How can there be convincing evidence if the policy statement leaves one closed to contradictory evidence? Will The National Institutes of Mental Health fund such research? What reviewers will approve it? What journals will publish it? Few have been fortunate enough to get published, but have had their research dismissed at the level of the accrediting association.
Would that the APA put out a press release stating,
“As a scientific and medical body, the APA seeks to employ the state of the art technology in assessing the impact of abortion on women’s physical and mental health. The APA is committed to the discovery of truth, wherever that discovery may lead the Association, and believes that a full and honest regimen of pre-abortion counseling should include a detailed inventory of the physical and purported emotional/psychological risks to the patient, commensurate with such pre-surgical informed consent practices in other disciplines.”
As things stand, it sounds more like Planned Parenthood helped to draft APA’s position.
Later this week, consideration will be given in parts IV and V to APA’s cousin, the American Psychological Association and its position on PAS as scientific or anecdotal.
Coming Home 
I’m still baffled as to why people want to say abortion should be left to the woman, her family and her doctor. If she truly wants the abortion, why should she bother to discuss it with anyone but the clinic of where she’ll have the abortion? Which begs the question of the rights of the father, especially if he doesn’t want her to abort? (Please don’t mistake my stance, however, I am pro-life not pro-abortion)
I’m also baffled as to why if abortion was such a great choice, why does it leave women feeling so wounded, which then only gets worse over time, not better? I don’t understand how abortion is supposed to be supportive and better for women if it causes such emotional turmoil, even amongst those that don’t claim to believe in God?
Teen pregnancy fluctuates as to whether or not it’s appropriate, depending on the times. Not too far in our own past, most people were married in their teens so they COULD get started earlier on a family seeing how most families were big. Ever since it became normal to push the “rights of women” onto people to insist they HAVE to go to college, they HAVE to have a career, and all before having children, did suddenly teen pregnancy become so taboo.
I am a post abortive woman and I can assure you post abortion stress disorder does exist. It took me 10 years to discover that I truly had something wrong and it wasn’t something as simple as my husband and I had a fight over something stupid and I’ll get over it. Once I was able to connect the dots, I was set on a road of healing. I’ve had two abortions and the first was coerced, the second done out of the idea that I wasn’t going to get any support anyway so why not just prevent myself from having to listen to how I screwed up, the threats and go through all that crap again. I was made to feel as if I had no other choice and I am disgusted when people say “You made a choice, it’s your problem.” When a woman miscarries, she’s afforded time to grieve, people feel sorry for her or help her out. Yet when a woman aborts, she’s told to suck it up, she made a choice and to “get over it”. How in the world does this NOT contribute to her compounding feelings of loss?
Thanks for a great blog. I’ve learned so much just in the short time I’ve been reading here. And I apologize for rambling in my first comment.
Far from rambling, you’ve spoken powerful truth here today. I know that many reading here will lift you up in their prayers, as will I. You have two very special advocates in Heaven who pray unceasingly for their mom. I’m glad that you’re on the road to healing.
God Bless.
God bless you DDW! It takes alot of courage to comment publicly about past abortions.
I pray you will be healed.
Not one post abortion program has ever been contacted for any of their studies, nor have groups like Silent No More or Operation Outcry which has thousands of declarations to abortions harm by women who have had them.
The good news is more and more of us are speaking out to the truth of abortions harm and it is becoming harder and harder for the APA to hide the truth because everyone knows someone who is suffering from personal experience.
Thanks for a great blog!
Dirtartwife,
Pro-abort logic baffles me too. Logic is completely missing in the abortion debate. If a woman can take the advice of her family and doctor why do the pro-aborts demonize the Women’s Pregnancy Centers who are only there to provide more information about the same alternatives that family and doctors would most likely bring up. The WPC’s work is apparently too close to threatening the prosperity of the pro-abort industry.
Abortion providers’ jobs are all about money. If it wasn’t, abortions would be offered at FREE clinics one or two days a week as most necessary health care (ie. inoculations, dental work, check-ups, etc.) is.
Thank you for your honesty Dirtartwife. God bless you.
Theresa,
You’re welcome. And thank you for the affirmation. It means much coming from you. Visit frequently and comment often. Women’s voices are so powerful in this arena!!
God Bless
A friend of a friend of mine obtained a Ph.D in psychology as a by-product of working his way up the ladder of white collar support staff at a major university — he basically had the benefit of tuition free classes. I asked him “Isn’t it true that every time someone gets a Ph.D in psychology, a new mental illness enters the world?” He agreed.
Now, that is a bit of an exaggeration, but a Ph.D originally meant adding something new to human knowledge, and adding something new to psychology, roughly speaking, means identifying something in human thought and behavior as a mental illness, which was not before. As you might guess, I am highly skeptical of the entire field of psychology and psychiatry. There are genuine, organic, definable, mental illnesses, but there is also a lot of subjective definition of anything out of step with current cultural fads and assumptions as somehow an illness. That is why totalitarian regimes so easily round up their opponents for psychiatric care, because no same person would be anything by happy with our wonderful regime.
The distinction between “feelings” and “illnesses” in this context totally escapes me. If I am nauseous or dizzy, a doctor may not be able to identify an organic cause, but I feel sick. It is intellectually dishonest to say that an invasive medical procedure has NO risk, or that a procedure obviously fraught with a whole roller coaster of fundamental emotions and hormonal changes, not to mention the interruption of a pregnancy, could not possibly be the cause of anything which could be described as a mental illness.
We all know why this intellectual dishonesty occurs. Unfortunately, this particular medical procedure is a political football, with both sides trying to prove that their position is in perfect accord with all scientific, as well as emotional and spiritual, criteria available, while the other side are a bunch of heartless and/or brainless cretins. I’ll give the pro-life side credit for seeing more redemptive possibilities in the pro-choice individual than some pro-choice lobbies see in the devoutly pro-life. But both side play rough, and both sides bend any available fact to their intended purpose.
Everything quoted above about hazards of unwanted pregnancy is true. The denial that there is anything else to consider is what bothers me. DDW’s testimony is irrefutable: it is her personal experience. Nobody who did not share every cell of her body and every strand of her soul could argue that she is mistaken. But, her experience is not the experience of every woman.
I don’t believe a man responsible for the pregnancy of a woman who chooses to abort has any rights in the matter at all. What did he contribute? An illicit moment of tickled nerves and a spoonful of liquid. If it is important to a man to know that his seed will not result in an aborted pregnancy, he needs to (a) marry before having sexual intercourse, and (b) take the time to be certain he and his intended wife are of one mind on the subject. If the fetus could be transplanted from the unwilling woman’s abdomen into the willing man’s I would say he has a right to that. (I’m all for daddy having first right if mommy wants to put the baby up for adoption). But its not possible. She’s the one who has to carry it, and if she won’t, it’s not his place to intervene.
While there is a broad range of opinion among those who support leaving the decision on abortion up to the pregnant woman, not The State, I will say for myself that Women’s Pregnancy Centers have every right to be providing information and alternatives. There is no constitutional law in this country which supports the proposition that abortion is a positive good. It is my believe that the most legitimate pro-life action would be simply to communicate to a woman considering abortion “I will adopt your baby if you carry your pregnancy to term.” For every pro-life individual willing to make that commitment, and keep it, one less abortion will be performed.
I am aware that some mothers, offered that level of support, after delivery, will decide to keep the baby. Sadie Delaney tells a moving story of exactly that happening when she was practicing dentistry in New York during the depression: the mother said “I hope you won’t be mad at me, but I just can’t give up this baby now.” Dr. Delaney was fine with that.
“or from the circumstances of the abortion itself such as demonstrators at an abortion facility. Women have abortions because they understand the importance of good mothering; they want to have wanted babies and to be able to give those babies what they need to grow up loved, healthy, and happy.”
I love how the only thing that could be traumatic about an abortion is “demonstrators” outside the facility. Any medical procedure can be traumatic depending on the kindness and respect shown by the medical staff and unexpected complications.
Most of the people I have known or read about who have had abortions did so out of fear and desperation, not out of some great respect for motherhood.
Did anyone see the movie where Carol Burnett played a woman in her 40s, who had had an abortion in her 20s, and was now quite pregnant and planning to carry her pregnancy to term? She was scheduled to meet a young family friend at a clinic to hold her hand more or less before and after she had an abortion, a women in her late teens or early twenties. There happened to be a raucous “pro-life” demonstration outside the clinic as Burnett’s character arrived, and a young woman tried to dissuade her. Burnett, very very obviously pregnant, screamed back “I’m not here to have an abortion; I already had one!”
Two obscenities that go together: clinics that specialize in abortions, and shoving shouting people outside them trying to block people who have chosen to make use of their services. Training in abortion should be part of the education of every gynecologist and obstetrician who does not object on grounds of conscience. (Those who do, the training would be wasted, because they are not going to perform one anyway). Then, if in the course of a pregnancy, a woman has cause to consider abortion, it should be a private discussion with her own doctor. Generally, women who would never consider abortion should seek doctors who would never perform one. Women who want the option should seek doctors trained in the procedure.
No clinics devoted to abortion, no centers for demonstration, rights of individual conscience scrupulously respected.
SJ, You’re right, my experience isn’t the experience of every woman, just as not all births are identical even to the same woman. I’m about to give birth to my fifth child and believe me, even the pregnancy hasn’t been the same as my previous pregnancies. But when a woman that walks into a clinic, totally and 100% on board with aborting, has NO problems before, during or immediately after the abortion suddenly starts to wonder why she’s crying, why she’s having problems, can’t focus and is always depressed (which is an illness, not a feeling)… there is something wrong. For the APA to deny this is what bothers me.
It’s considered an illness if a soldier returns from the war zone with PTSD. He/she might not necessary have seen direct combat, but if they have PTSD, they have PTSD. But it’s NOT ok for a woman to experience a similar illness after an abortion, which IS traumatic to her on some level when it occurs whether she wants to admit it or not, there is a direct, violent action taking place in her body– that’s hard to ignore. The only difference is the time it takes for her to establish that the abortion was the catalyst for her PASD, just as it takes time for some soldiers to realize a certain experience while they were in a combat zone is what’s caused their PTSD. Then it becomes a time frame of working to heal themselves.
Society allows for a soldier to have PTSD, work to heal themselves, and work on dealing with the issues that both caused the PTSD and the issues surrounding it. However the APA is making it SO difficult for a woman that KNOWS the abortion has caused her PASD. I urge you to go on a Rachel Vineyard’s retreat, or talk to someone that has gone through a Project Rachel or Project Joseph (for the men) study. This is a real disorder that needs just as much attention as any other illness listed in the DSM-IV. The problem are the abortion supporters… they don’t want to acknowledge that this is a very real problem. It would deflate their claim of stating there’s no negative outcomes to abortion.
And if a man will be held legally and financially accountable for his offspring if a woman chooses to have the child, I fully believe he should have a legal leg to stand on as to whether that child lives or dies. No woman has a right to deny a man a child he helped to create whether the child was wanted, prevented, or unwanted. Whether feminists want to deny it or not, no woman is capable of getting pregnant without a man’s help (in other words, she still needs the sperm, whether she inserted it or he did is moot).
Thanks for all the kind words from so many of you that directed them to me.
I totally agree that women becoming depressed after an abortion is a bona fide illness, which should be documented, studied, and which women should be informed of. Everything in medicine that seems to have benefits also has prices, as I’ve said before. Maybe the risk of depression is a price not worth paying, and carrying the pregnancy to term is a better choice. I do actually remember working with a woman who, after having one son, decided to have an abortion when she became pregnant again. And she described, after the abortion, feeling light and free and happy. I’ve never been a woman, so I can’t compare the two experiences. I can picture how the depression could be a very probably outcome.
As to men having a say in whether to abort, I once read an op-ed piece by a lawyer who said a man should have a period of time during which he can renounce paternity: if she aborts, fine, we’re even, if she doesn’t, that’s on her, because I offered to pay for an abortion. I thought that was ludicrous. Its true that it isn’t exactly fair for the woman to have all the options for nine months, but life isn’t always fair. Women do all the real work of bringing a baby into the world, and men, if they are really men, support, comfort and wait on their wives, but they can’t carry the baby until after its born. If he wanted a say in the decision, he should have thought twice before impregnating her.
I belive that goes both ways. A man may not INSIST that a woman carry the pregnancy to term, may not impose that duty upon her, and, a man may not be excused from the consequences of his own actions just because the woman concerned refuses to take the easy way out. She is the one who has to live with the depression, just as she is the one who has to do all the work of carrying the baby.
And do you know why God set it up that way? Because God knew that men couldn’t handle the pain.