Today I am off to a conference on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in post-abortive women. One of the presenters will be Martha Shuping, M.D. (Psychiatry) who is a leading expert in the field and the author of The Four Steps to Healing (In both Catholic and non-denominational editions).
This conference is another step in my journey into understanding post-abortive suffering and healing. It is one more front in the war over the effects of abortion on women and men. I have been privileged to be welcomed on that road by some extraordinary women who are post-abortive, such as Carla Stream, Nicole Taylor Peck of Silent No More, and Theresa Bonopartis of Lumina. These gentle women have taught me a great deal, and Dr. Shuping will no doubt add substantially to the volumes taught to me thus far.
We’ll be dealing with this topic in the near future here at Coming Home. Have a great day.
Coming Home 
Be sure to educate us all on what you’ve learned!
Many blessings…..
This is an area I would like to see “pro-choice” and “pro-life” people sit down together and talk, leaving concerns about what would make good talking points for who in their respective political battles at the door. I suspect that is mutually unacceptable to people at both poles, but it is vitally important to the overwhelming majority of the population.
I have no doubt that this post-abortive stress is real. I also have no doubt that those affected are less than all women who have abortions, and probably well under half. However, as I’ve said before, for each woman who is affected, it is one hundred percent.
Effectively screening out women who will experience post-abortive trauma, who definitely should NOT have an abortion, requires that a wide variety of information be available, without intensive pressure. Women who are going to feel guilt and remorse afterward already have a strong orientation in that direction anyway. If a woman ASKS to see a sonogram, that is a good sign she SHOULD see it, and probably will NOT choose to abort. Better to recognize it early, rather than hear her ask “is that my baby?” after it is over.
There are two obstacles to doing this right. The first is, people in “abortion services” delivery continue to sustain their own sense of integrity by assuming that what they offer is a good thing for women, generically, and seem to have a mental block against considering that ANY woman could feel shame, remorse, or regret after an abortion. Therefore, they reflexively deny that there is ANY reality to this response. The second is, people in the “pro-life” movement find it reassuring to their set of convictions to infer that ALL women have intense post-traumatic stress, that ANY abortion is a violation of womanhood, because, the pro-life movement advocates that with very rare exceptoins, no woman should be allowed to have an abortion.
It is sad that we can’t accept that each individual woman is a unique person, who needs ALL available information to make an individual decision, and the respect to be allowed to make that decision, without being made into a cipher and a political talking point for someone else’s political agenda — whether that agenda is “pro-choice” or “pro-life.”
Siarlys, why would any woman feel trauma after simply removing hollow tissue from her body?
Do you think that women might legitimately feel emotional trauma after having cysts removed from their ovaries?
Gerard: THANK YOU for taking the “journey into understanding post-abortive suffering and healing”! May it be a rich mutual blessing!
Siarlys: It took me 21 years to realize that I was suffering from post-abortion trauma. And then, thank God, I finally met people who let me be honest about it, who didn’t talk me out of my feelings or rationalize them away. That was when my healing (on many levels) began. I was talked into my abortion (or at least not talked out of it), then talked out of my emotional response to it. It was all lies and betrayal. Yes, that’s how I feel about my abortion and all the lost years that followed: betrayed!
“Women who are going to feel guilt and remorse afterward already have a strong orientation in that direction anyway.” What is that “orientation”? I think you mean a conscience. So, women who have a conscience are predisposed to feel guilt and remorse after an abortion? Duh.
Psychopaths are people who “do not experience shame, guilt, or remorse for their actions.” So, is it really healthier NOT to feel guilt and remorse? Isn’t it those who are inclined not to feel guilt and remorse whose mental health we need to be concerned about when it comes to making a decision about two human lives–their own and their child’s?
Think about it.
“Effectively screening out women who will experience post-abortive trauma, who definitely should NOT have an abortion, requires that a wide variety of information be available, without intensive pressure. Women who are going to feel guilt and remorse afterward already have a strong orientation in that direction anyway. If a woman ASKS to see a sonogram, that is a good sign she SHOULD see it, and probably will NOT choose to abort. Better to recognize it early, rather than hear her ask “is that my baby?” after it is over.”
well others have sort of beat me to it.
But this is absolute nonsense.
Some women have an abortion and at the time spiritually and emotionally they really aren’t affected. Or so it would seem….
It sometimes takes the experience of life before they comprehend what they’ve done.
For example, a woman who marries and becomes pregnant, feeling her baby in her womb for the first time.
Abortion harms a woman on many levels.
It harms her spiritually, physically, emotionally.
Often that harm does not show up immediately.
Many women can trace negative behaviors and/or health issues directly back to the abortion.
And how would you screen a woman under the age of 21?
Do you know anything about how the teenage brain develops?
Do you understand that most teens cannot understand the consequences of their actions and decisions?
Once again, you are trying to circumvent the “reality” of abortion. Abortion kills another human being.
What you are proposing is to try to stifle the God given aversion to murder by supposed screening.
We have a name for persons who kill without an conscience – psychopath. 😦
(OMG Alice, I wrote the exact same thing as you!)
Taking human life produces stress.
Even if you claim “self defence”, which is what abortion is based on, doubt will creep in on your decision. Abortion is doubt about the future, and if your future turns out good/happy from “defending yourself”, you have based your “good life” on taking human life.
Mary Catherine: birds of a feather…. :^)
Astran: Great points and well said!
“It took me 21 years to realize that I was suffering from post-abortion trauma. And then, thank God, I finally met people who let me be honest about it, who didn’t talk me out of my feelings or rationalize them away. That was when my healing (on many levels) began.”
This is a sign of true love for a person!
I’m happy that you’ve found healing and forgiveness.
God loves you Alice! 😀
Thanks for the reminder, Mary Catherine! It’s day by day. God bless you!
Naturally, at this site, my viewpoint will hit a few nerves. However, if you take a step back, and look around the world, every woman is not going to have the same response. I recall women who spoke of how relieved and happy they felt after an abortion — and one of them already had a son, who she loved, but simply didn’t want another child. I also recall women who said, I could never have an abortion, but I wouldn’t impose that on anyone else — however, when they found themselves pregnant, they lost no time in having one. I asked one about her earlier comment, and she replied, “Well, when it actually happens to you…”
Alice, I’m sorry you had people around you trying to rationalize your feelings or talk you out of them. You should have met someone like Mary Catherine on your way out of the clinic. Seriously, there are women who NEED Mary Catherine. There are others who don’t.
Bethany, a woman who felt almost immediately that she deserved to suffer (such as the niece of a woman who commented on another post recently) probably didn’t feel that she had removed hollow tissue from her body. There are subjective and objective boundaries here. Some women really believe that it was a baby they had removed. Some don’t. At some point we have to draw a line and say, its not your decision any more. You know where I draw that line. As long as it is her choice, if a woman feels its wrong, as you certainly would, its going to hurt if she lets someone talk her into it anyway.
There is nothing wrong with doubt. Few decisions any human being makes are perfectly correct. A retired pastor I talked to said that if he killed a man who was in the act of raping his wife, it would be justifiable homicide, but it would still be sin. He would feel guilty about it. There is no reason a decision to abort a pregnancy should be oh yes, nothing to it, all good, no prices. There are prices. How high a price, against what purpose, is impossible to set rules for.
I’ve said before that if I were responsible for a pregnancy, and I had an opinion that abortion was or was not an appropriate consideration, I would have to leave the ultimate decision up to my wife. If she followed my advice to carry the pregnancy to term, she would be the one to go through morning sickness and contractions and everything in between. If she followed my advice to abort, and felt guilty about it, she would feel the depression and remorse in ways I never could. That’s why its up to her.
Hi Siarlys,
Truly I understand where you’re coming from. Your intention is to be compassionate to women. That’s admirable. What I have trouble with is this: you say “There are subjective and objective boundaries here. Some women really believe that it was a baby they had removed. Some don’t.” The thing is, it either is a baby or it isn’t. That’s the “objective boundary.” Science is very convincing that from conception onward, it’s a new, unique human being–a developing, unborn baby. That’s not a matter of belief. That’s scientific fact.
How a person FEELS about doing something wrong is distinct from whether something is subjectively wrong or not. I could beat or molest my born child and FEEL perfectly justified and entitled to do so for a variety of reasons, but that wouldn’t make it right, would it?
I wish I had met someone like Mary Catherine on my way INTO the clinic! I wish even one person in my life had believed differently than you do about my situation and told me the truth and shown me tough love back then rather than letting me make such a profound decision on the basis of fear.
I too felt relieved for a while after my abortion, but that relief was shallow and temporary and based on ignorance about what I had actually done and its ramifications. Again: just feelings. Any mature person knows we can’t live our lives on the basis of feelings alone. We have to function in spite of them most of the time.
I was not able to become pregnant after my abortion, despite 15 years of trying. I wish I had realized back then what I was giving up. I wish I had realized the gift I was turning down, the price I was paying. The price my child was paying. The price my family was paying.
“At some point we have to draw a line and say, its not your decision any more.” That point should be when we realize that a new human being has come into existence. That should always make all of us–not just as individuals but as a community–tingle with awe at the miracle, no matter how or how many times it has happened on this planet. We have no sense of wonder and gratitude because we think we know so much and are in control. If I’ve learned anything in my life it’s how little control I have, and how much I ruin when I try to control things.
I’ll shut up now. I hope you’ll take something I said to heart. An even deeper compassion awaits you.
Siarlys, I notice you didn’t answer my second question.
“Do you think that women might legitimately feel emotional trauma after having cysts removed from their ovaries?”
How a person FEELS about doing something wrong is distinct from whether something is subjectively wrong or not. I could beat or molest my born child and FEEL perfectly justified and entitled to do so for a variety of reasons, but that wouldn’t make it right, would it?
Exactly, April…great point.
“I recall women who spoke of how relieved and happy they felt after an abortion”
Happiness based on killing a human life produces stress. I don’t dought my decision if it saves a life, but I doubt myself eventually if I take a innocent human life. Abortion is doubt about the future.
Do you deny a abortion kills a human life,Jenkins?
Well-argued pro-lifers! Thanks.
Hi Alice,
I’m not sure if I’m trying to be compassionate to women or not. I don’t want to take credit where it doesn’t fully belong. I’ve never been a woman, and I know there are women on both sides of the abortion debate. I am strongly inclined toward individual autonomy in many situations, subject to the limitation that “Your right to swing your fist ends where the other guy’s nose begins.” When it comes to abortion, of course the argument always comes back to, when does a woman’s right to control her own reproduction end, because there is a baby who would be harmed?
I also have come to the conclusion, over a lifetime of thinking that new laws will solve everything, that we have to be very careful about what the blunt instrument of the law is actually capable of. Assuming everything Bethany has ever said is absolute objective truth, I might still oppose criminal penalties. I might think they do more harm than good. That’s not true of all laws everywhere anytime on any subject, but we have the example of Prohibition. Carrie Nation wasn’t wrong about the evils of Demon Rum, I can still sympathize with her taking an ax to every tavern she could make her way into. But, a constitutional amendment and criminal legislation turned out to be a very bad idea for the entire country. With alcohol legal, there are still churches who teach it is a sin to drink it, and we badly need Alcoholics Anonymous and AODA programs. On the other hand, some social drinkers handle it very well.
It is true that how a person feels is not the test of right or wrong. I often feel like doing something I know is wrong. It is less common that I feel entirely good about something afterward if I know it was wrong. But the issue was raised here, that women feel profoundly depressed or remorseful after having abortions, and that this is one reason they should not be allowed. I offered the information that that is not a universal experience. I think the undoubted fact that many women do feel that way should be widely disseminated — young women should know that this is a very real hazard, and why. Obviously, even if it does not kill a baby, as many believe it does, it is the artificial interference with a natural process, which a woman’s body naturally invests a great deal in.
Your experience is also an appropriate caution — many women do become pregnant after an abortion, but not all, and some might not. Dorothy Day was fortunate — if I remember correctly, when she became pregnant after an abortion, she said “I never thought God would give me another chance.” The father, an avowed anarchist atheist who was devoted to her, but didn’t understand her increasing religious faith, and opposed marriage on principle, couldn’t fathom that one at all.
I draw the line based on whether what is growing inside the mother has all its organs in place and working in relation to each other — a complete organism, that is aware of what happens to it. That’s the line for legal intervention. The line for what is the right choice to make — you have to make that decision based on everything you believe.
Bethany:
Perhaps I should explain that I’m not trying to answer every question you have to your satisfaction. I try to keep up a reasonably mutual conversation, but I know we’re not going to agree anytime soon. What I mostly look for is whether I can answer your question to MY satisfaction. That’s my test of the integrity of my own beliefs. As Michelle said, iron sharpeneth iron. When I can’t answer your question to my satisfaction, that is when I have to question the integrity of what I have, up until that point, believed to be true and right.
That said, since it is important to you, I think a woman might well feel trauma after having cysts removed from her ovaries. There was a discussion at Alexandria by a man whose wife had both ovaries removed by a surgeon during unrelated surgery, because he thought (erroneously) there might also be something wrong with one ovary, and at her age, he decided she didn’t need the other one either. The original discussion was about malpractice liability — there is a legitimate place for some malpractice claims. She didn’t feel remorse, of course, but she felt a great deal of anger. What she really wants is to have the doctor’s corresponding organs in a jar on her desk, but we don’t have a legal process for that any more.
I have a dear friend who has had a complete hysterectomy, for therapeutic reasons, and had a gall bladder removed. She would have liked to consider having another child, and now can’t, and after the gall bladder surgery observed wistfully, “The longer I live, the more pieces of me are taken away.”
I don’t think cysts, ovaries, hysterectomy or gall bladder, are directly comparable to removal of a pregnancy. But there could be some common factors to whatever trauma or recovery is involved. Now, when a woman feels depression after abortion, is it purely hormonal? Is it purely a matter of stricken conscience? Is is a matter of physical trauma and pain? Is is a combination of two or three of these factors and two or three more? I don’t think anyone fully knows.
That said, since it is important to you, I think a woman might well feel trauma after having cysts removed from her ovaries. There was a discussion at Alexandria by a man whose wife had both ovaries removed by a surgeon during unrelated surgery, because he thought (erroneously) there might also be something wrong with one ovary, and at her age, he decided she didn’t need the other one either. The original discussion was about malpractice liability — there is a legitimate place for some malpractice claims. She didn’t feel remorse, of course, but she felt a great deal of anger. What she really wants is to have the doctor’s corresponding organs in a jar on her desk, but we don’t have a legal process for that any more.
I think you’re aware of what I’m really asking, Siarlys, but I’ll clarify anyway.
What I mean is, do you think that a woman might LEGITIMATELY have grief about removing a cyst from her ovary, if she truly believed that the cysts were her babies?
Would you consider that as legitimate as post abortive grief?
And there is a difference in removing an ovary and removing a cyst anyway… but I digress…
I don’t think cysts, ovaries, hysterectomy or gall bladder, are directly comparable to removal of a pregnancy. But there could be some common factors to whatever trauma or recovery is involved. Now, when a woman feels depression after abortion, is it purely hormonal? Is it purely a matter of stricken conscience? Is is a matter of physical trauma and pain? Is is a combination of two or three of these factors and two or three more? I don’t think anyone fully knows.
That is baloney and you know it.
I mean, it is just like saying, “I wonder why a person might feel depression after killing their newborn baby? Maybe it’s a matter of physical trauma and pain? Is it hormonal? I don’t think anyone fully knows”.
I think it’s intellectually dishonest to pretend like you don’t know why a woman would feel depression after abortion.
I recently ran across a clip of one of the “I Regret My Abortion” speeches — I think these are the ones Gerard would like me to hear. It happened to be an actress who is apparently well known, although I don’t follow Hollywood much. There is no doubt as to her sincerity. She described her first response to being pregnant, “I was thrilled.” Well, that really says it all. Of course she regretted her abortion. She never wanted one. Her boyfriend did, her parents also did, she didn’t. One person is not a statistically reliable sample, but that is a good clue. Probably we could all agree that in a more sane culture, a woman would not become pregnant by a man whose mind and heart she did not know well enough to be sure he would be of one accord with her.
Do ALL women feel that way? I’ve met a few who gave very different descriptions, and appeared to be sincere. I cannot of course read their mind. I’ve never been a woman, and never expect to be one, so I don’t know how pregnancy feels. My sense, one step removed, is that interrupting a natural process, which is one of the things a woman is designed for, which is certainly at the core of her being, would at minimum cause a good deal of trepidation, even if she doesn’t consider what is removed to be a baby. As I’ve said many times, if its legal, you won’t go to prison, but that doesn’t mean its the right choice. I know how you feel, you’ve stated it many times. As long women have a range of different feelings and responses, I wouldn’t make it a matter of criminal law.
So is that a yes or a no?
We’re not talking about anyone killing a new born baby.
What’s the difference between a newborn baby and a baby in the womb? Location, location, location. And level of development–just as the difference between an infant and a toddler is development, and the difference between a child and an adolescent is development . . . and so on and so forth. It totally baffles me when people can’t see that or simply dismiss it! Especially now that embryology and ultrasound technology are so advanced. I mean . . . duh.
So it doesn’t matter where or when or how the killing occurs–it’s still killing.
Siarlys, why avoid the question?
Refer to my post at 7:50 PM.
Is your answer a yes or a no?
Alice, it baffles me as well! Some people are willfully ignorant, I believe.