Does abortion hurt women? Should women be protected from future regret for choosing to have an abortion?
This is the question anti-choice activists are asking in their new front in the battle to deny women the right to choose what to do with their own bodies. Writing in the majority for the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, Justice Anthony Kennedy provided sustenance to the anti-choice movement:
“While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained. Severe depression and loss of self esteem can follow.”
Much more on the flip (this one is long...)
Recently, PBS’ excellent public education show NOW covered this topic in depth. Kennedy did not pull this idea of “regret” out of thin air. He was briefed by a group that calls itself the Justice Foundation. Maria Hinojosa tells the story:
HINOJOSA: It's a seismic shift in strategy...a carefully calculated effort to convince the public that abortion irreparably harms women. The Pro-Life movement has invested millions in a multifaceted strategy that embraces the language of the Women's Right's Movement, promotes questionable scientific evidence and seeks to portray women as victims.
PARKER: If you really go to an abortion clinic and look in the recovery rooms, many, many, many of the women are crying at that time. What other medical procedure do people cry about?
HINOJOSA: Meet attorney Allan Parker, one of the new movement's key legal strategists...he's president of an organization that calls itself the Justice Foundation.
PARKER: Many, many, many women come to regret deeply. And have various kinds of reactions psychologically. Suicidal thoughts, crying spells, anger, promiscuity, drug abuse, many of those types of symptoms.
PARKER ON VIDEO: We're glad you're with us this week. You're going to hear from Rhonda and Denise from the secret places of their heart. You're going to hear some of the most amazing testimonies about what abortion does to women.
HINOJOSA: Parker's group makes films which air on Christian Television. They present stories from women who say they've been harmed by abortion.
WOMAN1: And it led to time in a mental hospital and it took over two years to recover.
WOMAN2: I thought the only way to escape the pain was to take my life. It was like I was caught in this death trap.
HINOJOSA: Viewers are encouraged to send in their own stories—but not in the usual manner...Parker is asking for signed affidavits—to help in the legal fight to overturn abortion rights in America.
You can click on the Justice Foundation's website and pull up a blank one with instructions on how to fill it out. So far Parker and his team have collected nearly 2000 signed and notarized affidavits.
PARKER: And we believe those affidavits are like gold. They've been refined in the fire of a woman's heart.
You all presented the 2000 affidavits.
WOMAN: We presented the affidavits. That's correct.
HINOJOSA: Parker is using them to build court cases challenging existing state and federal abortion laws. And his brief has made it all the way to the Supreme Court. The shift in strategy is working.
I found this comment above odd:
many, many, many of the women are crying at that time. What other medical procedure do people cry about?
I worked in hospitals for 20 years and virtually every patient immediately post-surgery was crying. Especially if the painkillers were wearing off. The abortion procedure involves painkillers from as little as ibuprofen to as much as IV drugs administered during the procedure. Tolerance for pain is quite variable. The vast majority of women in the recovery room are NOT crying in an abortion clinic. Those that are most often are expressing relief.
Whereas some women may indeed have regrets and/or other emotional pain post-abortion, this is not the case for the vast majority of patients.
HINOJOSA: But some women were shocked. In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said the majority opinion turned back the clock on women's rights, by depriving women of "The right to make an autonomous choice."
Ginsberg charged that the ruling relied on "Ancient notions" about women and their ability to make decisions for themselves.
DR. STOTLAND: It's—it's very sad to see the well being of women used as a tool to decrease the well being of women.
HINOJOSA: Dr. Nada Stotland is president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association...we caught up with her while she was visiting her pregnant daughter in New York City.
DR. STOTLAND: It was a great shock to me to find out that—legislators and judges could write down anything they wanted whether it had a scientific basis or not. And, that Supreme Court opinion did not have a scientific basis.
HINOJOSA: Every year in the United States about 1.3 million women terminate their pregnancies. And while it's often a wrenching decision, most studies show that the vast majority of women suffer no long term negative mental health affects.
DR. STOTLAND: There is no such official psychiatric diagnosis despite attempts to produce what looks like evidence
HINOJOSA: In fact both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association—two giant mainstream scientific institutions—say there is no causal link: "Abortion in and of itself, is not associated with negative mental health consequences."
As a psychologist friend of mine commented, women that have emotional trauma about abortion probably have emotional trauma about a number of things. So what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Is it the abortion itself that leads to emotional upheaval? Or is it the circumstances of a woman’s life leading to the choice of abortion that are the culprit?
I am a patient advocate at a Planned Parenthood clinic. I have written about my experiences in this diary….admittedly a rather dry account of what happens in an abortion clinic. But for all the clinical description of day-to-day life in an abortion clinic there are women there, making moral choices the rightwing in this country find inconvenient to acknowledge. The moral choice of abortion is more than choosing to end a life. It’s also about choosing not to bring an unwanted child into a world where it may be abused or neglected. It’s about choosing for the children you have to be cared for adequately. It’s about knowing you’re not emotionally, physically, mentally or financially capable of taking on the awesome responsibility of parenthood. These are the unacknowledged moral choices women make every day.
Take the case of Angela. Angela is 18 years old. She may be pregnant woman but she is an emotional child. The procedure is more uncomfortable for her than usual because her boyfriend of the week insisted on having sex with her over and over the night before the procedure. This boyfriend is not the father of her child, that guy took off weeks ago. Angela does not really have a home. If some guy is nice to her for a few minutes, she’ll follow him home and show him how thankful she is. Sometimes she stays for a week, sometimes a month…it varies. She tells me after the procedure is over “I know I should stay away from these guys but I just hate to be alone”. Angela may regret her abortion someday but what do you think? Would it have been the actual procedure itself or would it have been her life at the time as cause for depression? Is it the abortion itself the caused the low self-esteem or was it the lifetime of experiences that leads her to sleep with strangers just for the company?
Then there was Sarah. Sarah was in her early 30's and the most dignified woman I'd met yet in the clinic. She was a tall and beautiful black Musllim woman. She had an 11 year old and a 1 1/2 year old at home. She was married to an abusive man and was in the process of getting a divorce. She was also starting law school, taking the steps necessary to take charge of her life and make a better one for her children and herself. A parting gift from her husband was a rape that resulted in this pregnancy.
Abortion wasn't an easy decision for her but she was determined to be there for the children she had. She was one of the more stoic patients I've encountered. She endured the procedure quietly. Towards the end, she squeezed my hand hard and quietly whispered "I'm a good mother to the children I have".
I replied, "That wasn't even in question"
Someday Sarah may regret having that abortion, true. More to the point, she may regret marrying the wrong man. She may regret being involved with someone that would force himself on her against her will.
Women have regrets about the past every day. They may become depressed, they may have low self-esteem, they may even be suicidal. But this is life in all its pain and glory. The notion that the courts should be in the position to “protect” women from the hard decisions infantilizes us. The idea that one group of people feels it’s their duty to legislate away life’s pain is ridiculous. Women need to step up and start refuting this new meme from the anti-choice movement TODAY.
I may have made mistakes but I’ve learned from them. I’ve grown. That’s what it means to be pro-life….or should I say pro-living?