Crazy or just unwilling to put up with crap?
From the number of people who emailed me this article from the NY Times titled “Is There a Post-Abortion Syndrome?”, it’s clear that there’s high demand for a blog post about it. Jill covered it really well, but basically the sum total is that there is no such thing as post-abortion syndrome, and the very idea that there is a post-abortion syndrome only has come to fruition because the ever-creative anti-choicers are seeking a way to reframe abortion as bad for women. To my mind, they don’t do a very good job of this because they are generally quite aware that abortion is a good thing if you need one, but that anyone who needs an abortion is undeserving of good things. So to try to turn that on its head and pretend they want women who get abortions to do anything but suffer is asinine.
Still, “post-abortion syndrome” obviously has enough hooks to make an examination of it worthy of the NY Times’ attention. And I think that the reason it does has everything to do with our culture’s long tradition of using diagnoses of mental illness as a way to punish and control women for rebellious behavior. From the article:
For Arias, however, abortion is an act she can atone for. And this makes it different from the many other sources of anguish in her past. As a child, she was sexually abused by her stepbrother, she told me. An older boy forced her to have sex when she was 14; seven months later, she says, she woke in the middle of the night to wrenching cramps and gave birth to a baby girl who was placed for adoption. A year later, Arias’s father, a bricklayer to whom she was close, plummeted from several stories of scaffolding to his death. She left home and fell out of touch with her mother and two brothers.
But she blames the abortion and only the abortion for her suffering, to which Jill says:
I feel truly sorry for the women who say they are experiencing post-abortion syndrome. And so perhaps this will sound cold, but I can’t but think that maybe they aren’t using their abortion as a catch-all for long histories of depression, anxiety, and often abuse and other problems. It makes sense, psychologically — abortion is something you can control, and if the rest of your life has been fully out of control, you can channel that pain inwards and deal with the one thing that you did. Further, many women who are going in to get abortions are in troubled situations anyway — at the very least, they’re pregnant when they don’t want to be pregnant. If that pregnancy was caused by abuse, or happened to a girl or woman from a strict anti-choice family, or happened to a woman who already suffered from depression, it logically follows that there will be some ongoing issues, and the abortion will be grouped in with that.
And these two passages demonstrate why “post-abortion syndrome” just makes sense to people who are deeply invested in traditional gender roles—and the notion that the only thing a woman can control is the only thing that could be the source of her mental illness is the issue at hand. And women controlling things is what alarms them and needs to be snuffed out.
Defining what makes something a mental illness has always been difficult and hazy to do, so there’s a long history of mental illness being defined strictly as deviance from expected norms, many of which are oppressive. With women in particular, there’s a long history of defining women as mentally ill because they reject male dominance and the “treatments” have been extremely punitive. The most famous example is Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “treatment” of being confined and her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” that was a fictionalized account of it. A good book to read on this is For Her Own Good, which chronicles a number of ways that perfectly healthy women have been labeled mentally ill in order to control and punish behaviors that undermine male dominance. Some examples off the top of my head—doctors used to excise the clitoris in order to “cure” masturbation, white girls in the 50s who got pregnant out of wedlock were pretty much monolithically described as neurotic (which helped make it easier to coerce them into giving up the baby), the popular assumption that “career women” are emotionally stunted, and now we have anti-choicers desperate to define getting an abortion as the cause of mental illness (and it appears their belief that abortion causes breast cancer feeds the notion that they view illness as god’s punishment for women who disobey).
This view that illness is caused by and a punishment for deviating from one’s assigned role as a subservient female is the very reason that out of the long, long list of problems, events and traumas in Rhonda Arias’ life, only one was considered a legitimate reason for her to be depressed, and that’s the abortion. That’s because her other problems—the rape, the abuse, the unwanted pregnancy, the being forced to give her baby up for adoption(which is linked, unlike abortion, to depression)—all cast her in her properly passive feminine role. Only by trying to take control of her situation is Arias violating gender norms, and so only in that will her conservative Christian buddies allow that she is mentally ill.
We know for a historical fact that this attitude that women’s mental illness is only real if she’s violating a gender norm has traditionally been a part of the dehumanization and degradation of women. Not only do you have the Victorian rest cure where mental health was seen as only existing in women who had been immobilized until their will was broken, you also have the notorious mother’s little helper era, where again you see sedation as the only legitimate “cure” for a woman’s health problems, because they are only considered problems if they disrupt an oppressive system. Taken to its logical conclusion, things like rape are not problems unless they upset the men in control of the rape victim—an attitude much in evidence with the way Arias is being treated by her Christian buddies, who have convinced her that a long history of sexual assault is nothing compared to being a bad woman who has abortions in terms of trauma.
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Where do you find this pulp art? I love the idea of an experimental therapy where you have to talk to your analyst while in your underwear (and although I’m no expert on slips, I have to think most of them would do a better job of covering your ass, even if you are lying twisted and crumpled on the couch).
Something (among many things) that irks me about the “post-abortion depression” is that people use it to essentially say that women who don’t carry to term and give birth like good little fetal incubators are going to suffer from “mental illness”. All the while, many women who actually do carry to term and give birth suffer from post-partum depression. Does that mean that giving birth is wrong, too? I mean, really, maybe a truly good mother would just let the fetus live inside her forever; it’s taking that proverbial 30-year-old living in his mother’s basement one step further.
On a related note, I have a question: is it possible that women who deal with depression after an abortion (who exibit reasonably normal mental health before said abortion) do so for the same reasons that women who give birth suffer from post-partum depression? I realize that in almost all abortion cases, the fetus is nowhere near being as developed as a birthable child, but from what I understand, the body does continue to feel pregnant for a little while after the abortion procedure. It would make sense to me if this hormonal imbalance led to feelings of depression in some women. Please note, I am not saying that the fundie assertion that “abortion causes depression that hurts women so it’s wrong” has any credence whatsoever. I am merely asking if bouts of depression after an abortion could be related to bouts of depression after a “normal” to-term birth. This is something that’s been in my head for awhile, but it’s often not talked about on feminist blogs when dealing with the post-abortion depression argument. It seems like something that shouldn’t be overlooked, because it’s a nice little way to turn the fundie argument back against the abyss from whence it came (”so abortion hurts women because it makes them depressed. A lot of women who give birth suffer from depression afterward. So giving birth is bad for women too, and by your logic then should also be banned”). Of course, this is assuming we live in a world of logic, which many fundies don’t.
Andrea, everything I’ve read indicates that depression caused by abortion is a myth. No need to diagnose it, because a lot of women actually have depression relieved by abortion. And of course, if you are likely to suffer post-partum depression, abortion can be a prevention. I mean, you’re right that if there is evidence of this problem, feminists need to acknowledge it. But all research indicates that if abortion is a factor in depression, it’s correlative.
Ah, yes. It’s that nice little cycle of fundies saying that abortion makes women depressed due to feelings of guilt and other stress… and then those same organizations put people outside of clinics to wave signs of dismembered fetuses and tell the women going inside just how guilty they should feel.
Yep. “If you don’t feel guilty you really really should. I’m going to make you feel guilty right now! …GASP! Look, women feel guilty, quick, let’s ban it!”
The “logical conclusion” at the end of the post is exactly how rape was treated for a long time. I remember reading about a case where a female Renaissance painter was raped, and the courts ordered the rapist to pay restitution to her father, obviously because she was then “damaged goods,” and that made him upset. I don’t recall ever hearing about her mental state, although I’m given to understand she painted one hell of a Judith and Holofernes.
Hey Andrea - I actually HAVE seen your question addressed in pro-choice blogs (i.e. livejournal comms for one example). Being pregnant and then suddenly not being pregnant (be that from birth or abortion or spontaneous abortion) definitely changes the levels of hormones in your body, because hey, it’s not pregnant anymore, no zygote/fetus left to grow! But women report mood changes or depressive symptoms from being pregnant, from taking birth control pills, from lots of things. It leads me to believe that hormones COULD contribute to a short term symptom, but I don’t think it matters.
I think about it this way. I’m about to have oral surgery. I’m a) wishing I didn’t have to have surgery b) worried about all the trouble, the money, the pain. Afterwards I will probably a) feel somewhat relieved it’s over but annoyed by the pain b) still wish I hadn’t needed surgery c) will be feeling sorry for myself and eating ice cream on the couch for several days. Is that depressed? No. Is that a ‘mood change’? Yeah, kinda. Is that different than any other surgery, like oh say, abortion? No, not really.
If some report mood swings, okay, I’ll believe them (having never been pregnant and not being a doctor, how can I deny their experience?). But it’s probably a very benign short term symptom, much like my example above. Probably has nothing to do with ‘the baby.’
Another example: Plastic surgeons always tell their patients that they will likely feel depressed for a few days following the surgery. Why? Well, you’re in pain, it may have been a little scary, nervousness about the results, anesthesia effects, etc. Their advice? Wait a few days until you’ve healed more and can go about your normal activities. You’ll feel fine! And guess what, they do. SAME THING.
But we know anti-choicers are not talking about a short term symptom experienced by some people. They’re talking about chronic, actual depression caused by your “sin” and Amanda has given great answers as to why that is bogus as a post-abortion symptom. Worse yet, they try to make it sound like it is universal. They look to women who are not complaining of ‘post abortion syndrome’ and point to anything that they see as wrong with your life, (those late nights at the bars, dating/sleeping with lots of men (gasp!), anything!) and will say it is because of the abortion and your depression. Argh, it makes me so mad. So you can’t get away from their flawed logic. Even denial of depression is likely to be categorized as part of the syndrome to them!
Blog For Choice Roundup…
Feministe: Tales of the imaginary condition known as post-abortion syndrome. Why Jill is pro-choice. Oh, the anti-choicers, a.k.a., anti-contraception, misogynist white guys. Can you distinguish one of these clumps of cells from the other, or, why embr…
Face it, the reason abortion enrages some anti-choicers is that it allows the woman to “escape” the “consequences” of her sexual sin. So they invent crap like “post-abortion syndrome” to make themselves feel better.
Post-partum depression tends to be time-limited. The etiology is in part hormonal, and require third trimester levels of hormones. Second trimester pregnancy loss, whether natural or induced, does not cause a significant number of hormone-related depressions.
What this article does bring up is the need for affordable post-abortion mental health / counselling/ self-help group options for women - perhaps brought up to all women presenting for abortion, by a mention and a folder stating that if you need to talk about issues of depression or past abuse, see these resources or call that number for a referral. Of course, there is little or no funding for such care at the moment, but one could imagine something arising from a domestic violence agency/ group.
BTW, in a previous post Amanda mentioned “dilated to 9 cm”. That means the baby’s going to be delivered in minutes.
It would be kinda surprising if a woman who had an abortion didn’t have some kind of mood swings in the days/weeks after an abortion — “yay, I’m not pregnant any more! boo, my life is still as complicated as ever. yay, one thing off my back. boo, there’s all kind of social stigma attached to what I just did” and so forth. Maybe more, maybe less depending on the complexity of the decision and the amount of pain and drugs on board (some medical professionals think a couple of tylenol is the most you should have for a d&c).
But lots of things cause longer or shorter mood disturbances (moving, changing jobs, losing or gaining a partner, pet or roommate) without being invested with some big ethical dilemma.
What I find particularly creepy about Amanda’s (imo spot-on) formulation of the legitimacy of depression after abortion being a function of female agency (and thus supposed punishment for it) is the notion that there are millions of women in narrow anti-choice cultures who have experienced the same miseries without having had an abortion and can’t even allow themselves to believe that their problems exist.
Ashlee,
When I referenced possible bouts of depression after an abortion, it’s really that short-term drop in mood levels that I was talking about (ditto for post-partum; I realize that that’s usually a kind of depression that is time-limited). I certainly wasn’t trying to say that women are depressed for months or years after an abortion because of hormone levels. And again, to make that big disclaimer, I really don’t think that what the anti-choicers are saying is in any way right.
Usually when I come at this I think of one of my cousins, who dealt with depression after a pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage, but if it hadn’t, would have ended with an abortion. She felt incredibly guilty about not wanting the eventual baby and even wondered if she had somehow willed her body to “kill” it since she didn’t want it, etc. However, even as I’m writing this, I realize that, while part of her short-term depression was probably due to hormone levels, she was also brought up in the Catholic church and had a prior history of depression. And those two latter factors probably contributed to it more than anything else.
I definitely see what everyone is saying. Forgive the slow thinking.
)
And many gay people consistently suffer from depression, sorrow, and guilty feelings (even when they’re out and appear fully functional) because of their internalized homophobia. Clearly, homosexuality is to blame.
Andrea
–I think I totally get you and what you were saying. I am just REALLY bad at articulating myself sometimes and I was worried about others misinterpreting ME so I kind of went off on many tangents.
You’re def not the slow thinker
Add to this lobotomy, used disproportionately on women and children.
From a behind registration article from the New England Journal of Medicine:
The man who turbocharged the procedure, Dr. Walter Freeman, called the procedure “a mercy-killing of the psyche.” He is also the one who used an icepick.
MDtoMN — exactly. that’s the best way i’ve heard to say it, because somehow when i try to say “well no! everyone telling us we SHOULD feel guilty and depressed is liable to MAKE us feel guilty and depressed!” i get all tangled up over my phrases.
(or, trying to explain to my sister why grownups always talk about how girls can ‘get hurt’ if they ‘go too fast’, “uhm…good question. basically you get hurt by having sex when people around you believe that having sex will hurt you.” argh, bad at this.)
Great post Amanda.
It always annoys me when the fundie anti-choicers go on and on about “oh these poor depressed women who are depressed about their abortions WE MUST SAVE THEM” and completely forget about the women who were (and are) forced to carry to term and then give up their children. I’m thinking of scenes in The Magdalene Sisters, which came out a few years ago but I only recently got around to watching, and also a truly excellent doco here in Australia that was screened a couple of months ago. It was about a Catholic home for girls in Brisbane where girls were taken to have their children (up to the 70s, I think). They were then essentially forced to give them up, even if they wanted to keep them and would have been in a position to do so. Actually it might have been about the practices of the state itself, not just this Catholic home. Anyway, they interviewed heaps of women who went through that, and in particular followed the progress of one woman who was suing the state for everything she went through. Unfortunately she lost the case…
Anyway, I’m losing my point here. What I’m trying to say is that all the women interviewed were incredibly traumatised by the whole process. Of course, it may have been a skewed sample for the purposes of making the doco, I have no way of telling. But I’m sure I’m not the first person in the world to make this point, nor will I be the last: can’t the fundies see that forcing women to do something like this is likely to cause far more trauma than abortion?
Oh, I’m forgetting. Being forced to carry to term and then give up your child is part of being a submissive female unperson and so it’s totally ok and if you suffer any trauma as a result it means you’re baaaaaad.
Grrr.
Heraclitus, you’re too funny!! I myself have been in therapy, and believe that it would have startled my therapist into an early decline had I shown up in my foundation garments. Especially with my ass hanging out the bottom.
On a related note, I have a question: is it possible that women who deal with depression after an abortion (who exibit reasonably normal mental health before said abortion) do so for the same reasons that women who give birth suffer from post-partum depression?
As I understand it, the biggest risk factor for post-partum depression is a history or family history of depression. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a serious post-partum depression (as opposed to, say, the short-term “baby blues”) without that kind of history. A woman with a family history of schizophrenia is at higher risk of post-partum depression and/or psychosis even if she hasn’t had problems with it before.
For one example, don’t forget that Andrea Yates had already been treated for depression and psychosis several times before she killed her kids.
Considering that just about any stressor can trigger another depressive episode in someone who’s been depressed previously (mine were, respectively, romantic disappointment and unemployment), I don’t doubt that some women can trace a particular depression back to their abortion and the circumstances surrounding it. That’s a far cry from the depression being caused by the abortion. If that’s the case, I should get to sue the guy who broke my heart and precipitated my first major depression.
I expect it’s possible to experience hormonally-affected depression after abortion, seeing as I had a fairly profound mood shift after a miscarriage. In that case it was, near enough, euphoria, and that after the loss of a wanted pregnancy. Slightly disorienting but, well, it beat the alternative.
But I would assume that to be short-term and therefore not related to the illusory “post-abortion syndrome”.
Strikingly, at Stockton State, 85 percent of those subjected to lobotomy were women (the rate was 60 percent nationwide)
Ever seen Suddenly, Last Summer?
I have to say something here: I had an abortion, & I was not depressed.
My cousin has had two abortions, & she did not get dpressed. In fact today, she is a married woman with two beautiful children.
Uhura, thank you for sharing your story. Have you ever been to www.imnotsorry.net? It’s a great site where women like yourself can debunk the whole “When women have abortions, their souls rot and they spend the rest of their lives as empty shells, blabla depression-cakes.”
Interrobang - You’re thinking of Artemisia Gentileschi. Her Judith and Holofernes is here.
I think that a lot of women feel terrible after having abortion–mostly because it’s difficult to go through the process of obtaining an abortion without having being assaulted by some anti-choice propaganda. Obviously, if post-abortion syndrome were actually an issue, it could be resolved by de-stigmatizing abortion and helping to reassure women that they’re making the right choice, that they’ll be ok, and that they’re not “killing a baby.”
What seldom is mentioned is that these women who have “post abortion trauma” seem to have discovered this via an Evangelical or Catholic church. They have women who claimed they repressed it for years and then discovered that was their problem. The abortion only became a problem after they became involved with one of these churches. It is a pretty easy process for someone who is already having issues in life, the most typical person who turns to these charismatic churches. They show up looking for a way out or a distraction from an already miserable life. These churches pound all of this mind game about abortion and how guilty they should feel into the congregation. Of course some of these women who have had abortions will suddenly see it as the root of their life sucking because they were just told that it was. They just got done pounding all of the anti-choice dogma and guilt into their head.
The practices described in that recovery group would create a traumatic guilt complex in someone who never even had an abortion. It is a serious mind game, probably worse than some of the game they play with people in the ex-gay ministries.
An interesting tidbit to the South Dakota ban. All of the local women who were supposed victims and were actively campaigning on this. They are all members of a group of fundamentalist and evangelical churches that run these abortion recovery programs.
There is a correlation between the supposed trauma syndrome and some of these churches and groups.
Suppose, just supposing, that poor Yates girl
WENT nuts because she was trummelled into having 5 kids.
Super patriarchal husb, Medieval State (TX), fundie religious base
[could’na interrupted a pregnancy if she’d gotten choriocarcinoma]
and maybe just a wee scant disposition to depression?
Suppose?
Yes, Lucille. Women who lack a social context, or at least a welcoming social context, are told that they can join a group as full-fledged, respected members once they confess and commit to on-going activism. If the woman decides to do something non-abortion-related after confessing, be it going back to school, doing traditional used coats and soup kitchen church volunteerism, or getting a job, or getting married, she’s not going to receive group approval, and for women with shaky self-esteem, that could keep her in the group. Prime example would be Norma McCorvey, Roe of Roe v. Wade, who didn’t even have an abortion.
Norma McCorvey (according to Randall Terry & Operation Rescue) was systematically hounded for years until they found a way to suck her in. Reading it sounded more like turning a spy during the cold war.
Now you have these people taking pictures and license plate numbers and stolen medical records in Kansas. It sounded like the records that were handed over to the AG that have missing copies had names blacked out. But the potential for these people to start pursuing women they think had abortions because they went into a health clinic is scary. It could be their next desperate tactic.
Last year we got to see more of Leslee Unruh that anyone could stomach. But one thing became very apparent seeing her in action and on Tv etc. all the time. The woman seriously has some major mental problems. I’m not just saying this because what she was doing was so offensive. You started to get a feel via her behavior that she has some serious untreated mental issues. People almost felt sorry for her because she was being egged on by her husband and some of these anti abortion gurus and it seemed to just feed her already obvious mental illness.
I’m really touched by abortion opponents’ tender concern for the feelings of women they call murderers. But then I’m the kind of sap who is moved by rich Republicans’ selfless campaign to protect the working poor from the dire consequences of minimum wage increases, too.
“Everything I’ve read indicates that depression caused by abortion is a myth.”
Let’s be clear about the science for a moment. It’s accurate to say that there is nothing approaching conclusive evidence that connects abortion to a collection of subsequent mental health problems that are broadly defined as “post-abortion syndrome.� However it is not correct to imply that there are no studies linking abortion to post-abortion psychological problems. For example, a recent study by Fegusson, Horwood and Ridden (Fergusson, D.M., Horwood, L.J., & Ridden, E.M. 2006. Abortion in young women and subsequent mental health. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47(1), 16-24.) suggests a link between abortion and post-abortion mental health problems (including anxiety, depression and substance abuse). A Guttmacher Policy Review (Summer 2006, Volume 9, Number 3) fairly analyzes Fergusson’s work as follows: “Ferguson acknowledges that his study has enough shortcomings to warrant caution in reading too much into the findings.�
I recommend the Guttmacher Policy Review “Abortion and Mental Health: Myths and Realities� (http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/09/3/gpr090308.html) to anyone interested in further reading.
I have little doubt that a woman who is coerced into having an abortion will be no less depressed about that than a woman who is coerced into giving a baby up for adoption.
I think our issue should remain “who decides?” and why. I would think that would have a far greater impact on mental health than the act itself.
I had a couple of abortions when I was younger. Before having the first one, I wondered if I would be depressed afterwards for hormonal reasons, and I was prepared for it to happen. (I knew I wouldn’t regret the decision; I just thought some hormone fluctuation might get me.) Instead, I was just relieved and elated afterwards, and also delighted with my newly recovered ability to eat a pizza. So it goes.
Cole said: However it is not correct to imply that there are no studies linking abortion to post-abortion psychological problems.
I think it’s legitimate to discount studies that are not statistically valid. Otherwise, I could ask my two friends how they feel, then write that up as a study, and you’d have to acknowledge it as “a study linking X to Y.”
I’ve run an abortion information community and an after-abortion community for several years. And I had an abortion myself.
My conclusions are that there are a few women - few and far between - who suffer serious regret. I wouldn’t categorize it as a “syndrome” because that’s not what it is - not all grief or regret is a psychological disorder. Those feelings are valid, but they are also rare. They are much more common in women with other life problems, for obvious reasons.
But the vast majority of women deal just fine. Often some sadness for the first 1-3 months, often some significant upsetness while the pregnancy hormones clear out, but they are soon back to their normal lives.
Because human beings are resiliant. We get through things. We go on. And sometimes we are even empowered by our experiences. And also - abortion is not really that bad. In fact, for many women it is, dare I say, easy.
Feel free to check out my abortion information community for verification: http://www.livejournal.com/users/abortioninfo.
I refer to that community because there’s less in the way of statistical selection; we get women and girls from all walks of life with all different attitudes and emotions. We have about 80 member-donated stories linked there.
The only answer the fundies need is: so what if getting an abortion causes depression? Life causes depression. Does that mean we shouldn’t live?
I’ve aborted, and no problems. However, I’ve also dealt with the following in a couple of friend who have terminated pregnancies:
“I’m not depressed. Something must be wrong with me, because I had an abortion and I don’t feel guilty. I must be broken somehow.”
I think a great deal of what passes for “post abortion syndrome” is actually women who are *not* upset by the abortion, but are upset because they believe (due to societal roles and expectations) that a “normal, decent woman” would feel guilt and regret.
Eyelid writes: “I think it’s legitimate to discount studies that are not statistically valid.”
I agree. However the study by Fergusson, et al, is not statistically invalid per se. The research does have shortcomings which are acknowledged by the (pro-choice) researcher. Fergusson also cautions against attaching too much significance to the findings.
This does not mean that his results can be dismissed out of hand. To do so is to emulate the approach to science (or to intelligence, for that matter) of the Bush administration. Picking and choosing scientific study results based on a policy bias is a rightwing specialty. Let’s avoid that trap. In fact, the Fergusson study is fairly insignificant; we don’t need to pretend it doesn’t exist.
Do countries with strong anti-abortion movements have more depression post-abortion than countries that don’t?
Is there a post-adoption syndrome in women who give their babies up?
I think it mostly depends on the circumstances surrounding the abortion. I have a close friend who had a hard time overcoming a depression after her abortion, but I think she would have actually wanted to keep the baby, it’s just that she was 19 at the time and breaking up with the father, so the timing was very bad for her. She says she doesn’t actually regret it, because she knows it was the right decision to make, but it still haunts her to this day (over 20 years later).
I believe that women who abort because they really don’t WANT a baby (either ever or at that particular moment) are less likely to feel bad about it than women who abort because they can’t afford to pursue a pregnancy but would have wanted to have the kid if the situation had been different.
I’ve never had one myself, but I really don’t believe I would feel that bad about it since I really don’t want kids ever and I would probably feel like an alien had invaded my body until the abortion (which I would choose, without the slightest hesitation).
In the cathedral near the Plaza in Santa Fe, NM, my ex-wife and I liked to attend Christmas services while on vacation though neither of us was Catholic, and I am an “unbeliever” as characterized by religious righters here in my home town in Texas. And the service was fun since the interior of the building is beautiful and interesting. However, on our 1998 visit a priest bitterly inveighed against women who had had abortions and prayed to God for their healing, since they were inevitably damaged, or so he said. It was the worst humbug I could think of on Christmas day, and we never returned. Like George W. Bush, the priest did not think; he simply believed. Talk about indoor pollution, this cleric was unable to get into the spirit of the season, such as it is, and leave the hate-mongering against liberated women behind. I hope he found coal in his stocking. Carefully-validated studies on the effects of abortion, if any, will never have any impact on authoritarian wingnuts.
[…] Something (among many things) that irks me about the post-abortion depression is that people use it to essentially say that women who don t carry to term and give birth like good little fetal incubators are going to suffer from … – More – […]
Hello, my name is Burl, I’m a pro-choice activist and on the board of southern students for choice, a 19-year-old group with some experience in working with young people in conservative communities. I’m also a guy, so I have in a few ways a different and hopefully helpful perspective on the issues being discussed here.
First, from my understanding of the hypothetical Post-Abortion Syndrome (PAS), I don’t believe there is such a thing as PAS. I can argue that the evidence doesn’t support it from different perspectives, but since I’m a pro-choice activist, a guy, and I’m not a scientist, it could be said that I have a bias against fairly evaluating the validity of various PAS studies and diagnostic criteria. But if PAS was a valid syndrome, I suppose it could be listed as something like a DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) mental health “disorder�, kind of like manic-depression or PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), to give two examples of what most people would agree are scientifically valid, psychatrically useful definitions of mental disorders. I think even a layperson can read the DSM and gain a helpful understanding of psychiatric disorders, especially if one is careful not to use it as some sort of field manual for unprofessional labeling and diagnosis. If you look at what is alleged to be PAS as a hypothesized mental health disorder, and compare it to other mental health disorders, I think it’s easier to see that so-called PAS is all the more not likely to be a valid psychiatric disorder. If I can see that, even as a guy and with all of the above disclaimers applying to me, I think it’s all the easier to convincingly debunk PAS and the agenda behind it.
But keep an eye on the movement behind PAS, people. I think that what was once alleged to be “Post-Abortion Syndrome� may someday be similarly alleged in a hypothesized “Post-Emergency Contraception Syndrome� (PECS).
I don’t think that it’s likely that allegations along those lines are likely to lead to a significant effort to outright criminalize contraception any more than anti-choice efforts are likely to lead to abortion bans or overturning what little is left of Roe v Wade. Most antis actually do support abortion rights of a sort, namely for rape, incest, and “me�. There are a lot of bureaucrats, even avowed pro-choice allies, who in a perverse way benefit from restrictive laws (“reasonable� restrictions, in other words), as it makes them money. There are a lot more bureaucrats making money off of enforcing those regulations than there are abortion providers making money off of abortion, right?.
For adult women, there is a strong lobby against laws that in practice actually block (“unduly burden�, in the language of the 1992 Supreme Court Casey decision) adult women with some money and health insurance from getting an abortion, as even waiting periods and biased informed consent laws don’t really stop most determined adult women who want an abortion from getting one. But for minors especially, outside of the few states where there are no parental notification laws there’s little argument being put up anymore outside of fundraising appeals from pro-choice groups against parental notification or consent laws. I think that especially since the 1992 Casey decision, the idea that laws that might impair competent young and poor women from getting an abortion should be subject to “strict scrutiny� and overturned has all but vanished, even in the pro-choice community.
The lack of mention of the focus and impact of anti-choice efforts on young and poor women, even in otherwise apparently pro-choice articles like the NYT Magazine article discussed here (and most of the pro-choice comments I’ve read), and the persistent successful anti-choice efforts to hype PAS makes me very concerned that we see someday to allege negative effects from emergency contraception (EC) – perhaps a PECS? – which may influence restricting minor’s and poor women’s access to EC and to a fair choice among an increasing diversity of contraception options – options that older and more privileged women (and men) will continue to have access to, but which I’m afraid young and poor women may see themselves shut out from.
I hope a controversy over “PECS� – a term I invented which I’m pretty sure the antis haven’t even proposed yet – I hope it doesn’t happen. I’ll do what I can to rebut it if it does happen. But if it happens, I’m sure it will be very carefully targeted on young and poor women. And I’ll probably wish that my pro-choice colleagues would speak more directly, with commitment, on how it affects those young and poor women.
And I think I’ll be able to say for sure, you read of “PECS� here first.