Why not allow abortion for rape pregnancies?

We must approach this with great compassion. The woman has been subjected to an ugly trauma, and she needs love, support and help. But she has been the victim of one violent act. Should we now ask her to be a party to a second violent act -that of abortion? Unquestionably, many would return the violence of killing an innocent baby for the violence of rape. But, before making this decision, remember that most of the trauma has already occurred. She has been raped. That trauma will live with her all her life. Furthermore, this girl did not report for help, but kept this to herself. For several weeks or months, she has thought of little else. Now, she has finally asked for help, has shared her upset, and should be in a supportive situation.

The utilitarian question from the mother’s stand-point is whether or not it would now be better to kill the developing baby within her. But will abortion now be best for her, or will it bring her more harm yet? What has happened and its damage has already occurred.

She’s old enough to know and have an opinion as to whether she carries a "baby" or a "blob of protoplasm." Will she be able to live comfortably with the memory that she "killed her developing baby"? Or would she ultimately be more mature and more at peace with herself if she could remember that, even though she became pregnant unwillingly, she nevertheless solved her problem by being unselfish, by giving of herself and of her love to an innocent baby, who had not asked to be created, to deliver, perhaps to place for adoption, if she decides that is what is best for her baby. Compare this memory with the woman who can only look back and say, "I killed my baby."

But carry the rapist’s child?

True, it is half his. But remember, half of the baby is also hers, and there are other outstretched arms that will adopt and love that baby.

I don’t see how she could!

"Interestingly, the pregnant rape victim’s chief complaint is not that she is unwillingly pregnant, as bad as the experience is. The critical moment is fleeting in this area. It frequently pulls families together like never before. When women are impregnated through rape, their condition is treated in accordance, as are their families.

"We found this experience is forgotten, replaced by remembering the abortion, because it is what they did." M. Uchtman, Director, Suiciders Anonymous, Report to Cincinnati City Council, Sept. 1, 1981

"In the majority of these cases, the pregnant victim’s problems stem more from the trauma of rape than from the pregnancy itself." Mahkorn & Dolan, "Sexual Assault & Pregnancy." In New Perspectives on Human Abortion, University Publishers of Amer., 1981, pp. 182-199 239

As to what factors make it most difficult to continue her pregnancy, the opinions, attitudes, and beliefs of others were most frequently cited; in other words, how her loved ones treated her. Mahkorn, "Pregnancy & Sexual Assault." In Psychological Aspects of Abortion, University Publishers of Amer., 1979, pp. 53-72

But many laws would allow for this exception.

That is because many only think of the mother. But we should also think of the baby. Should we kill an innocent unborn baby for the crime of his father? Or let’s look at it this way. Do we punish other criminals by killing their children? Besides, such laws pose major problems in reporting, and also women have been known to report falsely.

You accuse women of lying?

We don’t have to. Radical feminist guru Gloria Steinem, in a 1985 interview with USA Today said that "to make abortion legal only in cases of rape and incest would force women to lie."

The story of Jane Roe, of the Roe v. Wade Decision, is well known. Norma McCorvey (her real name) fabricated a story, that she had been gang raped at a circus, in the mistaken impression that this would permit her to obtain a legal abortion in Texas. Not until 1987 did she reveal that the baby was actually conceived "through what I thought was love." (Post, Sept. 9, 1987.) And:

Up until 1988, Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program funded abortions, for women who claimed they had been raped, without any requirement for reporting of the purported assault to a law enforcement agency. Under this law, abortion clinic personnel issued thinly veiled public invitations for women to simply state that they’d been raped, and the state ended up funding an average of 36 abortions a month based on such unsubstantiated claims. In 1988 the legislature added a requirement for reporting the rape to a law enforcement agency, and the average dropped to less than three abortions per month.

You said reporting was a problem?

The problem is requiring proof. If the woman goes directly to the hospital, her word is accepted. But, sadly, through fright or ignorance, she may not report it and quietly nurse her fears. She misses her period and hopes against hope that it isn’t what she thinks it is. Sometimes months go by before finally, in tears, she reports to her mother, her physician, or some other counselor or confidante. To prove rape then is impossible. The only proof of rape then is to have a reliable witness corroborate the story, and such a witness almost never exists.

What proof would be needed early on?

Reporting the rape to a law enforcement agency is needed. Any hospital emergency room will handle this.

If done within a day or two, she can be examined, given medicine for sexually transmitted diseases and counseled. Her word will rarely be questioned. But if it is many days later, especially after a missed period, her word may not be enough (see above).

What percentage of rape pregnancies are aborted?

Less than half. The balance carry the baby to term. In one study of 37 rape pregnancies, 28 carried to term. S. Makhorn, in Psychological Aspects of Abortion, Mall & Watts, Univ. Pub. 1979, Pg. 58

What is her chief complaint?

Perhaps, surprisingly, it is not the fact that she is pregnant. Her chief complaint is "how other people treat her." This should be very sobering to everyone. How is she treated? Do others understand the trauma she has experienced, and love and support her? Or, do they avoid her and act as if it was partly her fault, or worse? Just think, if all such victims were given generous love and support, many more than at present would carry their babies to term. Mahkorn & Dona, "Sexual Assault & Pregnancy." In New Perspectives on Human Abortion, University Publishers of Amer., 1981, pp. 182-199 Mahkorn, "Pregnancy & Sexual Assault." In Psychological Aspects of Abortion, University Publishers of Amer., 1979, pp. 53-72

What if she could not cope with raising the child?

We must let these women know that it is all right to feel that way. We fully understand. That does not mean, however, that the baby is unwanted. There are innumerable arms outstretched, aching for a child to love. Any number of couples will want the child. She should be supported and encouraged if she chooses to place the child in a loving adoptive home.

She had a problem. Abortion permanently removes the problem. Or is there emotional aftermath?

In recent years it has become clear that these women can and do suffer from Post-Abortion Syndrome. When PAS does develop, a woman, so affected, can carry the same burdens of guilt, denial and depression that a woman who aborted a "love" baby often does. Why is this? At least two dynamics seem obvious. Remember that the rape was done to her. She was not responsible. She was the innocent victim and should bear no guilt. But, by contrast, the abortion will be done by her. She agreed to it. She was a volitional participant in a second act of violence: the killing of her own unborn child. And it is her own unborn child. This is the other inescapable fact of biology that probably is a factor in the development of PAS. The newly-conceived baby is certainly the "rapist’s child," but he or she is also her child, for half of the new baby’s genetic material came from her. She may try, but, inside of her, she cannot deny this biologic reality, however unwillingly it happened and however upsetting it may be. And so, to kill this little one by abortion is to participate in a violent, lethal act that destroys a baby who is partly her own flesh and blood. In loving charity, we should never remind her of this.

But we don’t have to, for she knows it instinctively and all of her maternal feelings may well rebel when faced with being a part of this killing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Women Who Abort: Their Reflections
on the Unborn


Sit with me for a moment in the waiting room of an abortion clinic. Here you will find women
who, in general, are neither philosophers nor fools--categories which admittedly include
substantial overlap. Very few of these women have engaged in arcane debates about
the meaning of "personhood." Fewer still are so foolish as to believe the
claim that having an abortion is no worse than having a tooth pulled.



Look about and you will see women from a
wide cross-section of American culture. Bright and dull, conservative and liberal,
religious and irreligious. All are represented. There is significant
overrepresentation by adolescents, unmarried women, and racial minorities, but still, they
are a cross-section of America. And like all Americans, these women are uneasy and
deeply divided over abortion, more so today than ever before in their lives.



Many of these women, even now, while
waiting to be escorted to the operating room, bury their heads in the sands of denial.
"It will be over soon. I just won't think about it. I'll just go
on with my life like before.... It wouldn't be legal if it wasn't right; it wouldn't be
legal if it wasn't safe. I just won't think about it."



Others, who at best consider their pending
abortions to be an evil necessity, are saying goodbye: "Forgive me. Mommy
doesn't want to do this, but I really don't have any choice. If only I could have
you, I would love you so much."



For some their wait is unemotional, but
they are intellectually tortured by the metaphysical question: "Am I doing the right
thing?" Others are carefully focused on their answers to this same question:
"This is the right thing, the only thing to do. I can always have a baby later,
when the time is right, when I can be a good mother. It wouldn't be fair to me, to
Jim, or even to the baby, to have it now."



These women, joylessly seated around the waiting room, are just typical
Americans. They share the same spectrum of American beliefs and angst over the
abortion question. Polls show that roughly 70 percent of Americans believe that
abortion should be legal. Yet 75 percent (which obviously requires substantial
overlap) also believe it is immoral. There is clearly a tension in our hearts
between what should be legal and what is actually moral.



This tension is especially visible in abortion
clinic waiting rooms. Interviews at clinics confirm that at least 70 percent of the
women having abortions view abortion as immoral, or at least deviant, behavior. (1)
Rather than choosing according to their own moral beliefs, most women are acting against
their belief systems. They feel "forced" by circumstances, or loved ones,
to violate their consciences for the sake of some "other good."



Everyone Knows



Why, after over twenty years of legal abortion, do
Americans--including young women for whom abortion has always been legal--still have a
negative moral view of abortion?



The answer to this question is the same at it
was two decades ago. In 1971, the editors of California Medicine wrote in support of
legalized abortion, but noted that the moral view underlying this change would only slowly
be adopted.



Since the old [Judeo-Christian] ethic
[of the sanctity of life] has not yet been fully displaced [by the new ethic which places
relative rather than absolute value on human lives] it has been necessary to separate the
idea of abortion from the idea of killing, which continues to be socially abhorrent.
The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everyone really
knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra- or
extra-uterine until death. The very considerable semantic gymnastics which are
required to rationalize abortion as anything but taking a human life would be ludicrous if
they were not often put forth under socially impeccable auspices. It is suggested
that this schizophrenic sort of subterfuge is necessary because while a new ethic is being
accepted the old one has not yet been rejected. (2) [Italics added]



With an honesty
often missing from the current abortion debate, the pro-choice editors of California
Medicine affirm that "everyone really knows" that human life begins at
conception. Everyone knows it. Every denial is simply "semantic
gymnastics" offered by "socially impeccable auspices" to ease our way.



Sitting in the abortion clinic waiting room,
this truth rides uneasily beneath the surface of silent submission. No one dares to
speak it, but all know it. Even young children can understand this simple truth.
It lies at the heart of the question that all children eventually ask: "Where
do babies come from?" While a child might be temporarily diverted from the
answer to this question, no child's curiosity is completely satisfied until the full truth
is revealed. Life begins at conception. Babies are created by an act of
conception, the uniting (hopefully in an act of love) of a man and woman, sharing the
substance of their very selves, two becoming one in the flesh--both symbolically in the
uniting of the sexual act and most truly in the conception of a new life which unites the
flesh of man and woman to create a new human being, their child.



The knowledge that the human fetus, the human
embryo, or even the human zygote, is in fact a human being is as undeniable as the answer
to the child's question: "Where do babies come from?" The women in the
waiting room remember when they once asked that question. They remember the answer.
They remember the truth. And it is this truth--no matter how much they try to
ignore it, forget it, or bury it beneath slogans or philosophical quibbles--that demands
their attention.



In interviews with 40 women shortly after their
abortions, sociologist Mary Zimmerman avoided any questions regarding the woman's view of
the nature of the human fetus in order to avoid upsetting the women. Yet even when
this question was left unasked, it was clearly on the minds of the women since most of
them chose to reveal at least some hint of their opinion during the interview.
Nearly 25 percent explicitly stated that the aborted fetus was a life, a person, or a
human being. In many of these cases, they admitted a sense of having killed or
murdered another being. Another 25 percent expressed confusion about the nature of
the fetus. In these cases, the women generally believed the fetus was human but
denied that abortion was killing. Zimmerman suggests that this contradictory stance
was taken in order maintain their self-images as moral persons. Finally, only 15
percent maintained that the fetus was not a person or human life, but even these women
expressed themselves in terms of denial rather than with arguments to support their
beliefs, stating, for example, "I feel that it's something there, but I don't really
feel that it's a life yet." (3)



Everyone Struggles



The feeling of a life being killed is a common
thread throughout the testimonies of women before, during, and after an abortion.
According to one woman, interviewed in a clinic's waiting room: "It's killing.
But it is justifiable homicide." Another, shortly after her abortion, says:
"Like when you have an abortion you're just destroying a part of yourself.
That's the way I feel anyhow. I just feel bad inside, that's all. I didn't
really want to do it. It's a sin." (4) Still another woman, describes her
feelings after an abortion, saying: "I hated myself. I felt abandoned and
lost. There was no one's shoulder to cry on, and I wanted to cry like hell.
And I felt guilty about killing something. I couldn't get it out of my head that I'd just
killed a baby." (5)



For some the anticipation of guilt itself moves
them toward acts of self-punishment. An example of this is reported in a New York
Times interview with American women who have traveled to England for RU-486 abortions.
A woman from Pennsylvania explained that for her there were "psychological
advantages" to the harrowing experience of repeated clinic visits for RU- 486 and
prostaglandin injections and in the six hours or more of labor pains to expel a dead human
fetus. "I didn't want to just zip in and be put to sleep and zip out in two
hours with it all done," she explains. "In a way, that would have been too easy.
This was a big painful decision for me. I would have felt irresponsible if it
had just been over with like that. I wanted to remember this all my life. I
never want to do it again." (6) For this woman the price for an abortion
must be measured in something more than negotiable currency. The act must be etched
in one's memory with proper solemnity. Physical and emotional pain are the only
fitting tributes which can be made to a life denied.



Even for those who deny the humanity of their
unborn child, there is a often an admission that this denial can be maintained only by a
conscious effort. For example, one woman writes: "I didn't think of it as
a baby. I just didn't want to think of it that way." (7) Another insists
that denial is the only way to deal with it: "I made up my mind to do it, and
like I could let it drive me crazy, any woman could, but you can't, because you've got to
live with it and there's really no sense in letting it drive you right off the edge."
(8)



For others, even the process of discussing
their experience threatens their precarious equilibrium. For example, one woman
interviewed in a clinic as she awaited her third abortion at first insisted she had
adjusted well to her first two abortions, but then she went on to describe experiencing
symptoms which are now identified as part of post-abortion syndrome. She found
herself confessing that she had developed a compulsive fascination with other people's
children, outbursts of rage, and periods of depression and substance abuse. As she
heard herself describing these problems, which she herself attributed to her previous
abortions, she began to doubt what she should believe, finally concluding: "Maybe I
should go to a psychiatrist, but I really don't have the money or the interest.
Truth is hard to take, and I just don't know if I'm ready for it." (9)



What is the truth, which she already knows, but
is too "hard to take?" Abortion destroys a human life. Moreover,
this life is her own child. This human life is also the progeny of her male partner.
And their parents. And their grandparents. In this way, abortion is
even more than a profound moral issue; it is a familial issue. The abortion
experience not only defines how she sees herself, it also defines how she sees her family.




No One is Safe



Even the most ardent defenders of abortion rights are not immune to these issues.
Linda Bird Francke, a professional journalist, feminist, and pro-choice activist,
describes how when faced with an unplanned pregnancy which would have interfered with her
and her husband's rising careers, the couple decided "It was time for us," not
another child. It was a relatively easy decision. Without any emotional hand
wringing, the logical and practical choice was made.



It was not until Francke and her husband were actually sitting in the
waiting room, that an unexpected ambivalence arose. "Suddenly the rhetoric, the
abortion marches I'd walked in, the telegrams sent to Albany to counteract the Friends of
the Fetus, the Zero Population Growth buttons I'd worn, peeled away, and I was all alone
with my microscopic baby." Intellectually, she tried to concentrate on how
small the fetus was, and therefore how impossible it was for it to be human, but she had
borne children before and the feel of her own body kept telling her that there was real
life growing within her. "Though I would march myself into blisters for a woman's
right to exercise the option of motherhood," she writes, "I discovered there in
the waiting room that I was not the modern woman I thought I was." (10)



By the time the she entered the operating room,
Francke was desperately hoping for some release from her predetermined course. She
longed for her husband to valiantly "burst" through the door and stop it from
happening. When he failed to do so, and the doctor began to dilate her for the
surgery, she herself begged him to stop. But the doctor told her it was too late and
completed the surgery anyway. At that point she gave in: "What good sports we
women are. And how obedient. Physically the pain passed even before the hum of
the machine signaled that the vacuuming of my uterus was completed, my baby sucked up like
ashes after a cocktail party."



Afterwards, her ambivalence continued.
During times of relaxation when she had time to reflect on the beauty of the world, she
experienced the common reaction of "visitations" from her aborted child.
Her benign "little ghost" would come to her and wave. And she would
tearfully wave back to reassure her lost baby that if only he could return, now they would
make room for him in their busy lives.



Five years after her abortion, Francke was
drawn to reinvestigate her own mixed feelings about abortion and wrote a book entitled The
Ambivalence of Abortion, in which she transcribed reactions to the abortion experience
of almost 70 women, couples, parents, and men. What she found, as the title
suggests, is universal ambivalence, and often frank admissions of guilt and remorse.
Over 70 percent of those she interviewed expressed some type of negative feelings
about the abortion. Most saw that abortion involves a "baby." Those
who denied the human fetus's humanity did so in curt assertions which belied an edge of
uncertainty. Few were as well prepared for the abortion decision as was Francke, who
at least had the advantage of having been a pro- choice activist who had confronted the
issues and argued for the principles used to justify abortion. Instead, few had ever
participated in the abortion debate. Most had deep moral reservations about
abortion, yet they were aborting because they felt they had no other choice.



Francke's interviews are consistent with the
findings of other researchers. These findings suggest that for most women, abortion
is at best a marginal choice. Between 30 and 60 percent of women having abortions
initially have a positive desire to carry the pregnancy to term and keep their babies.
(11) Many of these women still desire their babies even at the time of the abortion,
but are aborting only because they feel forced to do so by others or by circumstances.
Indeed, of women who experience post-abortion problems, over 80 percent say they
would have carried to term under better circumstances or with the support of loved ones,
over 60 percent report having felt "forced" to have the abortion by others or
circumstances, and approximately 40 percent were still hoping to discover some alternative
to abortion when going for counseling at the abortion clinic. (12)



Such data suggest that rather than
"choosing" abortion, many women, perhaps most, are instead
"submitting" to abortion. The rhetoric of "choice" may actually
be obscuring the national problem of unwanted abortions--abortions on women who would
prefer to keep their babies if only they could receive the love and support they need to
empower them as mothers.



No one can reasonably deny the testimonies of
women who describe how their unwanting lovers, parents, and others have pressured,
badgered, blackmailed, and even physically forced them into accepting unwanted abortions
because it would be "best for everyone." Even pro-choice ethicist Daniel
Callahan, director of the Hastings Center, writes: "That men have long coerced women
into unwanted abortion when it suits their purposes is well-known but rarely mentioned.
Data reported by the Alan Guttmacher Institute indicate that some 30 percent of
women have an abortion because someone else, not the woman, wants it." (13)



Everyone is Changed



This data, combined with over a thousand case
studies in my own files alone, demonstrate that the decision to abort is often a tentative
one, or even one accepted solely to please others. For many it is nothing more than
an act of despair. For all, it is an intensely emotional issue which irreversibly
changes the course of their lives and touches the very depths of their sexuality and self-
image. It is a life-marking event. Just as after a marriage one becomes a
wife, or after the birth of a child one becomes a mother, so after abortion one
becomes--well, "another"--somehow different than before.



As with all life-marking events, it is human
nature to look back and wonder, "How would my life be different if I hadn't married
Jim? How would it be different if I had never had the twins?" So the
woman who has had an abortion is inevitably confronted with the question, "How would
my life be different if I'd had that baby?"



For many women, the abortion becomes a key
point in their lives around which all other events take reference. In their minds,
everything can be clearly placed as having occurred either "before the abortion"
or "after the abortion." They may even see themselves as being two
completely different people before and after this defining event. In a retrospective
study of 260 women, an average of nearly eleven years after their abortions, 51 percent
report having undergone a "dramatic personality change" following their
abortions, of which 79 percent say the change was a negative one. (14)



Abortion is such a profound event in one's
life, that one must either thoughtfully integrate it into one's life, or fearfully
suppress it. Neither is easy. The former requires great fortitude and honesty.
The latter is simply unhealthy. It is a fundamental principle of psychiatry
that suppression of emotions is the cause of numerous psychological and physical ailments.
Suppressed feelings create their own internal pressures, sap emotional energy, and
cause turmoil in one's life until they burst forth in a way which can no longer be
ignored.



These observations are substantiated by the
testimony of Dr. Julius Fogel, a psychiatrist and obstetrician who has been a long-time
advocate of abortion and has personally performed 20,000 abortions. Although he
approaches abortion from a pro-abortion perspective, Dr. Fogel is deeply concerned about
the "psychological effects of abortion on the mother's mind." According to
Dr. Fogel:



Abortion is an impassioned subject.... Every
woman--whatever her age, background or sexuality--has a trauma at destroying a
pregnancy. A level of humanness is touched. This is a part of her own
life. She destroys a pregnancy, she is destroying herself. There is no way it
can be innocuous. One is dealing with the life force. It is totally beside the
point whether or not you think a life is there. You cannot deny that something is
being created and that this creation is physically happening.... Often the trauma may sink
into the unconscious and never surface in the woman's lifetime. But it is not as
harmless and casual an event as many in the pro-abortion crowd insist. A
psychological price is paid. It may be alienation; it may be a pushing away from
human warmth, perhaps a hardening of the maternal instinct. Something happens on the
deeper levels of a woman's consciousness when she destroys a pregnancy. I know that
as a psychiatrist. (15)



Other
investigators, on both sides of the abortion issue, share Fogel's concern.
Researchers have reported over 100 psychological sequelae connected to abortion
stress. These include sexual dysfunction, depression, flashbacks, sleep disorders,
anxiety attacks, eating disorders, impacted grieving, a diminished capacity for bonding
with later children, increased tendency toward violent outbursts, chronic problems in
maintaining intimate relationships, difficulty concentrating, and a loss of pleasure in
previously enjoyed activities and people. One five year retrospective study in two
Canadian provinces found that 25 percent of women who had abortions subsequently sought
psychiatric care compared to 3 percent of the control group. (16)



Perhaps most disturbing is the increase of
self-destructive behavior among post-aborted women. Women with a history of
abortions are significantly more likely to smoke, drink, and use drugs. A study of
700 women found that drug and alcohol abuse subsequent to a first pregnancy was
approximately four times higher for those who aborted compared to those who carried to
term. (17) Another study of 260 women who had abortions found that 37 percent
described themselves as being self-destructive, with 28 percent admitting having made one
or more suicide attempts. (18)



The Necessity of Denial



Suppression and denial are the most common
means of coping with abortion. Between 60 and 70 percent of women who eventually
confronted negative feelings about their abortions admit that there was a period of time
during which they would have denied to others and themselves any regrets or negative
feelings. On average, this period of denial was about five years, with a low of one
month and a high of twenty years. (19)



In general, denial and avoidance behavior is
readily apparent. Participants in our own case study project who claim that their
post-abortion adjustment was easy almost always give only short, concealing responses
which at the same time reveal volumes. Consider the following response, which
arrived just today, and is typical of the pattern I have described.



Why did you have an abortion? "I wasn't
carrying the baby right and I had knots in my stomach"



How would you describe the abortion? "I didn't like it, but I did what was
best."



How did the abortion affect you? "It made me feel sad because I took another's
life."



What have you done to deal with the abortion, and did it help? "Nothing
really. I got over it."



How do you think the abortion changed your life? "I take better care of
myself."



Notably, this
woman describes that what she aborted was a "baby," not a "fetus" or a
"pregnancy." She further states, very matter of factly, that in having the
abortion she "took another's life." These statements suggest that this
woman is not engaging in any sophisticated rationalizations. To her it was not a
"potential life," it was a baby, whose death warrants sadness. In the same
simple and straightforward way, she copes with this death simply by "getting over
it." One hopes that she has indeed gotten over it, but one fears that in
actuality she may simply be engaging in avoidance behavior which prevents true resolution
and integration of the experience into her life.



But then, denial and avoidance are integral to
abortion. Don't take my word for it. Look at In Necessity and Sorrow, a
book by Dr. Magda Denes, a pro-choice feminist psychologist.



Shortly after her own abortion, Denes, like
Francke, felt drawn to spend months at an abortion facility to observe how others
experienced abortion. Unlike Francke, Denes is a trained psychologist and knows to
look beyond the words of those she interviews. She sees that words of bravery are
used to disguise fears, words of calm to hide doubts. For example, when introducing
the interview of one patient, she writes: "All that she says sounds honest and
straightforward. It is only when she refers to the abortion that she lies, not so
much to me as to herself." (20)



But seeing through these self-deceptions does
not mean that Denes criticizes them. Instead, she justifies denial as necessary to
protect ourselves from the worst in us: "Oh yes," she writes, "these
people lie, they kid themselves, testify falsely, confess in bad faith, shirk
responsibility, only pretend to honor, bracket the past, and invent their lives. And
who among us does differently? Especially in times of crisis. Especially in
times of irreversible choice." (21)



Self-preservation is the name of the game, and
Denes clearly sees that sanity in the abortion clinic can be achieved only by a strict
adherence to the rules of the game. Both patients and staff collaborate in this
conspiracy of self-deceptions. Describing her interviews with both staff and
patients, she writes, "Above all, this a document on the evasions, multifaceted,
clever, and shameful, by which we all live and die." (22)



In the abortion clinic, she adds, "Reality
is a matter of courtesy. A matter of agreement not to rock the tempest-torn
boat." (23)



Though Denes is personally committed to the
pro-choice philosophy, her book, like Francke's, was never embraced by the pro-choice
movement. It is too dark, too questioning, too disturbing. In fact, despite
the opposite leanings of their authors, both Denes' and Francke's books show that abortion
is at best an ugly experience, at worst a heart wrenching nightmare. Neither is able
to find any substance in the stories they tell to support the pro-choice rhetoric about
"salvaged lives" in which they themselves earnestly hope. This failure is
due to the fact that when one studies the effects of abortion on women in an intimate and
personal way, it is never an encouraging story. What emerges is always much more
sorrow than joy, much more guilt than relief.



The philosophy of "choice" is
admirable only when stripped of its reality, only when worshipped as an ideal, believed in
its abstract. When examined from the viewpoint of women filled with despair, dread,
guilt, and denial, this pro-choice rhetoric is cold and uncomforting. When examined
from the viewpoint of the aftermath of breast cancer, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies,
substance abuse, suicidal tendencies, sexual dysfunctions, impacted grieving, and Mother's
Day depression, it is a mockery.



In sum, speaking as one who has been there,
Denes favors abortion on demand purely on the grounds that women should be given a choice.
Yet she is discomforted with that choice, for even under the most ideal
circumstances, even if abortion on demand were "provided free by the state, [and]
supported with mercy by the church," she believes that such a pure freedom would only
accentuate the horrors, doubts, guilts, and other problems which are inherent to abortion.
"For if we remove abortions from the realm of defiance of authority," she
writes:



...if we permit them to be acts of freedom as they
should be, their meaning, private and collective, will inescapably emerge in the
consciousness of every person....I think it is a far, far lighter task to regard oneself
as a martyr and to battle the world than to know the private sorrows of unique commitments
and the heartache of self-chosen destiny. I wish, therefore, to be taken for what I
am. A pro-abortionist with a bad secular conscience." (24)



No One Forgets



Denes is not unique. Because
"everyone really knows" that life begins at conception, everyone who has ever
been involved in abortions, at some level, has a bad conscience--or at least a nagging
one. This is true of all those involved: the father, the parents, siblings, friends,
counselors, doctors. But it is especially true for the mother because her body has
been desecrated; her body has been used by another as the actual killing ground for the
child her womb was designed to protect.



Like many others, Denes is compelled to admit
that abortion, though justifiable, is "a type of murder" because its victim is
"alive and human." For women who allow themselves to reflect on their
abortions, no other conclusion is possible.



Still, those women who possess sophisticated
philosophies, strong coping resources, and semantic agility, can keep this aborted life at
a distance. They remind themselves that it was just a "potential" life
whose time for fulfillment had not yet come. They can lessen the impact by
sanitizing the terms with which they think about it. But for the majority of women,
who lack the sophistication, the coping skills, and the verbal dexterity, this
aborted life is quite simply their "baby"--a person they would have cuddled and
loved if only things had been different.



For this latter group of women, their abortions
were an "evil necessity." Many of them feel an immediate sense of guilt,
self-condemnation, and feelings of having betrayed both themselves and their child.
Others try to block out their feelings through denial, suppression, and focusing on the
future. But for these women who know that what they aborted was "my baby," the
past will inevitably demand its tribute. The need to grieve will relentlessly pursue
and overtake them, and this need must be compassionately acknowledged by society and
shared by their loved ones.



The future of the "sophisticated"
woman, who holds to a more dehumanized view of the life lost during her abortion, is less
certain. If she has integrated these beliefs into her life before her abortion, then
there is a congruency between what she believed and how she acted. In such a case,
it may be plausible that she has not been changed or affected by her abortion experience.



But if there was not a congruency between a
woman's pre-abortion beliefs and her sophisticated post-abortion mindset, her prospects
for peace of mind are not good. In this case, her more "mature" and
"experienced" views are likely to be nothing more than a veneer of
rationalizations which conceal, but have not obliterated, the person who once knew that
abortion means the destruction of a human life. Because the modernity of this woman
is just a veneer, she lacks the confidence and security of those for whom this modernity
runs deep and was an integrated part of their personalities long before their abortions.
This woman, with only the veneer of modernity, is easily identified by the angry
energy with which she feverishly defends the abortion liberty. She is not calmly
confident of her belief system, or even capable of respecting the contrary beliefs of
others. Instead, she sees every challenge to her new ethic as a personal insult
precisely because these challenges reverberate through the veneer of her new ethic to
disturb the slumber of an old ethic which still lays claim to her heart.



Such a woman will know no true peace until
there is an accord between the person above and below this veneer. And this peace, I
suggest, can only be found when the person below is freed to grieve and repent according
to the old ethic, precisely because it was this old ethic which had a claim on her
conscience at the time of the abortion. It is to this old ethic which she must still
provide an answer. Until she does, her "new ethic," like every ethic
adopted to justify past acts, is polluted with rationalization. Her new self is
unstable, built upon a discordant self--a self with an un-reconciled past. Such a
woman is a psychological time bomb. She has unresolved pressures contained within a
veneer. If that veneer is ever shattered, the emotional explosion which occurs may
cause irreparable damage both to her life and the lives of loved ones.



The Journey Begins



So it is, when I look around the clinic's
waiting room, I see lives driven by despair, not hope. I see women inwardly crying,
saying goodbye. And I see women whose clenched teeth and fixed eyes are determinedly
set on the future because they dare not look at the present which will forever be their
past.



As I look into their many faces, the
philosophical debate over when a human becomes a "person" dissolves into nothing
more than ethereal elevator music. Whether these waiting women listen to it or
ignore it, it has no real effect on the living of their lives. For beneath the lyric
of excuses and jargon, on the level of a little girl who once asked, "Where do babies
come from?", every woman here knows that life begins at conception. It is a
human life. It is a familial life. It is a part of her and a part of another;
it is their child. The only question which remains is how well will she be able to
live with this truth...or how long will she be able to run from it?




-David C. Reardon







--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




This article was originally published in The Post-Abortion Review, 4(1), Winter 1996.
Copyright 1996, The Elliot Institute.

This article is adapted from an essay which will appear in The Silent Subject:
Reflections on the Unborn in American Culture, edited by Brad Stetson. It will be
published by Praeger Publishers in 1996.





NOTES:

1. Mary K. Zimmerman, Passage
Through Abortion (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1977), 69. David C. Reardon, Aborted
Women,

Silent No More (Chicago: Loyola
University Press, 1987), 13.

2. "A New Ethic for Medicine and
Society," California Medicine, Sept. 1970, 113(3):67-68.

3. Zimmerman, Passage Through Abortion, 194-195.


4. Magda Denes, In Necessity and Sorrow, (New York:
Basic Books, 1976), 94.

5. Linda Bird Francke, The Ambivalence of Abortion
(New York: Random House, 1978), 61.

6. New York Times, March 23, 1994 cited in
"The Public Square," First Things, June/July 1994, p.79.

7. Francke, Ambivalence, 201.

8. Denes, In Necessity and Sorrow, 97-98.

9. Francke, Ambivalence, 63.

10. Jane Doe [pseud. Linda Bird Francke], "There Just
Wasn't Room in Our Lives Now for Another Baby," New York Times, May 14, 1976,


Op-Ed Section.

11. Zimmerman, Passages, 110-111. Reardon, Aborted Women,
12.

12. Reardon, Aborted Women, 14-15.

13. Daniel Callahan, "An Ethical Challenge to Pro-choice Advocates,"
Commonweal, Nov. 23, 1990, 681-687, 684.

14. Reardon, "Psychological Reactions Reported After Abortion" The
Post-Abortion Review, Fall 1994, 2(3):4-8.

15. From an interview with columnist Colman McCarthy, "A Psychological
View of Abortion," St. Paul Sunday Pioneer Press, March 7,

1971. Dr. Fogel, who continued to do
abortions for the next two decades, reiterated the same view in a subsequent interview
with

McCarthy, "The Real Anguish of
Abortions" The Washington Post, Feb. 5, 1989.

16. R.F. Badgley, et al., Report of the Committee on the Abortion Law, Supply
and Services, Ottawa, Canada, 1977:313-319.

17. "New Study Confirms Link Between Abortion and Substance Abuse,"
The Post-Abortion Review, Fall 1993, 1(3):1-2.

18. Reardon, "Psychological Reactions Reported After Abortion" The
Post-Abortion Review, Fall 1994, 2(3):4-8.

19. Ibid.

20. Denes, In Necessity, 101.

21. Ibid., 122.

22. Ibid., xvii.

23. Ibid., 6.

24. Ibid., xv-xvi.

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The One Flaw in Women

THE ONE FLAW IN WOMEN:

By the time the Lord made woman, he was into his sixth day of working overtime. An angel appeared and said, "Why are you spending so much time on this one?"

And the Lord answered, "Have you seen my spec sheet on her?

She has to be completely washable, but not plastic, have over 200 movable parts, all replaceable and able to run on diet coke and leftovers, have a lap that can hold four children at one time, have a kiss that can cure anything from a scraped knee to a broken heart-and she will do everything with only two hands."

The angel was astounded at the requirements.

"Only two hands!? No way! And that's just on the standard model?

That's too much work for one day. Wait until tomorrow to finish."

" But I won't," the Lord protested. "I am so close to finishing this creation that is so close to my own heart.
She already heals herself when she is sick AND can work 18 hour days."

The angel moved closer and touched the woman."But you have made her so soft, Lord."

"She is soft," the Lord agreed, "but I have also made her tough. You have no idea what she can endure or accomplish."

"Will she be able to think?", asked the angel.

The Lord replied, "Not only will she be able to think, she will be able to reason and negotiate."

The angel then noticed something, and reaching out, touched the woman's cheek. "Oops, it looks like you have a leak in this model. I told you that you were trying to put too much into this one."

"That's not a leak," the Lord corrected, "that's a tear!"

"What's the tear for?" the angel asked.

The Lord said, "The tear is her way of expressing her joy, her sorrow, her pain, her disappointment, her love, her loneliness, her grief and her pride."

The angel was impressed. "You are a genius, Lord. You thought of everything! Woman is truly amazing."

And she is! Women have strengths that amaze men.

They bear hardships and they carry burdens, but they hold happiness, love and joy.

They smile when they want to scream.

They sing when they want to cry.

They cry when they are happy and laugh when they are nervous.

They fight for what they believe in.

They stand up to injustice.

They don't take "no" for an answer when they believe there is a better solution.

They go without so their family can have.

They go to the doctor with a frightened friend.

They love unconditionally.

They cry when their children excel and cheer when their friends get awards.

They are happy when they hear about a birth or a wedding.

Their hearts break when a friend dies.

They grieve at the loss of a family member, yet they are strong when they think there is no strength left.

They know that a hug and a kiss can heal a broken heart Women come in all shapes, sizes and colors.

They'll drive, fly, walk, run or e-mail you to show how much they care about you. The heart of a woman is what makes the world keep turning.

They bring joy, hope and love.

They have compassion and ideals.

They give moral support to their family and friends.

Women have vital things to say and everything to give.

HOWEVER, IF THERE IS ONE FLAW IN WOMEN, IT IS THAT THEY FORGET THEIR WORTH.

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