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 Newsletter Excerpts 2008 
Continuing Bonds
Continuing bonds enables the relationship to be maintained, not as
before, but in a new and different dimension..... Where there is deep
mourning, anguished grief, there is also found deep unswerving love and
this is the dimension which does not die.
Anne Lastman in her June/July 2008 newsletter Broken Branches speaks
of the continuing bonds surrounding relationships around the death of
abortion. This is something that we counsellors also deal with in our
work with clients here after abortion, for it is something associated
with any bereavement loss, including abortion loss.
The nature of continuing bonds arises from the reality that there
exist bonds which continue beyond death and do not necessarily cause
disequilibrium. Continuing bonds enables the relationship to be
maintained, not as before, but in a new and different dimension. There
is the belief and sense that physical absence does not necessarily
diminish attachment. Where there is deep mourning, anguished grief,
there is also found deep unswerving love and this is the dimension
which does not die. Love changes its dimension but continues.
Love is that universal life giving emotion that ensures that no one
is ever forgotten. It is love, which is responsible for the grief of
abortion. It is love that ensures that the bonds remain unbroken. To
forget and move on has a dimension of “use” inscribed within it, whilst
to remember has a dimension of “love” and “forever” inscribed within
it. To remember, means that all the aborted child was, is and could
have been, has been memorialised for the well-being and happiness of
those left behind, who live with the regret.
The bonds of attachment that is love goes beyond the servile
attachment for security. Ongoing bonds with a deceased loved one can be
viewed as a natural flow of the attachment theory but the added
dimension of love is one worthy of contemplation. Sadly for many who
experience abortion death, continuing bonds are complicated sometimes
by issues of guilt. But abortion grief is a deep and real loss, and
irrespective of “fault” it needs to be understood that whether
expressed or not, the loss exists simply because the one who died,
continues to reshape the lives of those left behind.
When journeying through the grief after abortion the bereaved
post-abortive parent needs to renegotiate the relationship with the
little baby who died in the abortion. There is a process of saying
“hello” and then ‘goodbye” to the life that was, and adjusting to the
new state of things, and then saying “hello” again through the love
that enables those attachment bonds to continue. It is necessary to
remember the short, but nonetheless meaningful life of her (or his)
precious baby, let go and continue living with the memory woven into
the fabric of her (or his) life.
If healing is sought, there is no escaping this process, once a
person has begun to confront the reality of her (or his) abortion loss.
Accepting continuing bonds can on the one hand be a huge benefit for
many, but for others, believing they deserve to have them, can be
difficult. With abortion grief, achieving peace may be fraught, as
there often remain residual elements, for example around guilt, which
some struggle with. But a good measure of acceptance and peace can be
reached which enables the post abortive parent to move forward, begin
to embrace life more fully once more with confidence in the future
whilst retaining that very important and precious link with the little
one who died.
- By Carolina Gnad
Women's Grief After Abortion
Women who share their stories with us have all suffered
abortion-related grief: a depth of grief they were not prepared for but
which they carry still.
Emotional trauma after abortion is treated with disdain and
dismissed by many health professionals, and society at large, as an
invention. Women’s suffering after an abortion is considered a figment
of their imagination; their guilt and remorse a by-product of social or
religious conditioning... They are an embarrassment. The topic is given
scant, indifferent or often scathing consideration. Women experiencing
grief after abortion don’t exist! They go unheard.
Conventional wisdom says abortion is mostly trouble-free. Because of
this those who are troubled are made to feel invisible. Their stories
have been disqualified, even by those who say we must listen to women’s
voices and credit women’s experiences. Furthermore the politics
surrounding abortion have drowned out the voices of women harmed by it.
Women whose lives are shattered by the abortion experience and for
whom abortion was not a “maturational milestone” “an act of
self-determination” “a positive moral good” “a source of fulfillment,
transcendence and growth” are cast aside as oversensitive,
psychologically unstable, victims of socially constructed guilt. Their
experience is trivialised.
To hold a view that termination is really no big deal, an easy fix
and without repercussions for women effectively constrains the
suffering, discounts and minimises the pain of those who actually
struggle afterwards.
Suffering post-aborted women feel resentment towards a society which
ignores or neglects their suffering. They are not allowed to
acknowledge or mourn their loss openly. The disdain for women suffering
after-abortion trauma sends the message: you are only upset because you
have chosen to be upset. Mocking responses in the vein of “Abortion can
be an emotional subject - particularly for people who choose to get
upset about it” makes them feel they are being melodramatic,
attention-seeking and forces them to deny their experience of loss, or
feeling haunted or tortured by their abortions.
It is not helpful when women are told “there is nothing there” or
that they are terminating a “bunch of cells” because deep in their
hearts many recognise that they were pregnant with a little human
being. Their arms feel empty, they don’t like looking at babies, they
cry often. They ask “What would my baby have looked like?” “Was it a
boy or girl?” Would-have-been birthdays are quietly marked year after
year.
Margaret Nicol points out in her work on maternal grief - it is a
myth that a mother only bonds with her child after birth. A woman never
forgets a pregnancy and the baby that might have been. When the baby is
lost and there are no memories or visible reminders of the baby “the
feeling of emptiness and nothingness becomes pervasive and it is this
uneasy anxious void that makes women wonder if they’re going crazy”.
This is true for women who experience miscarriage - it can be equally
true for those who have experienced an abortion.
Previously women who miscarried were treated callously after losing
their babies - some were told it wasn’t a real baby they had lost, some
were told not to cry as this was all part of being a woman, and those
who did were made to feel silly, that they just had to toughen up and
get on. These dismissive and negative attitudes are slowly changing for
those who experience miscarriages but now they are being applied to
those who have had abortions. It’s not okay to talk about abortion
grief.... It’s not okay to cry.... Women are forced into denial or to
think about it privately. But the truth remains: where there was a
baby, now there is no baby.
Society and medics use the term foetus in an attempt to dehumanise
the experience, lessen the maternal attachment response and for some
women this is effective in aiding their coping afterwards, but for many
it feels like an insult on top of the assault they’ve felt already in
submitting to an abortion. It does nothing to decrease the anguish of
their mother’s heart.
It is not helpful to pit women not hurt by abortion against those
who are. There is no one authentic experiential reality when it comes
to abortion. Each woman’s story and experience is unique to her.
In counselling women after abortion we need to become very mindful
of and sensitive to this fact if we are to be responsive and effective
in helping her on her journey of healing.
Inspired and adapted from writings of Melinda Tankard-Reist, author of “Giving Sorrow Words”.
NZ RESEARCH UNCOVERS ABORTION AND MENTAL HEALTH LINK
Copy of article released by New Zealand Press Association (Wellington, 1 December 2008)
Women who have an abortion are more likely to suffer subsequent poor mental health, according to a new survey
The University of Otago study found women who had an abortion faced
a 30 percent increase in the risk of developing common mental health
problems such as depression and anxiety. Professor David Fergusson,
John Horwood and Joseph Boden studied the pregnancy and mental health
history of over 500 women, who took part in the long-running study from
birth to the age of 30.
The women were interviewed six times between the ages of 15 and 30,
each time being asked whether they had been pregnant and, if so, what
the outcome of that pregnancy had been. They were also given a mental
health assessment during each interview, to see if they met the
diagnostic criteria for major depression, anxiety disorders, alcohol
dependence and illicit drug dependence. Overall, 284 women reported a
total of 686 pregnancies before the age of 30. These pregnancies
included: 153 abortions (occurring to 117 women), 138 pregnancy losses,
66 live births that resulted from an unwanted pregnancy, and 329 live
births resulting from a wanted pregnancy.
The study found the overall population effects of abortion on mental
health were small, with researchers estimating that exposure to
abortion accounted for between 1.5 and 5.5 percent of the overall rate
of mental disorders in the general population. However, the findings
have implications for the legal status of abortion in New Zealand where
over 90 percent of terminations were authorized on the grounds that
proceeding with the pregnancy will pose a serious threat to the woman’s
mental health.
The study supports international research on the subject which also revealed a link between abortion and mental health.
Mothers Day - Celebration or Trial
It’s rarely acknowledged that women who have had abortions are mothers too!
Each year in May we celebrate Mothers Day in New Zealand. It is a
special time to remember and honour mothers, grandmothers and those who
have been like mothers to us in our lives. As with many of these annual
celebrations they are for some less a celebration than a trial, and are
approached with mixed feelings. Strained relationships with mothers or
separation - geographical, through death, rejection or abandonment
colour Mothers Day for mothers, their offspring and grandmothers alike.
Every language and culture has a word for mother - the female parent especially human. But when is a mother a mother?
Women who have living children are undoubtedly counted in. Women who
have experienced a pregnancy, baby, infant or child loss can look on
Mothers Day as a day of remembering or a day of sadness. It is very
personal. Losing an unborn baby through miscarriage, stillbirth or
induced labour for foetal abnormality, or losing a baby soon after
birth, or an infant or child does not make a mother an “unmother”.
There is no disputing that for these mothers it is okay to acknowledge
their loved little ones or children who have died. The death of their
little ones does not change their status as mother and their right to
be forever that little one’s mother and to remember their beloved
offspring who have died.
For some of these bereaved mothers although their status as mother
is not in dispute how they might remember or be allowed to express
their feelings around times like Mothers Day for little ones who died
is another matter, and very much depends on themselves and where they
are at in their own grieving process and the acceptance and support, or
lack of, from those around them.
The plight of post abortive women is often a different story again.
Whether they themselves or others can or will freely acknowledge their
status of ‘mother’ and accord them their right to remember and be
remembered on this occasion is variable depending on circumstances and
those around them. Abortion loss is a disenfranchised loss - neither
socially recognised nor supported. So it begs the question, who
supports motherhood in the post-abortive women? Do the women who have
had abortions, their partners or spouses, their families or does
society? If so how? If not, why not?
Post-abortive women themselves may often deny maternity as part of
the head-heart disconnection that can occur through the decision-making
process when they were faced with the unplanned or unwanted pregnancy.
This can become problematic later. That deep rejection of the maternal
relationship and avoidance of a felt connection and attachment to the
life growing inside that enables her to decide for abortion effectively
ensures denial after the event of that unique bond of the mother with
her offspring.
For many post-abortive women then Mothers Day can be a nonevent when
it comes to remembering their little ones who died in the abortion.
However we know that Mothers Day for some becomes a trigger for
negative emotional reactions, often unconscious, from their past
abortions. We hear about this in the stories post-abortive women share.
It can become confusing for the post-abortive woman, for in having
allowed herself to undergo an abortion she may have denied her maternal
relationship to or attachment to the life growing inside at that time,
so now how can she hope to acknowledge that life and relationship? And
who around her will be interested in supporting such an acknowledgement
now, particularly if friends and family were supportive of the decision
in the first place? How can she think or feel she has the right to
grieve or remember - her little one, and her seeming lost motherhood?
And compared to those for whom the loss of a loved little one is
legitimate what possibility is there for a post-abortive mother to
openly acknowledge or express her love, reality or desire?
With the utmost respect and sensitivity to mothers who have lost
their unborn little ones, or babies or children for other reasons, and
not wishing to detract from the depth of feelings and sense of tragedy
that accompanies such losses for them, there is, I think, a need to
address the need for post-abortive mothers to be validated on Mothers
Day - to acknowledge both their status as mother and for them to be
given the chance to remember their little ones who have died. If we do
not do this, do we not effectively forbid them healing and closure and
a chance to celebrate their ongoing relationship with their offspring?
Some may not agree - either that in assisting post-abortive women to
acknowledge motherhood is helpful or that they have a right to remember
or celebrate on Mothers Day. However, we who work with women after
abortion recognise clearly the need for and work in reestablishing her
true relationship with the little one lost in abortion as part of the
healing process. And in our experience encouraging that ongoing
relationship as ‘mother’ is as important with post-abortive mothers as
with others who have experienced pregnancy, baby, infant or child loss.
- By Carolina Gnad
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