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 Newsletter Excerpts 2011 
There Is No Getting Away From It
The abortion debate has
raged around the moral right and wrong, human rights and political
aspects. Regardless of people’s positions there is no getting away from
the fact that terminating a pregnancy is terminating a preborn human
life, either very early or later in its development. It’s how people
choose to view this reality, and why they view it the way they do, that
is the real question that requires understanding.
It is curious exploring the different “positions” around abortion and
wondering what they are saying and what they mean for the people who
hold them. Even more interesting is learning the stories of how people
come to have their different perspectives and what holds them to their
position in relation to the idea or practice of abortion. Following are
some reflections and questions to ponder along with me.
Claiming the unborn child to be defenceless and militantly fighting for
its rights, without compassion or consideration for the rights or
wellbeing of the mother, makes one feel righteous, but can also make
one judgemental. Extreme pro-lifers who justify violence for the cause,
abuse and threaten those involved in abortions, or make actual attempts
on their lives - how is that pro-life and how do such actions effect
change?
What happens in and for people who wholeheartedly believe abortion is
not the destruction of a life, those who frame it up as somehow
innocuous like removing a tooth? Or claiming that a life is not human
until after birth? And calling the developing human embryo or foetus
merely a bunch of cells, or talking medical speak about products of
conception, the pregnancy, removing the gestational sac, second
trimester termination, reduces the offspring to a nothing and the
experience of the loss of a baby to something common or insignificant -
what’s that about? Is framing up abortion in this way, a means to make
it easier to accept abortion as the simplest solution to the problem of
unplanned pregnancy, which appears to have become our cultural norm?
Any mention of the reality of what abortion actually does, and what it
can mean for those affected, is often perceived as a threat and it
would seem opposing notions must be annihilated along with the life.
Whether from an altruistic origin or whether associated with a personal
experience, some in a pro-abortion position have a genuine concern for
the welfare of women and the understanding of how difficult it can be
for those facing an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy. There is a knowing
that in this situation women who are desperate will resort to drastic
measures, some of which put them at huge risk, and this triggers a
sense of injustice. What issues from this position and thinking? Is
there a sense that the women’s needs are great and the reality of the
child and his/her rights or needs are less important of health
professionals who struggle with personal feelings around the practice
of abortion, especially later stage terminations of pregnancy. For
numbers of doctors and staff at abortion clinics or hospitals, the
participation in abortion procedures is unpleasant and also traumatic
at some level. Often a sense of detachment, enables them to perform
their professional duty with something they may find difficult and
conflicting. Some may do it just for the money, but usually there is an
underlying assumption or belief that is also at play and that may be a
motivating factor? How are health professionals supported and where are
they able to acknowledge or talk about their experiences and how they
feel around assisting in abortion processes and procedures?
We acknowledge that many post abortive parents continue on with life
with few repercussions. For them the focus is about adjusting and
coping afterwards and there is often no real thought about what has
occurred. This works for many, but for others, cracks appear in their
defences either sooner or later, and there is a sense of there is no
escaping the reality.
Those who we journey with in our healing work, when they acknowledge
the reality of what occurred in their abortion their natural grief
often surfaces and they come to realise the trauma of it. In those
moments the denial of all that supported the decision is broken, and
often they with it. Others present with a head acknowledgement of the
reality of the termination of the pregnancy and/or the life lost
therein, without any emotional connection to that reality. This is a
necessary protection for many, for to confront the reality can be too
overwhelming or distressing. Psychological defence mechanisms are
employed to help us manage such extraordinary and painful situations in
life, and emotions and trauma can be suppressed for along time. If
however at some point these are triggered then people may need help to
work through their grief and trauma. This is not a new or strange
phenomenon, this is how it happens with any difficult change, painful
loss or traumatic life event.
In any event, how people adapt after an abortion, or how we choose to
frame it up in our various roles, does not change the reality of what
occurs in the procedure!
These are some of my
reflections and wonderings evolved over time, raising more questions
than it gives answers. What are your thoughts? What position do you
hold, and how have you come to that place? How does this affect the way
you engage with others who hold a different belief and have another
perspective?
- Carolina Gnad
Respecting Life -
inside and out
This article was first published in Wellington, 09/10/2011
Working as a volunteer at Arohata Women’s Prison has given me
uncomfortable insights into how hard it can be to ‘respect life’.
I was
called in to work in my capacity as a pregnancy counsellor with women
who don’t qualify to keep their babies with them in the prison system.
My job is to prepare these women for the birth of their babies and for
the separation which will inevitably follow. It is work that involves
deep grief and at times, very brief glimpses of hope.
I see women
inmates during their pregnancy and continue with them after the birth
of their babies. In this time we look at grief and loss focusing on
their separation from their newborn baby. Inevitably the counselling
uncovers in depth, hurts and atrocities often with gang and drug
associations. We often talk about bigger losses women experience – the
loss of a child through abortion, miscarriage or stillbirth. These
pregnancy losses are unspoken and the silence in these women who have a
history of other secret hurts such as sexual abuse ripples through all
their behaviour. Abortion often triggers an immediate escalation to
drug abuse and other self-destructive behaviours—cutting, bizarre
piercings or tattooing, food or alcohol abuse, repeatedly destructive
relationships. It can be a long list.
These women are brutally honest.
They speak about their regrets in life, their losses, the events that
lead them to prison and their children lost through abortion. They
mostly have no hope that things could ever be different and feel this
is what they deserve. There are very few people in their lives to tell
them anything different. In our Justice system they feel forgotten
about and unimportant; punished, damaged, unforgiven and unforgivable.
The women in Arohata are not the only ones in prison.
I work in
pregnancy counselling and post-abortion counselling throughout
Wellington. This brings me into contact with all sorts of women, and
men, who don’t understand what abortion has brought into their lives or
how to resolve the issues of unrecognised loss that simply won’t go
away.
Those hurt by abortion cannot rewrite their history, but they can
change their future. Each abortion story is complex and personal; it is
isolating and lonely. To allow someone to break their silence and take
up the offer of being brought to wholeness, is an act of great
compassion and in my view, the Church’s greatest gift.
- Wendy Hill
Abortion is part of the Spectrum of
Pregnancy-Baby Loss
Miscarriage, stillbirth, induced labour for foetal
abnormality or health issues for the mother, neonatal death or a cot
death or early death by accident or illness are obvious and widely
accepted and acknowledged within the spectrum of pregnancy-baby
loss. Less widely acknowledged is loss inherent in emergency
surgery for removal of an ectopic pregnancy, multifoetal pregnancy
reduction or loss associated with adoption. Abortion as an intentional
termination of pregnancy is rarely addressed as a pregnancy-baby loss.
Miscarriage implies unexpected and sometimes unexplained loss.
Common feelings include sudden shock and horror of it happening, a
questioning why, a blaming of self or wondering what is wrong with me.
Loss of a dream is very real and there may be heightened anxiety around
future ability to conceive or maintain a pregnancy. Generally, the more
a baby was wanted the more intense the feelings accompanying a
miscarriage.
There is a cruel sense of birth as death in stillbirth.
Expected or unexpected it was not meant to happen this way. Shock,
disbelief, anger.... The bereaved parent may experience guilt, loss of
trust in the divine or in self, a betrayal by life, anxiety or dread of
future pregnancies, helplessness, possibly a sense of being punished
but “for what”?
In both miscarriage and stillbirth the womb has become a tomb
and that experience can be deep and profound. Today the grief for these
losses may be openly expressed, though for many it may not be terribly
well supported for the duration. Comments such as “it wasn’t meant to
be” “time heals”“you can have another child” “it’s time to move on”
“give it all to God” are not uncommon and may not be helpful. Bereaved
mothers, and fathers, are often expected to be staunch as if this were
only a minor blipp on the landscape, and this can be more for the sake
of others who are unsure how to handle it.
Neonatal death (from prematurity, illness, cot death, or
accident) can feel like a sudden tragedy. It too may be unexpected and
possibly unexplained. There is usually a sense of shock, unfairness,
emptiness. Having a brief time with baby, experiencing a bonding and
some memories and then the wrench. There are lost dreams for parent and
wider family, and there may be lots of questioning in the search for
answers. Issues of self blame or blaming others can be huge. There may
be degrees of anger or rage at losing a “wanted” child.
Adoption loss is often seen as the most devastating. Adoption
is seen as an unpopular choice for unplanned pregnancy. Many women with
an unplanned pregnancy feel the thought of carrying the baby to term
and then “giving the baby away” as abhorrent and impossible. The
thought is one of continuing the pregnancy and a sense of abandoning
the baby after birth, and this may be regarded as something unworthy of
being a mother. Fear for the baby’s life situation or outcomes,
or fear for self with the complication of having a child out there, our
legacy around Closed Adoptions and a lack of information or
understanding of Open Adoption in New Zealand go a long way to
assuming adoption as undesirable. That adoption can be a loving
and viable option does not appear to really be promoted or worked
through fully with parents considering their options in our current
climate.
Emergency surgery for the removal of an ectopic pregnancy, and
multifoetal pregnancy reduction, are often dismissed or minimised as
inconsequential, as if the baby was non-existent and the surgery merely
a necessary medical intervention. The reality that a pregnancy ended,
and dare I say a life terminated and therefore a grief being valid, is
somehow overshadowed by the medical imperatives.
Abortions, usually written off for mental health reasons but
actually occuring for more social or personal reasons, have been
relegated apart in terms of being accepted and acknowledged as part of
the spectrum of pregnancy-baby loss. If it were viewed within that
spectrum of specific losses would so many agree to or succumb to a
procedure that can have deep, significant and lasting impacts?
Some who anticipate the loss and attempt to prepare for it may
fare better but can still come to grief. For what they incur in
abortion, with the intentional termination of a pregnancy, is
often greater conflicts and dissonance with the self, deeper
disturbance in the psyche and ruptured relationships that actually may
not be so easily mended. More careful therapeutic exploration of what
the abortion as a pregnancy-baby loss in a person’s life could mean in
real terms mentally, emotionally, spiritually, socially,
relationally... in the decision making phase may be preferable.
No one can anticipate what an abortion experience will be like
and mean until after the event. Sadly for numbers of women and men it
was not what they expected. And what’s more they remain isolated and
their pain remains hidden as their experiences and losses are not
socially recognised or validated.
- By Carolina Gnad
Case Illustration from Complicated Mourning
- by Anne Speckhard 1992
“A 21 year old single female patient presented for therapy
over an eating disorder of three years duration, beginning shortly
after an abortion occurring at age 19. Upon exploration of the
abortion, the patient remarked, “It was just one of those things. I
wish it wouldn’t have happened that way, but I don’t see how that could
have any bearing on what I’m dealing with now. I had to get that
abortion, I didn’t have any other choice. I was in college and I would
have had to drop out otherwise.”
The patient was invited to consider discussing any thoughts or
feelings about the abortion that may have been related to the onset of
her eating disorder. At first she was reticent, but in a matter of
weeks she began remembering and sharing more of her feelings about her
abortion. The patient alternated between remembering intense feelings
of attachment to the fetal child while denying any long-term impact,
stating that she knew the abortion was the right thing to do. She
continued to deny until asked about her thoughts and feelings during
the abortion. In tears she recounted, “When I was up on the table I
felt this terrible panic inside, and I wanted to scream and say, ‘Stop,
don’t do this,’ but I knew it was too late. It
was like I could feel my baby panicking inside, trying to get
away. It was horrible, too horrible for words. Then I just
felt an emptiness and I knew my baby was dead, that it was over.
I felt so alone and I wished I could be dead too. Now I feel like
my uterus is a tomb and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to have
children.”
As the patient dealt with her feelings of loss over the
abortion and her guilt and anger, at herself and others, for not
protecting the fetal child, her eating disorder was no longer utilized
to manage the intrusive recall and she began to openly mourn her loss.”
The traumatic potential of
any pregnancy baby loss is often overlooked by clinicians and
researchers.
More recent research in traumatology highlights the
interpretative nature of the trauma response. Not every pregnancy loss
or interruption of pregnancy is experienced as a traumatic death.
Indeed, for many women, such events may not even be considered losses
but the potential is there. Much depends on how the event is defined by
the woman. When it is perceived by the woman as involving a human death
event, particularly when parental attachment to the deceased has
occurred, the experience very closely conforms to the DSM-IV criteria
(1994) for defining a trauma. Central to the criteria is that the event
involves “actual or threatened death or serious injury, or other threat
to one’s physical integrity, or witnessing an event that involves
death, injury, or the threat to the physical integrity of another
person.” Accordingly, the stressor capable of producing trauma is
usually experienced with “intense fear, helplessness or horror”.
Such emotions are not uncommon with many pregnancy loss experiences.
The degree of trauma or potential trauma will vary depending on the
situation, individual psyche, supports, attachment and perception
aspects.
Reference:
- (http://www.annespeckhard.com/publications/Death_in_Pregnancy.pdf
- chapter 4 in book Death and Trauma
- Figley, Bride and Mazza, Publishers: Taylors &
Francis)
Rachel’s Vineyard Retreats - Healing
for the Grief / Trauma of Abortion
The
RV Retreats are a warm, safe and loving environment with a retreat team
who guide and support retreatants using an integrated psychological and
spiritual approach.
First of three Rachel’s
Vineyard Retreats for 2011 delivered
- by Suzanne O’Rourke
The first of three Rachel’s Vineyard Retreats to be offered in
the Wellington region in 2011 has been achieved, despite the
complications of earthquakes, travel difficulties and personal loss
which looked set to deter some attendees.
The Wellington-based Retreats draw on Team members from
Wellington, Tauranga and Christchurch, while Retreat participants come
from all over New Zealand.
“When people begin to recognise that they can truly let go of
an abortion experience they have carried, often in secret for many
years, they tend to find their faith tested,” says Retreat Facilitator,
Wendy Hill. “It is so humbling to see people turn up to a Retreat
uncertain, but none-the-less they come in whatever faith they have.”
While Rachel’s Vineyard Retreats are a ministry of the
Catholic Church, there is no particular group or faith-background among
Retreat participants. Those on a Retreat weekend will be drawn by
their experience of pregnancy loss, usually but not exclusively,
through abortion. Emotions around unexpected pregnancy are often
very complicated; particularly if there has been a previous history of
abortion.
The pain of turning away from a pregnancy leaves a very deep
and often secret grief. Retreat Participants find their grief
acknowledged and a new sense of themselves, their child and their
family emerge. “It is amazing to see the work of the Holy
Spirit in this and how deeply some are touched and changed,” says Wendy.
According to a recent Retreat participant, “I still can’t
really say the word abortion, and I don’t want to. But what I can
feel, which I couldn’t before, is a sense of my complete family and an
amazing sense of love. I didn’t know what to expect, so this has
surprised me. I am beginning to feel really strong. I feel
safe and I feel much softer.”
For more information contact
Wendy Hill (Co-ordinator)
Phone: 04 974 8693 or 027 733 2990
Email info@rachelsvineyard.org.nz
Website www.rachelsvineyard.org.nz
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