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“My Foetus” - Abortion Language is Powerful
Medical terminology
maintains the clinicalness of the procedure
effectively distancing the person from the deeper reality and wider
impacts.
The documentary “My Foetus” screened
on TV One (7th September 2004) attempted to lift a veil of secrecy,
and perhaps succeeded in terms of presenting some of the ‘medical
facts’ about abortion. Because the abortion issue is full of
emotional contradictions the presenter, Julia Black, wanted to strip
away the emotion and deal with the ‘facts’. Yet, emotions are
part of what make us human and when considering the complexity of
the physical, emotional, spiritual, relational…. processes of
pregnancy and abortion, you cannot ignore a person’s emotions and
spirit – if you do, you do so at a cost.
Pregnancy and abortion language does much to support the reasoned or
rationalised “clinical” choice and the disconnection from the
emotional and spiritual reality. The terms e.g. ‘foetus’, ‘products
of conception’, ‘tissue’, ‘the pregnancy’ often used with
pregnant mothers, especially those ambivalent about keeping the
baby, effectively depersonalises the situation, aids avoidance of an
emotional attachment or connection to the life growing inside,
distances them from the abortion experience.
Most women with an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy face a “crisis
time” and decision making period, in which they might focus on the
various options - to continue with the pregnancy, or have an
abortion or opt for adoption - all emotionally charged options. A
woman may experience a whole range of sometimes mixed and
conflicting thoughts and emotions, pressures and fears – it can be
a time of huge anguish for her (and her husband or partner). A
medical solution to such a complex, multilayered and deep issue is
limited and fraught with hidden and often unanticipated
psycho-spiritual sequelae.
It is interesting that many who support women for abortions and many
women who go for abortions refrain from using the ordinary
terminology accepted when a woman is pregnant - the reality of “having
a baby” is subtly, and often not so subtly, denied or ignored. The
presenter of “My Foetus” acknowledged how hard it is to use the
word foetus when looking at the 3D images for “it looks very much
like a ‘baby’” – yet she was unable to, or deliberately did
not refer to her abortion in terms of an unborn baby that died, nor
her current pregnancy as “my baby”. Julia Black said she found
it hard to reflect on the ‘foetus’ she destroyed. She had had a
scan with her first pregnancy at 8 weeks but did not want to think
of it as a healthy 8 week foetus, and admitted to “blocking it out
of my mind”. The ‘blocking out’ mechanism, disconnection
between head and heart or “denial” is often employed to enable a
woman to proceed with the surgical procedure to “terminate the
pregnancy” and “remove the products of conception or foetal
tissue”, and so avoid facing the deeper reality of what is
happening to her baby and herself with abortion as a death event.
Women may cope afterwards by maintaining the sense of “it’s not
a baby”. One woman said that holding onto a belief that it was not
a baby, from the time before her abortion until now, had enabled her
to frame up the abortion in a reasonable (able to be reasoned) way
and enabled her to cope with it, until she came to the realisation
it was her ‘baby’ she lost, and then everything began to cave in
on her, and the grief and guilt that surfaced soon gave way to
despair.
For many women who come for healing afterwards, their perception at
the time of the abortion, later changes, when they come to view
things differently as they mature, and new learning or a ‘trigger
event’ uncovers the ‘truth’ they denied and feelings they
suppressed sometimes long ago. It is when head knowledge and heart
(emotional and spiritual) knowledge meet that the “connection”
happens and realisation dawns.
Julia Black, the presenter of “My Foetus”, was herself fully
pregnant with her second ‘foetus’ at the time of making the
documentary and later is seen playing with her growing child, having
aborted her first ‘foetus’ as a lifestyle choice. She was more
curious now pregnant for the second time about the whole abortion
issue, and wondered if she could still be “pro-choice” knowing
the reality of what abortion is and does. After her dispassionate
research and doing the documentary she held to a woman’s right to
choose and she herself having ‘no regrets’ over her abortion. Is
there a level of denial still present? It would be interesting to
see where she is at in another 20 years in her thinking and feeling
around her abortion.
Sadly, the whole area of the possible aftermath was not even
mentioned on the programme “My Foetus”. Women can suffer
depression, unresolved anger, feelings of guilt and impacted grief.
Today women are permitted to grieve after normal miscarriage, but
the grief attendant on an ‘intentional’ miscarriage is neither
societally recognised nor accepted - it remains hidden beneath a
pall of public silence, thus also silencing women who hurt and
suffer alone, and those whose grief cannot be acknowledged even to
themselves.
Who will speak out for these women, or how can these women be
empowered to share their experiences and lift another of the veils
of secrecy around abortion?
- Carolina Gnad
BRITISH GOVERNMENT WILL ALLOW RU-486 AT HOME, DESPITE DANGER TO
WOMEN
The British government has announced
that it is planning to allow women to undergo RU-486 abortions at
home, despite complications and a few deaths associated with use of
the drug.
Under the new guidelines, women will be allowed to take the second
part of the two-drug abortion regimen at home to expel the unborn
child. Critics have pointed out that more than 400 cases of
complications have been reported with the use of the second drug in
the U.S., and that at least four deaths from RU-486 have been
reported in the U.S. and Europe.
(Elliot Institute News, Vol 2, No.8. Sept 2004)
Actress Ellen
Barkin Says She Would Force Her Daughter To Have An Abortion
Actress Ellen Barkin, who stars in the
film “Palindromes,” startled those attending the Venice Film
Festival by saying she would force her daughter to have an abortion.
“I am the mother of a 12-year-old girl and I can tell you
unequivocally that if my daughter was pregnant, I would take her
kicking and screaming to have an abortion,” Barkin said at a press
conference Tuesday to publicize her new movie.
In the film, Barkin, who starred in “The Big Easy” and won an
Emmy in 1997 for her role in “Before Women Had Wings,” plays the
mother of a teenager girl who is forced by her parents to have an
abortion. The heroine, 12 year-old Aviva, wants to be a mother.
After a neighbor impregnates her, Aviva’s mother (Barkin) insists
on the abortion. Aviva runs away from home and stays with a loving
Christian woman, Mama Sunshine, who takes care of the adolescent and
protects her unborn child.
LifeNews.com
Abortion Statistics Year ending Dec 2002
Statistics New Zealand
December
Year
|
Number of
Induced Abortions
(1)
|
Crude Abortion
Ratio
(2) (3)
|
|
1980
|
5,945
|
120
|
|
1985
|
7,130
|
120
|
|
1990
|
11,173
|
156
|
|
1995
|
13,652
|
191
|
|
2000
|
16,103
|
220
|
|
2001
|
16,410
|
226
|
|
2002
|
17,380
|
242
|
(1) Obtained from the Abortion Supervisory Committee
(2) Per 1,000 live births, stillbirths and abortions
(3) Crude abortion ratio is based on the number of births registered
AGE:
The average age of women having an abortion was 26.3 years. The age
group 20-24 years remains the most common age for abortions,
accounting for approximately 38.9 abortions per 1,000. Those aged
25-29 years account for 26.6 per 1,000 and teenagers 15-19 years
25.7 per 1,000.
PREVIOUS ABORTIONS:
The proportion of induced abortions that are repeat abortions has
remained at about 34 per cent of all abortions for the past three
years. One in ten women having an abortion in 2002 had had two or
more previous abortions.
ETHNICITY:
Ethnic data for 2002 is not strictly comparable to earlier years due
to changes made to the ethnic question on abortion forms.
|
European
|
49.4%
|
8,592
|
|
Maori
|
16.2%
|
2,823
|
|
Pacific
|
10.0%
|
1,730
|
|
Asian
|
15.7%
|
2,721
|
|
More than one ethnic group
|
7.3%
|
1,271
|
SADLY
STATISTICS DENY THE HUMAN FACES
AND BELIE THE REAL HUMAN COST OF ABORTION
Could Assessment of Psychological Risk Factors for
Post Abortion Problems Mean Fewer Abortions?
There is not a great deal of attention given to possible risk
factors for post abortion psychological problems. Some studies show
that abortion is in fact contraindicated when psychiatric disease is
present (Ney & Wickett 1989, Gibbons 1984, Rosenfeldt 1992).
Other studies suggest that existing psychiatric or psychological
problems, or other factors, can influence adjustment
afterwards.
Some women are more at risk of negative abortion reactions than
others. Specialists in post-abortion recovery and research in
Britain and USA recognise that dysfunctional or abusive
relationships (either present or past), those who have religious or
philosophical values in conflict with the procedure, those who are
not sure how they feel about their pregnancy and lack support
systems; and those who are in adolescence at the time of an abortion
and lack the ability to fully understand possible future
implications, may be more at risk of greater post-abortion
psychological problems. Furthermore, when a woman at any age is
pressured by those around her to have an abortion she is likely to
experience more distress around the decision, as well as guilt,
anxiety and depression afterwards. Common sense would say that if a
person is suffering mental illness, or has been in abusive and
dysfunctional relationships, these things are more likely than not
to worsen with the lived experience of abortion.
Abortion is always stressful and how well a person copes with this
stress depends on the individual’s resiliency and conditions under
which the stress occurs. Post-abortion researcher Dr David Reardon
notes: If a glass plate and a plastic plate are both dropped, the
glass plate is likely to shatter, while the same stress may cause
the plastic plate to only crack or chip. In either case the damage
cannot be blamed on the material; it must be blamed on the fall.
While the extent of the damage is related to the nature of the
material, the fall itself is the direct cause of the damage. In the
same way, while the nature of an individual psyche or the mental
state of the person at the time, helps determine the extent of
post-abortion injuries, it is the abortion itself which is the
direct cause of these injuries.
The approach to abortion is largely a medical one, it is often
viewed as a simple, safe ‘procedure’ to remove the products of
conception or to terminate the pregnancy. But the effects are not
always that simple. This medicalisation of what is inherently a
deeply human and complex experience may distance a woman from the
event and the psychological, spiritual, deeply personal and
interpersonal reality and consequences. For example, where the
reality of the life of the baby is denied or largely ignored a woman
can be alienated in her grief. The devastation can be profound when
later she confronts the death of her baby and accepts responsibility
for her part.
Data and research is always limited and can be biased and worked to
suit whatever argument or position a person wishes to adopt. However
we are dealing with people first and foremost and many of those who
have experienced abortion first hand acknowledge they did not expect
to suffer afterwards the way they have, albeit sometimes delayed
suffering.For most women faced with the problem of a difficult or
unwanted pregnancy, to be rid of the problem initially can be a
relief, but the deeper reality and issues for the person are often
not acknowledged in the whole abortion process. The abortion that
was the solution often then becomes or adds to the problem.
For most surgical procedures risk factors are considered, and for
those where there is significant loss or impact e.g. hysterectomy,
greater consideration is given to informed consent and the
psychological impacts. Yet for abortion, where there is a death in
the womb, there is little attention given to ‘fully informed’
consent, and consideration to possible psychological impacts. Is
that because if women were more fully informed, given more in-depth
counselling and were properly assessed in terms of risks for
physical or psychological problems afterwards - by doctors, nurses
and counsellors would some women choose to not proceed with this
definitive life-affecting and self-changing choice?
- by Carolina Gnad
Identifying High Risk Abortion Patients
, David
Reardon, PhD, Post Abortion Review, Vol 1, No.3, Fall 1993
Women’s Health After Abortion
- Elizabeth Ring-Cassidy, Ian
Gentle, de Veber, 2002
Post Abortion Syndrome - Its Wider Ramifications
, Peter
Doherty Four Courts Press 1995
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P.A.T.H.S. Newsletter Excerpts - 2004
