Abortion, Depression, and Common Sense



What is the appropriate reaction of the human psyche to undergoing an abortion?

Last month, Culture & Cosmos publicized a recent New Zealand study of depression and other mental disorders in women who had undergone abortion. The pro-abortion camp and its more politicized allies in the scientific community have long denied a link between abortion and later incidence of depression. Most of the studies they have sponsored or undertaken have been restricted to short-term effects and have tried to explain away increased incidences of depression by arguing that only women who entered the abortion clinics already unbalanced were likely to show later symptoms of trauma. But Dr. Fergusson's New Zealand study (conducted by a self-described “pro-choicer”) found no support for this hypothesis and others such as socio-economic background or family background, since it used a sample of 500 girls who had been tracked from birth until age 25. When all the obvious markers for depression are taken into account, women who have had an abortion still suffer psychologically in disproportionate numbers.

So we can now acknowledge the intuitively obvious. Whether or not the American pro-abortion community eventually recognizes that abortion isn't such a simple solution to messy situations, that it often leaves women less able to carry on with the rest of their lives rather than more so, the rest of us now have a very thorough piece of scientific research supporting common sense. Forget for a moment arcane pro- and anti-abortion arguments about fertilized eggs, twinning, the onset of brain activity, and fetal pain. For all of human history, the entire area of sex and procreation has been surrounded by powerful emotions and carried sacred significance. Human cultures as diverse as you please have developed religious rites attending marriages and births, attesting to the profound import of human reproduction. Both temple prostitution and child sacrifice are perverted examples of this. Even in today's desacralized sexual arena, women's hormonal response to pregnancy thwarts the determination of some modern mating partners to detach sexual gratification from any deeper meaning.

So what happens to hormonal reactions and deep-seated maternal instinct when a crisis pregnancy arrives and is “dealt with” in what seems like the most practical way? The New Zealand study reminds us that they just don't go away. Often, they lay siege to the woman's psyche in the months and years following her conclusion that she cannot care for her unborn child as her body and psyche say she should.

To the pro-abortion community, such a reaction is purely pathological. Depression, anxiety disorders, etc. do not call into question abortion in general or this abortion in particular; they simply require treatment. And of course, no matter how an episode of depression was precipitated, depressed or anxious or mentally disturbed people can and should be assisted by whatever pharmacological and therapeutic interventions seem effective. In this respect Dr. Fergusson's depressed women are no different from those launched into depression by the death of a loved one, divorce, or job loss. But the mind-body connection works both ways: Not only can misfiring neurotransimitters affect our psychological state, but our psychological state affects our body. Clinical depression may result from a faulty chemistry, but it may also be traced back to thoughts, actions, and reactions that provoke such malfunctions.

What “should” someone who aborts a child feel? Most people who turn up in psychiatrist's or counselor's offices do so because of psychic pain or dysfunction severe enough to affect day-to-day living. That leaves out women who seemingly sailed through their abortions without psychological trauma. Yet, these may be the true “head cases” emerging out of three-plus decades of legalized abortion. They are like the soldier who overly detaches himself emotionally to cope with a reality that is too much for him. Whether or not such women ever resort to anti-depressants or treatment for anxiety disorders, they are unacknowledged victims of a culture that has been telling women for two generations that they can sacrifice their children's lives with impunity.

Madame X works in Washington DC for the federal government. Because of her employer, she must write under a pseudonym.

(This article courtesy of The Fact Is.org.)

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