by Kathryn Jean Lopez
Buried deep in the appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education that passed the Senate last week is an amendment that recognizes the existence of “post-abortion depression and post-abortion psychosis.”
The amendment didn't actually do much of anything; it didn't create an agency or appropriate any money. But it did acknowledge that a condition exists that heretofore had been denied, dismissed as bogus and nothing more than a pro-life tactic.
The amendment implores the National Institutes of Health to “expand and intensify research and related activities . . . with respect to post-abortion depression and post-abortion psychosis.”
It passed uncontested, without debate. Post-abortion-stress syndrome, as it is often referred to by pro-lifers (who are generally the only ones willing to give it a name), is usually characterized by severe depression, guilt, eating disorders, anxiety, anger, and low self-esteem following an abortion.
The significance of the amendment's passage is that it is the first federal recognition that women — other than the ones who actually die or are otherwise physically injured, by infections or worse, at the hands of abortionists — can actually suffer from something real: a genuine, medically recognized depression.
The issue hasn't been addressed at the federal level since Surgeon General C. Everett Koop issued a letter to President Ronald Reagan in 1988. A year after the president asked him to investigate the health dimensions of abortion, Dr. Koop responded that the evidence for risk of significant emotional problems after abortion was “minuscule.”
The amendment-offered by Sen. Bob Smith (R., N.H.) — that passed the Senate last week marks the first sign since the Koop letter of federal interest in filling the gap in knowledge on the topic.
The House has yet to take up the issue, but a bill sponsored by Rep. Joseph Pitts (R. Pa.) would go further than the Smith language, actually appropriating money for research. When the Labor HHS bill gets taken up in a joint House-Senate conference, the post-abortion amendment is likely to get dropped. But its passage in the first place, without heated debate, marks a first and is worth noting.
Various studies, domestically and internationally, have found disturbing results involving women and abortion–including higher suicide rates, greater chances of breast cancer and miscarriage, and varied degrees of depression.
In the absence of a definitive study, check out the moving Post-Abortion Stress Syndrome site. Started by a woman who has suffered through abortion and its aftermath, it's an online community for women feeling the pain of choice — the second class of forgotten victims of the right to choose. The women on the bulletin boards and the chat room can tell the feminists — the ones who claim to have the best interests of women in mind — a thing or two.
And further recognition is worth pursuing. Just consider the feminist opposition to it.
In a recent article in Ms. magazine (yes, it still exists), livid about the Pitts bill, the author wrote:
Post-abortion stress syndrome — PASS or PAS — sounds scientific, but don't be fooled — it's a made-up term. Not recognized as an official syndrome or diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, or any other mainstream authority, it is a bogus affliction invented by the religious right.
Feminists typically won't even consider that women who abort suffer physically and mentally. They fight basic safety regulations at the state level. And they won't allow that women who have had abortions need help coping with what they have done to their unborn children — because admitting there is guilt might mean admitting there is something to feel guilty about. And that might threaten what's become more precious than life itself: the right to choose death.
Editor's Note: the link for the above referenced website could not be confirmed for this article. For information on post-abortion healing, see a Catholic Exchange Pro-Life Channel article here.
Kathryn Lopez is the Executive Editor of National Review.
(This article courtesy of the Pro-Life Infonet email newsletter. For more information or to subscribe go to www.prolifeinfo.org or email infonet@prolifeinfo.org.)
