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] Date Posted:03/23/09 8:01am In reply to:
Pat
's message, "Re: Changed My Mind" on 03/22/09 7:48pm
Pat - I will take your advice re the prenatal vitamins. I am not a vegetarian but I must admit, my current diet is very shoddy indeed. I am hoping that this might stabilise my thought processes.
I should admit to you, that as a qualified social worker, the effects of abortion on women do concern me. Even taking away the rights of the unborn child - I have, in the past, wondered about the impact on the mental health of the mother. Certainly now, as I contemplate abortion, I feel terrified that I would awake from such a procedure an emotional wreck - inconsolable.
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From what you describe, I'd have to say that improving your diet might have a significant impact. Good luck with this.
Thank you also for your testimony of your expertise and your thoughts regarding a woman having an abortion, and the impact it will have on her emotionally. It HAS been learned a woman is 3 1/2 times as likely to commit suicide after abortion, over the risk if she carried to term. Heightened risk of death by violent means lasts for a year, and the overall risk lasts for about eight years.
The person who reported this study said that a woman who is having trouble with depression is a poor risk for abortion.
The only answer, then, is hang in there, take one day at a time.
Date Posted:03/24/09 3:55am
Pat - this is the thing that has thusfar stopped me. As a clinician, I know the stats and the research, and I do not doubt it. I have come across the occasional woman who seriously appears to have "no regrets" - but I am wondering how many women can truly say that at the end of the day. And one cannot predict exactly which "camp" they might fall into post abortion. This is why I am alarmed to find myself feeling this way. Once again, taking morality out of it - taking the rights of the unborn out of the equation (hard to do) - what happens to the emotional life of the woman involved? This is where the pro-choice stance appears to have no definitive answers. And this is what has kept me from doing anything to end my pregnancy. That fear of deep and unrelenting regret.
Have you ladies encountered anyone on here who has aborted, and been seemingly okay with it afterwards? I really appreciate your posts, btw.
I volunteered for awhile as a P.A.S.S (Post Abortion Stress Syndrome) counselor at our local pregnancy resource center because there was such a need for this demographic of women. The abortion clinics couldn't offer this service without acknowledging the liability, so they could offer only referrals, some sliding scale - but none free.
What I noted with interest during my time doing that counseling is how few women I saw who had just had abortions. I think there is a certain period of denial. There were a few who were within a month or two of their abortion, but most were a year or more, sometimes many years, after the fact of their abortion and were just now coming to terms with it.
This is one reason why I am thankful when I see women considering abortion being encouraged to not to react hastily to the fear we all have when something unplanned and seemingly daunting comes to us. Abortion is so huge, so much more than merely 'removing a pregnancy.'
And as you note, there is a huge portion of that that is concern for women. We have instincts! And we don't do well when pressured either from within or without to overrule them.
