Category: Women’s Health

B. R. Arnowitz interviewed abortion clinic workers, asking them about women’s emotions during abortions. In the article “Abortion and the Actualized Self”, writer  Camille S. Williams explains what clinic workers told Arnowitz :

“Anesthesia pops the lid off the id,” clinic workers tell Arnowitz. Under anesthesia, women vocalize their conflicted states: “I had to do this. I didn’t want to kill this baby. My husband didn’t want it. My poor baby. I hate him.” Religious and superstitious women appear to have the worst experiences, “apparently due to their guilt and consequent conflict.”

This quote is in the article Camille S. Williams “Abortion and the Actualized Self” First Things November 1991.

It is referring to B. R. Arnowitz’s essay called “The Psychodynamics of Abortion” (included in a volume titled Critical Psychophysical Passages in the Life of A Woman, edited by Joan Offerman-Zuckerberg).

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Women Exploited by Abortion (WEBA), a support group for women who regret their abortions,  says the following in a pamphlet called “Surviving Abortion”:

“You may be led to believe, by doctors, abortion facility counselors, or other “family planning” personnel, by other women who have had abortions, psychiatrists, parents, husband, or boyfriend that your grief is illegitimate. This frequently leads women to feel foolish, selfish or guilty about their grief and that just makes their already confused state more stressful. . . . There is a paternalistic attitude in the abortion field that seems to promote an opinion that an uninformed decision is a less painful one. We know that the opposite is true. “

Camille S. Williams “Abortion and the Actualized Self” First Things November 1991

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Pro-abortion activist Jeanne Parr Lemkau, concludes that:

“Ambivalence about abortion is normal—it doesn’t mean you have psychological problems.”

Camille S. Williams “Abortion and the Actualized Self” First Things November 1991

She is responding to claims about postabortion syndrome and  abortion regret among women.

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Author Mary Kenny, who visited abortion clinics and witnessed abortions, discusses the idea of post abortion counseling at Marie Stopes and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, which are abortion chains in England:

 “They have considered post-abortion therapy at Stopes, but cannot see how it could be done practically. The BPAS  says that after exhaustive efforts to offer post-abortion counselling, there was little demand for it.

For many women, an abortion is something to put behind them and forget. But even if they do want to reflect upon the experience afterwards, it is possible that they would wish to do so in a different context, and with different people. Returning to the scene of the operation might not be an altogether attractive proposition. Women are instructed to return for a physical check-up six week afterwards, and many opt out of that.”

Mary Kenny Abortion: The Whole Story (London: Quartet Books, 1986) 152

Abortion is so traumatic that most women don’t want to return to the “scene of the crime.”

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Pro-choice activist Patricia Beninato:

I have no doubt that there are women who regret their abortions. . . . But when you read the stories on the regretful sites, a theme starts popping up-“I didn’t want to abort, but. . . .” And they start the blame game. . . . “My boyfriend said he’d leave me.” “My parents said they’d stop paying for school.” Never is it said that they made the decision. Until someone can show me a case where a woman was tied up, stuffed in the trunk of a car, brought to a clinic and tied down onto a table, I will always believe that a woman knew exactly what she was doing.

Lynn Vincent “Victims of their own choice” World Magazine April 09, 2005

There is little sympathy for regretful women in Beninato’s words.

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Aspen Baker is founder of the pro-abortion group Exhale. This group is meant to give post-abortion support to women who are emotionally troubled by their abortions or hurt after abortion. The group will try and make a woman feel comfortable with her abortion. It was set up because the pro-choice movement finally realized that many women hurt after abortion.

Aspen Baker explains why this was so hard for pro-abortion groups to swallow:

“Before Exhale started, the most prominent people who were talking about post-abortion feelings were pro-life.” There has been a few pro-choice projects here and there that considered this perspective…but these were “few and far between and did not have wide pro-choice support.”

The author of the book this appears in then says:

“The common pro-choice refrain was “most women feel relief”  – and nothing else – and pro-choice advocates rejected the idea of a “postabortion syndrome.”…

It was assumed that anyone who talked about abortion feelings, especially difficult ones like sadness or grief, had been bamboozled by pro-life extremists…

When someone truly cares about women they are open to hearing what women want to say (whether they are pro-choice or pro-life or neither), but when the care is primarily about securing or ending the legal right to abortion then there is great concern about what women say about their own abortions.”

Mary Mahoney and Lauren Mitchell The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People (New York: Feminist Press, 2016) 21-22

Read stories of women who are hurt after abortion.

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