Category: Women and Abortion Regret

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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Dr. Thomas W Hilgers says:

“My medical practice is in obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive medicine with a special emphasis on infertility, reproductive disorders, natural family planning and research. Within that context, I see the aftermath of abortion on a regular and routine basis. It is not difficult to see the tears and the regret pour forth with ease when the issue is gently raised and discussed. One has to be blind – and that is one of our problems – not to be able to see these difficulties.”

Thomas W Hilgers, M.D. “Confronting the Contemporary Medical Contradictions: to Nurture or to Destroy the Pre-Born Child” in Michael T Mannion, Ed. Post – Abortion Aftermath (Kansas City, MO: Sheed & Ward, 1994) 59

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An article in the publication of Feminists for Life says:

“Kris Bercov, a Florida therapist who states that abortions are “sacrifices we make for our own selves,” nevertheless admits that abortion hurts women. In her self–published book “The Good Mother,” she proposes a farewell ceremony for the aborted child that includes coming to grief with the pain caused by the abortion and giving the child a name. Says Bercov, “women are good, we love our children – even sometimes the ones we abort.”

“Prochoicer Admits Abortion Hurts Women” The American Feminist Vol 1 No 1, Summer 1994

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Pro-life author Maria Gallagher quotes researcher Priscilla Coleman:

A researcher at Bowling Green State University, Priscilla Coleman, told the Toledo Blade that approximately 10 percent of women who undergo abortions experience psychological problems as a result.

Coleman says:

“It’s that 10 percent with a common procedure that just keeps nudging at me. I think that’s a group we really need to look at more closely. Ten percent of 1.3 million women. [the number of women who abort every year] How could we ignore that? If it was any other medical procedure it would get more attention.”

From the author:

Coleman has co-authored a study which compares psychiatric hospitalizations of women who abort versus women who give birth. The data for the study, which was published in Canada’s most well-respected medical journal, came from California’s Medicaid program, MediCal.

The study showed that women who had had abortions were much more likely to be hospitalized for psychiatric illness during the four years after pregnancy

Maria Gallagher “Abortion Advocates Discount Emotional Problems After Abortion” LifeNews.com January 27, 2004

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Author Mary Kenny tells the following story:

 “When Gina Newson was preparing her program for Channel 4, she happened upon a woman who was exceptionally serene about her abortion. The woman was, indeed, almost a model of positive reaction. She had two children and did not want any more. She had very nearly forgotten about the abortion. To oblige Gina Newson, she took out an old diary to check the details. “Took the children to school,” she had noted. “Left the car in the garage. Checked into clinic for TOP” (termination of pregnancy). As she reviewed these banal events in her well organized agenda, all of no consequence, suddenly tears began to fall. And then she cried a lot.

Nobody knows what the consequences of abortion are. Sometimes, that includes the woman whom it most concerns.”

Mary Kenny Abortion: The Whole Story (London: Quartet Books, 1986) 34

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