New Report on Lorena Bobbitt Case Focuses on Forced Abortion

LifeNews.com ^ | January 15, 2004 | Steven Ertelt

[nickcarraway]

Springfield, IL (LifeNews.com) -- Just over ten years ago, the world's attention was focused on the bizarre case of John and Lorena Bobbitt. Lorena stood trial for the "malicious wounding" of her husband's manhood with an eight-inch long kitchen knife. Following an eleven-day trial, Lorena was acquitted on grounds of temporary insanity.

Now, an organization that monitors the physical and psychological effects of abortion is releasing a new report explaining that Lorena wasn't simply an abused wife striking back at her husband.

Instead, according to the Elliot Institute, Lorena was suffering post-traumatic stress from a forced abortion.

"All the evidence presented at Lorena's trial supports the view that her psychiatric symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder were precipitated by a coerced abortion three days before their first wedding anniversary," explains David Reardon, author of the report.

"Lorena pleaded to keep her child and gave in to the abortion only because she was pressured into it by John," Reardon said. "Like other women before her, Lorena experienced the unwanted abortion as an attack on both her maternity and her sexuality. That is the key to understanding her subsequent attack on John."

Dr. Reardon, a well-known expert on the abortion experiences of women, believes guilt, shame, and resentment over the abortion fueled the rapid rise in violence and sexual abuse in the Bobbitt household. This atmosphere of violence culminated in Lorena's attack on John's manhood on almost exactly the third anniversary of the abortion.

"The timing of the cutting incident was not coincidental," says Reardon. "Between 30 and 40 percent of women who report post-abortion problems experience more intense symptoms around the anniversary date of the abortion. For these women, the anniversary is a connector back to unresolved grief, which can exhibit itself in the guise of psychosomatic illnesses, increased depression, and uncontrollable fits of rage, all of which Lorena experienced."

The 14,000-word report says that Lorena had the abortion on June 15, 1990. Three years and three days later, she visited her physician complaining of hyperventilation, cramping and anxiety.

Reardon said such problems are common anniversary experiences following an abortion.

"The cutting incident occurred five days later, only minutes after she experienced flashbacks to the abortion, another common post-abortion reaction," Reardon said.

Reardon assisted Lorena's legal defense team in identifying and explaining the anniversary reactions and helped Lorena find post-abortion counseling prior to the trial.

According to research cited in the report, nearly 60 percent of women who have problems following abortions report they lost their tempers more easily and were more likely to become violent. That John forced Lorena to have an abortion she didn't want exacerbated the problem.

Reardon also said the way in which Lorena attacked John relates back to the coerced abortion in terms of both the timing of the attack and the manner in which Lorena attacked John.

"Lorena felt as though her abortion had left her sexually mutilated," Reardon says, "and she blamed John for making her have it. That she chose to attack John's sexuality, not his life, indicates that Lorena was subconsciously choosing to retaliate in kind."

A copy of the Elliot Institute's Special Report, "The John and Lorena Bobbittt Mystery, Unraveled," can be downloaded at http://www.afterabortion.info/reports.

[nickcarraway]

ping

[Eala]

she visited her physician complaining of hyperventilation, cramping and anxiety. Reardon said such problems are common anniversary experiences following an abortion.

Wonder if such is true for miscarriages too...

[Peace will be here soon]

"malicious wounding"

I thought she cut his thingy off.

[NeoCaveman]

Instead, according to the Elliot Institute, Lorena was suffering post-traumatic stress from a forced abortion.

If this is true then, Mr. Bobbitt got of easy.

[Cautor]

That Lorena was really a whack job.

[sinkspur]

The Bobbitts and Buttafuocos: symbols of marital dysfunction.

[GovernmentShrinker]

What a crock of silly psychobabble. These two were both low-lifes from the get-go, and nothing ever changed. Nobody "forced" this tough b!tch to do anything.

[scarface367]

Lol. That's not even right.

[LWalk18]

If she wanted to have her baby, why didn't she just leave him? Grown women cannot be forced to have an abortion.

[Cicero]

It's well established that women who have abortions suffer a lot of mental anguish afterwards, even if they chose to do it. But it's very common for parents, boyfriends, or husbands to push women to have abortions.

Sure, she was a free agent, so she was at least partly responsible. But her husband may well have pressured her in one way or another. And if she felt guilty afterward, that would only have increased her resentment and her tendency to try to blame her own guilt on him.

[LaraCroft]

I know a few women who have miscarried and they all get some 'symptoms' near the anniversary of the tragedy.

It simply must be mental, however, it doesn't mean it isn't true.

I know I only get sick two days a year, the day before and the day of my birthday.

[OldEagle]

Strange case all the way around. It still baffles me. I recall that she bobbed it, took it with her and left in her car. At some point she tossed it out the car window. Some strangers found it and returned it to JW. Now, I still don't how they recognized it.

[Cautor]

;-)

[John Beresford Tipton]

"It's well established that women who have abortions suffer a lot of mental anguish afterwards"

and it is doubly "well established that people who mistakenly read this pyscobabble suffer a lot of mental anguish afterwards"

[Askel5]

=== Grown women cannot be forced to have an abortion.


You don't think they can be forced into such a decision under the weight of fear, "conventional wisdom" and circumstance ... particularly under the threat of being abandoned and "forced" to keep the child themselves alone which they clearly did not Plan to have?

[Askel5]

=== and it is doubly "well established that people who mistakenly read this pyscobabble suffer a lot of mental anguish afterwards"


An abortion which brings to an abrupt halt the very biological process for which the woman is designed and for which her body is marshaling its complete self for protection and nourishment of the unborn child is a very real thing ... regardless the psychobabble by which women are convinced that they can do with "their bodies" what they see fit.

[Lorianne]

If true, explains a lot but excuses nothing.

[LWalk18]

Can women be pressured? Of course. At the same time, she did not have to keep the baby, and she would not have been the first woman to raise a baby on her own. The point is either of those options would have been better than having an abortion. If she could cut off his penis while he was sleeping, then get into a car and drive away, she could have just packed up and left him without doing something crazy like she did.

[John Beresford Tipton]

"An abortion which brings to an abrupt halt the very biological process for which the woman is designed and for which her body is marshaling its complete self for protection and nourishment of the unborn child is a very real thing".....

Which of couorse explains, at least to you, why she cut off his d***