Posted on 12/04/2001 7:13:41 AM PST by toenail
In her book to be released in 2002, my friend Dr. Theresa Burke writes,
"There is no social norm for dealing with an abortion. There are no Hallmark cards for friends who have had an abortion, declaring either sympathy or congratulations. We don't send flowers. We don't have any ceremonies, either joyous or mournful. We have no social customs or rules of etiquette governing acknowledgment of an abortion. Instead, we all try to ignore it."
The book, "Forbidden Grief," with which Dr. David Reardon also collaborated, demonstrates that grief after abortion is neither expected nor permitted in our society. Drawing from their vast experience of post-abortion counseling, the authors illustrate some of the ways that this "disenfranchised grief" eats away at the personality, and results in harmful and bizarre behavior.
As a graduate student, Theresa Burke led a weekly support group for women with eating disorders. The meeting exploded out of control one night when, unexpectedly, the topic of abortion arose. Six of the eight participants had had abortions. This led Theresa to begin exploring the connections. One woman explained, "I am never hungry when I binge. I eat because I am full. Full of anger, hurt, sadness, and loneliness. I throw up because that is the way I empty myself of those feelings."
Every thought and emotion we have is connected to other thoughts, emotions, and memories. Connections to the negative memories associated with abortion are often overlooked, even by professional therapists.
Forbidden Grief reveals many of the connections. For example, those who undergo a trauma often re-enact that trauma, in a subconscious effort to articulate, understand, and master it. One client became obsessed with pregnancy after her abortion. She explains, "I used to go to the maternity section in department storesI usually had a towel stuffed in my pantyhose to make it look like I was pregnantbut as soon as I'd get in my car I would cry my head offI'd rip the towel out of my belly to dry my tears. I'd tell myself, you're not pregnant this is just a stupid towel."
Another rode horseback regularly without padded pants, until she bled profusely, hence re-enacting the abortion.
One way or another, we ritualize our grief.
We also sometimes try to trivialize it when we know it's too much to bear. Dr. Burke describes a dorm party in which the students, many post-abortive, played "Baby Soccer." The broken heads of dolls were kicked around the room gleefully, their eyes gouged out with darts, their cheeks burned with cigarette butts.
Other post-abortive individuals increase their risk-taking behavior, hoping they will get caught or hurt. After all, they know they are guilty, and may seek an experience to confirm that.
When society trivializes abortion, people suffering from it will, cry out by their actions, "I'm not OK! I'm in tremendous pain! Can anyone help me?" We need to tell them we know that pain, and that it makes sense to grieve. Only then can healing begin.
There is really no good excuse for you to stick your nose in some elses private affairs. You and your fellow travelers in the Red Army will do anything you can to limit other people's rights: stop abortion, take away guns, outlaw drugs, outlaw smoking, outlaw alchohol, outlaw homosexuals, jail promiscuous teenagers, forbid people to die a peaceful death, permit hate crimes, take away any all state's right you can, forbid home shooling, censor TV shows and movies, etc. You will do anything you can to force your will on this Nation if not on the World. You are dangerous.
Yes, it sure is. It is just like the "Get out jail free" card in monopoly.
Well, at least we have one thing in common, the NRA.
We probably have a lot more in common than you suspect. It is just that all the attention gets focused upon that which we don't agree.
"You and your fellow travelers in the Red Army will do anything you can to limit other people's rights: stop abortion"
Hmmmmm...Red Army? Well, I gotta beg to differ here. I firmly believe probably one of the ulimate goals of the "Red Army" was to demoralize and end the family structure.
Here is an interesting link. You spark my curiosity and I must run to Google. This was written by a Russian Orthodox Priest. (I would assume he is Orthodox).
The first communist country was the first country in the world that legalized the killing of the unborn children.
The communists had brought a lot of the terrible things into the human civilization: the new model of the economics, the new literature, new morals and new logic. According to this logic they have made a new discovery: "One can get rid of the hunger problem by decreasing the number of the people who eat
On November 18, 1920 abortions were legalized by the communist government. At the same moment there were massacres against Christians all over the country. There were so many victims among the Christians that they think the number of martyrs was greater than in the first centuries.
At last, in the 1990s we have obtained the opportunity to openly oppose the killing of the unborn children. We have realized that during the last 70 years we have lost precious time. The consciousness of the nation had changed. The most dreadful result of the last decades was that an abortion became a normal and ordinary thing to do. The mind of the society had changed.
Everybody has a conscious. Many people hesitate before an abortion no matter what their religion or point of view on that subject might be. However, when an abortion becomes an ordinary event in the society, it is easier to overcome the internal resistance of the conscience. They start to behave themselves "as everybody else do".
According to an original communist's teaching, marriage should disappear in the future. They have forgotten this dogma but if you compare the practice of the sexual and communist revolutionaries you will find the similarity.
Like the communists they are possessed by the idea of a global change of the world and the whole society including destroying of the moral, traditional and the religious values.
The problem of the abortions in Russia An abortion as the invention of the communists:
(Interesting essay for those who care to read)
Of course, the fight on this has just begun; already there are other moves, including yesterday's vote by the House regarding "unborn children's" rights that are aimed at undermining the right to abortion. In mobilizing for the April 22 demonstration, we stressed the importance of clubs and districts establishing/building ties with the women's movement. We should continue to do this. It would be good even to initiate meetings with local pro-choice and other women's organizations, to talk about the march, about what's next, building a broader movement to defend this most important right, etc. Especially important is building the connections with labor.
A Revolutionary Communist Viewpoint on Abortion and Women's Liberation
The state claims it has a "vested interest" in protecting the life of "pre-born" Americans. But what is this vested interest? Surely not some selfless interest in children in general! Millions of children in the U.S. suffer from lack of adequate health care, nutrition, day care, education, etc., as a matter of routine and as a direct result of this system's policies. Millions of children around the world suffer the terrible repercussions of U.S. imperialist policies ranging from starvation to the ravages of war. So what is this "vested interest"? It can only be a vested interest in regulating the lives and actions of women.
This is a stark example of how property relations--which lie at the heart of capitalist society--are also at the heart of the abortion issue. From the point of view of those who run this country, women are property to be controlled. And fetuses are property that has become politically and ideologically very useful in their efforts to put women down.
Fetuses Are Not Children
A pregnancy is a nine-month process during which a fertilized egg grows, develops and goes through a series of transformations before it can finally become a baby--a new human being--at the time of its birth. BEFORE birth, it is not a child or a person with an independent existence. It is a developing mass of tissue integrally connected to the woman's vital biological processes. It is part of that woman with no separate social existence. It has the potential to become human. But it is not yet a separate social being that should have separate social rights. For that it must have entered society as a separate entity. That is, it must have been born.
Here lies the heart of the struggle around abortion: As long as reproduction is rooted in individual women, the basis exists for the social regulation of reproduction to be an oppressive thing for women. Exactly because of this, the overall physical and social well-being of women must take priority over any subordinate processes, such as reproduction. This is a question of women's health. But even more, it is a question of women's right to function fully in society.
A woman who is forced to bear a child against her will is assaulted and degraded in body and spirit. On the other hand, a woman who can control her own reproduction and decide whether and when to have children will be stronger, more independent, and better able to deal with the world at large, outside the confines of the family. She will be better able to lift her head, better able to dream and visualize the way the world COULD BE. And she will be better able to act to realize these dreams. Stronger women make stronger fighters, for themselves, for their children, for all the women, men, and children everywhere who have known conditions of oppression.
A Revolutionary Communist Viewpoint on Abortion and Women's Liberation
The state claims it has a "vested interest" in protecting the life of "pre-born" Americans. But what is this vested interest? Surely not some selfless interest in children in general! Millions of children in the U.S. suffer from lack of adequate health care, nutrition, day care, education, etc., as a matter of routine and as a direct result of this system's policies. Millions of children around the world suffer the terrible repercussions of U.S. imperialist policies ranging from starvation to the ravages of war. So what is this "vested interest"? It can only be a vested interest in regulating the lives and actions of women.
This is a stark example of how property relations--which lie at the heart of capitalist society--are also at the heart of the abortion issue. From the point of view of those who run this country, women are property to be controlled. And fetuses are property that has become politically and ideologically very useful in their efforts to put women down.
Fetuses Are Not Children
A pregnancy is a nine-month process during which a fertilized egg grows, develops and goes through a series of transformations before it can finally become a baby--a new human being--at the time of its birth. BEFORE birth, it is not a child or a person with an independent existence. It is a developing mass of tissue integrally connected to the woman's vital biological processes. It is part of that woman with no separate social existence. It has the potential to become human. But it is not yet a separate social being that should have separate social rights. For that it must have entered society as a separate entity. That is, it must have been born.
Here lies the heart of the struggle around abortion: As long as reproduction is rooted in individual women, the basis exists for the social regulation of reproduction to be an oppressive thing for women. Exactly because of this, the overall physical and social well-being of women must take priority over any subordinate processes, such as reproduction. This is a question of women's health. But even more, it is a question of women's right to function fully in society.
A woman who is forced to bear a child against her will is assaulted and degraded in body and spirit. On the other hand, a woman who can control her own reproduction and decide whether and when to have children will be stronger, more independent, and better able to deal with the world at large, outside the confines of the family. She will be better able to lift her head, better able to dream and visualize the way the world COULD BE. And she will be better able to act to realize these dreams. Stronger women make stronger fighters, for themselves, for their children, for all the women, men, and children everywhere who have known conditions of oppression.
A Revolutionary Communist Viewpoint on Abortion and Women's Liberation
The state claims it has a "vested interest" in protecting the life of "pre-born" Americans. But what is this vested interest? Surely not some selfless interest in children in general! Millions of children in the U.S. suffer from lack of adequate health care, nutrition, day care, education, etc., as a matter of routine and as a direct result of this system's policies. Millions of children around the world suffer the terrible repercussions of U.S. imperialist policies ranging from starvation to the ravages of war. So what is this "vested interest"? It can only be a vested interest in regulating the lives and actions of women.
This is a stark example of how property relations--which lie at the heart of capitalist society--are also at the heart of the abortion issue. From the point of view of those who run this country, women are property to be controlled. And fetuses are property that has become politically and ideologically very useful in their efforts to put women down.
Fetuses Are Not Children
A pregnancy is a nine-month process during which a fertilized egg grows, develops and goes through a series of transformations before it can finally become a baby--a new human being--at the time of its birth. BEFORE birth, it is not a child or a person with an independent existence. It is a developing mass of tissue integrally connected to the woman's vital biological processes. It is part of that woman with no separate social existence. It has the potential to become human. But it is not yet a separate social being that should have separate social rights. For that it must have entered society as a separate entity. That is, it must have been born.
Here lies the heart of the struggle around abortion: As long as reproduction is rooted in individual women, the basis exists for the social regulation of reproduction to be an oppressive thing for women. Exactly because of this, the overall physical and social well-being of women must take priority over any subordinate processes, such as reproduction. This is a question of women's health. But even more, it is a question of women's right to function fully in society.
A woman who is forced to bear a child against her will is assaulted and degraded in body and spirit. On the other hand, a woman who can control her own reproduction and decide whether and when to have children will be stronger, more independent, and better able to deal with the world at large, outside the confines of the family. She will be better able to lift her head, better able to dream and visualize the way the world COULD BE. And she will be better able to act to realize these dreams. Stronger women make stronger fighters, for themselves, for their children, for all the women, men, and children everywhere who have known conditions of oppression.
I see Humanism here. How sad to find family "confining". How very sad to see abortion as the answer for "independence" or for "strength". I thought we were to depend on God for all that? I'm to depend on myself and a "choice" to give me a stronger character or reach my dreams? Without the option of "choice" women will fail at life. (Gosh, I wonder how my grandmother, who had no “choice” option ever made it in this cruel world)? We will never amount to anything. Basically what feminism wants me to believe is, I want something more in life. I’m a failure if I haven’t reached my dreams (and used abortion to get there). Sorry! My children are my dreams.
I find Feminism insulting to my intelligence and my womanhood. How very rude.
Stronger women make stronger fighters, for themselves, for their children, for all the women, men, and children everywhere who have known conditions of oppression.
Odd! Abortion in Russia surely didn’t give women the strength to overthrow their government. How on EARTH did abortion make them stronger fighters for their children under conditions of oppression. How many years did it take the Soviet Union to collapse? More like, abortion makes stronger, more efficient workers of the STATE.
And to stay on topic, I'll play with this sentence: better able to dream and visualize the way the world COULD BE. Guaranteed abortion will enable her to dream and visualize…..WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN.
I don't understand.
My name is Claudia Crown Ades. I live in Santa Monica, California. I have been married to Richard Ades for five joyous years.
Three years ago, when I was 26 weeks into what seemed a perfect pregnancy, I made the decision along with my doctor not to have an amniocentesis. At 33, there seemed no need. Then one day, feeling anxious and worried about declining that test, I went to my doctor. There was no basis for my anxiety; it was just an instinct. However, to set my mind at ease, I was sent to a radiologist, an ultrasound expert. "Don't worry," my doctor told me, "he can see a vein out of place." I was never expecting what came next.
The radiologist spent far too long conducting what was supposed to be a routine examination of a healthy baby. He told us that he wanted to review the images and that he would call us. The next day, when we returned from Rosh Hashana services, there was a message on the answering machine. "I'd like you to come back in so that my partner can take a look at your ultrasound. Please don't worry. I don't think it's anything," he said. You can't tell a pregnant woman not to worry.
His partner, who wrote the authoritative book on ultrasound, immediately determined that there was a sac of fluid in my baby's brain. He called it a Dandy Walker Syndrome. He also told us that many people walk around with Dandy Walker Syndrome without any impairment. On the other hand, it could be more serious and he referred us to a perinatologist for more expert opinion. The doctor put his hand on Richard's shoulder and told him not to lose hope and that everything would be ok. You don't console someone if nothing is wrong.
Because of his suspicions, which we were unaware of at the time, the perinatologist rearranged her schedule to see me the next day resulting in a agonizing night of emotional torture.
The next day, we went into the perinatologist's office, apprehensive about what we might discover. She prepped me for an ultrasound. Within thirty seconds, the perinatologist said "I concur with your doctor." Concur with what? At this point we had no idea.
This was when our worst fears were realized. At that moment we learned that our son's Dandy Walker Syndrome was more serious than we had known. In addition to a fluid filled nonfunctional brain, he had a malformed heart with a large hole between the chambers that was preventing normal blood flow. He had also developed an extremely large cyst filled with intestinal matter, and hyperteloric eyes which was another indication of severe brain damage. We later found out that these symptoms added up to Trisomy 13, a fatal chromosomal disorder.
I with each new bit of information, the tears flowed harder. Richard was holding me. I thought we were the only parents in the world who had ever heard such devastating news about their child. What were we going to do? We loved this baby. We wanted this baby desperately. This was our son. We were preparing our family and our world for him. And now, we had to prepare for a tragedy. Away went the baby name books. Away went the shower invitations. Away went the first birthday party, the baseball games, the bar mitzvah. Away went our dream.
Along with the tears, the questions flowed. Could a cardiologist fix our son's heart? Could a neurosurgeon repair his brain? Could an eye surgeon help him to see? Could this baby survive? Was there anything at all, that could be done? The answers were emphatically no. It was our worst nightmare and it was real. Even if my son survived the pregnancy, he had no chance of life. Every day meant pain and torture for him. As his mother, I could not, in good conscience, allow my child to suffer.
By this time, a geneticist had joined us to. discuss our options. We went through them all. I could carry to term. I could have a cesarean. I could induce pre-mature labor in the maternity ward. All of these posed high risks for me, and more pain and suffering for my son. The doctors felt that a procedure called and Intact Dilation and Extraction (Intact D&E) would be the safest for me, my baby, and for my future children. This is when we learned about Dr. McMahon and his clinic.
When I first met Dr. McMahon, I asked him only one question: "Would my baby be in any pain?" This kind and gentle man assured me he wouldn't. He specialized in severe anomaly cases like ours: families in crisis and tragedy. He explained the procedure step by step to me and my husband. He set our minds at ease. We knew my baby and I were in good hands.
The procedure was difficult and it was painful. Dr McMahon put me under anesthesia and inserted laminaria to slowly dilate my cervix. He and his staff were compassionate and patient as they painstakingly determined how wide my cervix had to be to safely and gently remove my baby and prevent my uterus from tearing. Living ten minutes away, Richard and I were lucky enough to go home between each treatment. This is luxury other families did not have. Many of Dr. McMahon's patients came from out of state, some from other countries. Being able to go to my own comforting home was a luxury I relished.
The entire process took three days. There were no scissors stabbed in the back of his head, no brains sucked out, no skull crushed, and no pain to my baby.
Ironically, the final day of the procedure was Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year. On Yom Kippur, we are asked to mourn who have passed and pray to God to inscribe us in the Book of Life. I prayed more than one person can pray. I was praying for all of us.
Although I never imagined I would be faced with such a decision, I can honestly say that for many reasons I feel very blessed. First, that I was able to find out when I did. Second, that I had access to the finest medical care in the world. And third, that I live in a place where my rights as an individual have not been compromised.
Though I hope and pray that no one has to go through what my husband and I have, there are people who will. Many families who are opposed to abortion have chosen this procedure and have come to realize its necessity. The point is, it can happen to anyone -- to you, your wife, your sister, your daughter, your friends. All women should have the protection, the guidance and the access that modem medicine allows. This procedure is designed to protect the integrity of the family.
Thank you.
Even if you disagree with the pro-life position, making these hysterical accusations of bad faith is neither sound nor fair. We are interested in protecting what we believe to be innocent human life from being victimized from the choices of others. If you can refute the grounds on which we argue that this debate involves human life, do so. But do not engage in such unwarranted tirades.
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