There’s a Slate article, available here, saying that new evidence shows women are very sure about their abortion decisions.

A friend called me to tell me about it (well, actually, she called about something else but ended up mentioning this article.)

My very first reaction was this: “I bet they didn’t look long term.”

So here’s the study upon which the Slate article is based. All you need to know I will summarize here, see bold:

Eligible women at four family planning facilities in Utah completed baseline demographic surveys and scales before their abortion information visit and follow-up interviews 3 weeks later.

It is self-evident to me that three weeks later women could feel confident. When I talk about abortion and mention the long term, I’m not worried about weeks. I’m worried about years.

Example: If a woman gets pregnant in university and has an abortion, it might feel like you got rid of the “problem,” which is essentially an issue of how can she can possibly do life under these circumstances–with a baby? But say fast forward twenty years to a time when she desires to get pregnant but can’t. Would the abortion decision not come back to haunt her? My guess is yes.

A three week follow up so you can declare abortion to be consequence free is ridiculously unfair to women and girls.

So, Slate: Let me know when someone does a study assessing abortion regret after 30 years. Then (after checking methodology) I will pay close attention.

This article is about miscarriage. My point in linking to it is to capture the sentiment of the mother, who was married, in a stable, loving relationship and yet, when she got pregnant, she felt fear that she only slowly overcame.

The whole problem with abortion (other than the disrespect for mothers, women and new life) is that a decision must be made very quickly.

So I wonder if convicted pro-choice people ever grapple with this angle. The idea that what appears to be a scary thing could morph into a good thing. This is so often the case. It’s true in moves to new cities, new jobs, marriage. Why not with the creation of new people?

None of it felt real. I nodded while we hugged, but I wondered if the test was wrong. We had been married six and a half years, and even though we had been talking about getting pregnant for a while, I wasn’t excited — I was terrified. Part of me still felt more like child than parent, made even smaller by this news. My heart knocked around in my chest, and I wondered if Zack could see the anxiety on my face. His joy made me more afraid, and more excited.

I use a free image site called Pixabay. I searched for images under the word “fear” and this came up. Perhaps it’s common to experience fear in pregnancy, fear that women overcome?

I can’t begin to describe the level of pain I feel when women go for IVF to create human lives and then, when they are successful, they abort.

I cannot and never will begin to understand how it is that a woman who wanted children badly enough to subject her body to IVF treatments, gets pregnant, and then goes for abortion.

This cri-de-couer is the result of this article in the Post:

A Toronto hospital’s refusal to reduce a woman’s twin pregnancy to one fetus — at least partly because of a doctor’s moral objections — has triggered a human-rights fight over the little-known but contentious procedure.The Ottawa-area patient had been warned that carrying twins at her age could increase the risk of losing the whole pregnancy, and was referred to Mount Sinai Hospital for a “selective reduction.” That means terminating at least one among multiple fetuses, akin to a partial abortion. But the institution declined to provide the service, saying its practice was to only reduce triplets or more, unless one of the twins has some kind of anomaly.

Doesn’t aborting a twin and leaving one just cause you to feel a punch in the gut? We are mostly pro-life readers at this blog, so of course we mourn every abortion. But honestly, as when babies are killed for the possibility of Down Syndrome, I just feel this all the more acutely.

Not so for the bioethicists on call here.

A woman should have the right to choose, just as she can opt for other procedures with debatable medical justification, like elective caesarian sections, said Francoise Baylis, Canada research chair in bioethics at Dalhousie University.

Doctors also have a right to conscientiously object to providing a service, but are obliged to refer patients to someone who will do it, she added.

There seems no justification for refusing twin reduction other than “disapproving of the (woman’s) decision,” said Udo Shuklenk, who holds the Ontario research chair in bioethics at Queen’s University.

I suppose there is hope in that Mt. Sinai didn’t want to do it.

Sunnybrook got ‘er done expediently though.

If this other twin survives, I hope he or she never finds out what happened.

This is the latest information about an upcoming Rachel’s Vineyard retreat:

Rachel’s Vineyard is a safe place to renew, rebuild and redeem hearts broken by abortion. Weekend retreats offer you a supportive, confidential and non-judgmental environment where women and men can express, release and reconcile painful post-abortive emotions to begin the process of restoration, renewal and healing.

Rachel’s Vineyard can help you experience God’s love and compassion on a profound level. It creates a place where men and women can share, often for the first time, their deepest feelings about their abortion. You are allowed to dismantle troubling secrets in an environment of emotional and spiritual safety.

Rachel’s Vineyard is therapy for the soul. Participants, who have been trapped in anger toward themselves or others, experience forgiveness. Peace is found. Lives are restored. A sense of hope and meaning for the future is finally re-discovered.

Please call soon to register as space is limited.
Date: The next retreat in the Ottawa area is April 29 – May 1
Cost: The $230 cost covers all meals and lodging from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon. Financial assistance is available. To register or get more information, email or call us at rvr_ottawa@yahoo.ca, 613-806-5522 (Lynda or Terry).

The Center for Disease Control in the States is telling any sexually active woman who is not on the Pill to not drink. Ever. Our tax dollars at work, as one American friend put it.

I’m surprised that feminists are not publicly annoyed about this. After all, it’s a little degrading to presume that women need to either be on a daily regime of hormones OR never touch alcohol, rather than assuming the best, that people can drink in moderation and that this is fine.

Instead, the press piles on, writing a sidebar about a 43-year-old woman whose mother “drank” while pregnant and now she has the mental age of a first grader. One might presume this means the mother had the odd glass of wine or a beer. But no:

Kathy again drank throughout her pregnancy, but usually just with friends. She’d put away a bottle of wine, or four to five beers, during a weekend.

Drinking wasn’t her only risky behaviour: “The fact is, I had poor nutrition, smoked cigarettes, worked in bars and drank alcohol. None of this was conducive to a healthy pregnancy.”

In 1973, just a few months after turning 18, she gave birth to Karli.

More reasonably, one might offer up this story not as an admonition not to ever drink while sexually active and not on the Pill, but rather, to get help if you are struggling with alcoholism, particularly as a teenager.

Women are made to be fearful about so many things during pregnancy. The list grows and grows and if the shadow of a birth defect shows up in some early ultrasound, abortion is immediately offered as a “solution”.

I’m against abortion. I’m also against treating women like children. I’m against drinking to excess such that you cloud good judgment on a regular basis. And finally, I’m against making pregnancy so ridiculously difficult and angst-ridden simply because the culture of the age assumes no one can be reasonable. Here ends the rant.

Me and a glass of wine. Apparently in an empty restaurant. But don’t worry, I wasn’t pregnant.