ProWomanProLife

Pro-choice activists will emphasize up and down the block how having a child is medically more dangerous than an abortion. I believe the two can’t and shouldn’t be compared.

What we hear less of, though I suspect it is common enough, are people who pulled their lives together precisely because they were having a child, and knew they had to do better with their lives as a result.

This is one such story: 

A mother-to-be has told how becoming pregnant has helped to save her life after years of suffering from a debilitating eating disorder. Catherine Thomson, 27, battled with anorexia for seven years before she fell pregnant with her first child.

I recall one woman I met last year who chose to have her third abortion, not because she didn’t want to have children, but because she didn’t want to have them under her current less than perfect circumstances. Ostensibly she’d been in those less than perfect circumstances two times before. The abortions didn’t change her debt load or her inability to form positive relationships. I’m not saying pregnancy would have solved her problems either, but the point I’m making here is that abortion doesn’t resolve problems, where wanting a better life for your child is a very strong drive indeed.

From a pro-choice perspective, it seems it all comes down to intent.

Pro-choicers are in favor of abortion rights—but when a mother-to-be selectively aborts just one of her two fetuses, even pro-choicers get uncomfortable. [...]

In Slate, William Saletan attempts to unravel the reasons behind the discomfort.

At least two pro-lifewriters have expressed befuddlement: If you are OK with abortion, why aren’t you OK with selective reduction? “After all, a reduction is an abortion,” Saletan writes. But it all comes down to the “bifurcated mindset [that] permeates pro-choice thinking. Embryos fertilized for procreation are embryos; embryos cloned for research are ‘activated eggs.’ A fetus you want is a baby; a fetus you don’t want is a pregnancy.” With a reduction, you can no longer have that distinction, because both a wanted and an unwanted fetus exist in the same pregnancy. And someday, the wanted fetus will be walking around outside your body, “a living reminder of what you exterminated.”

And sometimes, I’m sure, a fetus can one day be a pregnancy and the next day be a baby, all during the same pregnancy depending on the mother’s state of mind. So does the number of fetuses matter, or is it the perspective that needs changing?

We try always to be fully informed, educated and aware of the decisions we make don’t we? I think for many people today, especially when it comes to what we do with and put in our bodies, we’re looking for second opinions and reading the labels. It’s important, with pharmaceutical and food processing companies pulling so many strings, that we as consumers actively seek out information.

I wouldn’t buy a box of cereal without reading the label, and I wouldn’t feed my children mystery foods. These labels are trustworthy, because they aren’t created by Nabisco or McDonald’s, they’re legislated by independent government agenices. Why? Because it wouldn’t make sense to let McDonald’s decide what did and didn’t go on the package. They would be biased, wouldn’t they? They’d want me to eat those fries without knowing how full of fat they were.

For the most part, I’d be applauded for this label reading by the rest of the world. And yet somehow, when it comes to abortion and contraception, people stop clapping when you want to read the label. I think Right to Know is working toward a noble and awareness raising cause, to provide council to women about abortion from someone other than the abortion providers themselves.

Many people assume that women considering abortion have access to independent information and advice. In fact there is no legal guarantee that they do. And where counselling is available, it is often provided by the very same private providers that carry out abortions.

…doesn’t mean it’s good for you, or society, or your unborn baby. I’ve written before about how a lack of remorse isn’t necessarily a sign that something is “healthy”. This is as true for abortion as it is for other acts of violence.

Now those who commit abortion don’t yet see it as a crime, and because it’s legal, the rest of us are told we ought not view it that way either. But I can only hope, for this woman’s sake, that one day she will better understand that a feeling of “euphoria” is not an indicator of whether or not something is inhumane:

Though I was raised in a Catholic family and apparently encouraged to participate in a “Right to Life” poster contest as a child, I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t pro-choice.  I remember thinking and even saying aloud that I would abort if I got pregnant as a teenager.  Then, as a young twenty-something, I became eager to have children – and I welcomed two very wanted, well-loved babies into the world.  Once things began to deteriorate between their father and I, I knew without a doubt that any future pregnancy we faced would be terminated.

In October of last year, I made good on that promise to myself…

I felt momentarily guilty when one of the other patients in recovery asked me if I ever stopped smiling, but I quickly reminded myself that it was senseless guilt.  After all, smiling is a natural reaction to happiness, and I was happy sitting there.  When they released me to go home fifteen minutes later, I was gladder still.

Keep in mind this woman had an abortion “to do good on a promise to herself.” If the tone sounds calculating and cold, maybe that’s because what she did and how she experienced it is just that. We as a culture recognize the lack of remorse in other acts as “cold-blooded” and contradictory to humanity. Take for example this article,

“How long do I have to live in prison?”

45-year-old Kim Su-cheol, arrested for brutally sexually assaulting a second-grader, asked that question at the Yeongdeungpo Police Station in Seoul on the 10th. He spoke calmly without inquiry about the condition of his victim. It was a moment that showed he is truly an animal with a human face.

According to a member of the Yeongdeungpo Police Sation, he had spent three days in prison since being arrested on the 7th and had slept well and not missed a single meal.

Kim congratulated the investigators on a job well done and made a full confession but while confined he has shown no signs of a remorseful attitude, caring only about the punishment he is to receive.

An employee of the prison said, “Kim asked us how long he has to stay in prison, thinking only about himself, and doesn’t care at all about the victim or show any sense of guilt.”

Kim, who had jus sexually assaulted an eight-year old-girl, told investigators “I feel good, I slept really well” and made other dumbfounding statements which show what a cold-blooded person he is.

Octomom, Nadya Suleman, seems to have strange intentions for wanting 14 children. Any doctor would recognize that and send her to see a psychiatrist, but Dr. Kamrava didn’t, which is in part why he’s losing his license.

LOS ANGELES — The fertility doctor who helped a woman give birth to octuplets in 2009 will be stripped of his license by the California Medical Board because of “gross negligence.”

The board revoked Dr. Michael Kamrava’s license effective July 1, according to documents on its website alleging a number of cases of malpractice, chief among them the creation of the tabloid sensation dubbed “Octomom.”

The Beverly Hills-based board said Kamrava had committed “gross negligence, repeated negligent acts and incompetence” when he repeatedly implanted multiple embryos into Nadya Suleman, identified as “N.S.” from 2002 to 2008.

In 2009 Suleman – who was unmarried, unemployed and already had six children – gave birth to octuplets after Kamrava implanted 12 embryos the year before, far more than the maximum recommended three.

The medical board filed two lawsuits against Kamrava in 2010, accusing him of negligence and of failing to recommend that Suleman consult a mental health specialist.

While I absolutely agree with this decision, I have to wonder why it isn’t also considered “gross negligence” not to recommend women who have multi-abortions to a mental health specialist.

Last summer, I read Margaret Somerville’s article on children’s rights to their biological origins in the Globe & Mail.

Adoption is our longest-standing experience of dealing with a situation where children have been intentionally disconnected from their biological parents.

In the past, adoption records were permanently sealed. We now recognize that as being harmful to the adopted person and potentially so to the birth family, and unethical. Yet donor-conceived Canadians do not know who at least one of their biological parents is, because donors here are allowed to remain anonymous, which is no longer the case in a growing list of countries (including Britain, Australia and New Zealand among many others). That also is unethical and, if we continue with gamete donation, it must be changed.

Adoptive parents were once advised by “professionals” – as the parents of donor-conceived children have been and still often are – not to tell their children of their origins; they were told that secrecy was best.

At the time, I disagreed. I thought forcing parents to reveal their identities would deter already apprehensive parents from going through with adoption on both ends of the process. However, a recent experience may change my mind.

A few weeks ago, I was watching NBC’s ancestry reality show called “Who Do You Think You Are?”, which is essentially a very long advert for the website Ancestry.com. I had used this website years ago, but never found much. The show prompted me to give the site another chance. For me, the search entry has always been the same, looking for my biological father. I knew his name but not how to spell it, had his photograph but no year of birth, had his birth country but not his current location. The search on the site? Well, it turned up a matching name with the correct spelling, his year of birth and a matching country of origin.

I think I was a little shocked at first. It was funny, how something I had put so much time and energy into years ago was suddenly so easy. I found more about him through a Google search, his location, more recent photos, details about his life. This wasn’t particularly impacting, I had put to rest my expectations of finding this person years ago. What was shocking was the difference it seemed to suddenly make in me. And it was sudden. One minute I couldn’t have told you where my biological father was or if he was still alive and the next, I could. The effect was instant. There was a confidence perhaps that wasn’t there before. I won’t say something was “missing”, because that implies desiring it to return, but something that was not present before was now present.

We are the stories we tell ourselves, so do I think all children have a right to know their story? I don’t know if it’s a “right”, but I will say…it is, in an inexplicably intimate way, better to know than not know.

Yesterday I posted about the new Danish study showing that abortion does not cause mental health problems. Today, Dr. Priscilla Coleman, a reputable psychologist who has been engaged in this debate for years, comments. Worth reading the whole thing.

We need a post about this latest study suggesting abortion doesn’t trigger mental illness. I, however, will not let the media tell me what to think about it. SO. I make you aware of this, while commiting to actually read the thing later.

It’s interesting that though the headlines basically allow the reader to think “no mental health problems after abortion” there are more mental health problems among those who have abortions than those who give birth. The headline comes of the fact that there was no increase in mental health problems after abortion–those who had mental health problems after had them before, where having a baby showed an increase in mental health issues:

Researchers compared the rate of mental health treatment among women before and after a first abortion. Within the first year after an abortion, 15 per 1,000 women needed psychiatric counseling — similar to the rate seeking help nine months before an abortion….While first-time mothers had a lower rate of mental problems overall, the proportion of those seeking help after giving birth was dramatically higher. About 7 per 1,000 women got mental health help within a year of giving birth compared with 4 per 1,000 women pre-delivery.

I reserve judgment. And if anyone feels like they have the time and the inclination and wants to send the study along in full, I’d welcome that!

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Brigitte doesn’t have time to read the whole thing, so she’ll just talk through her hat: Seriously. You don’t see me talk about these things very much. Mostly because to me, the reason why abortion is wrong isn’t because it causes (or not) mental-health problems, or breast cancer, or a bad complexion. Abortion is wrong because it kills an innocent human being, often in a most distressfully casual manner.

So a study says having an abortion does not cause women to seek psychiatric help as much as giving birth to a baby does. So what? Of course giving birth to a baby (even a wanted baby) is stressful. Duh. Nobody ever suggested it was a stress-free picnic. Some women just have a touch of baby blues. Others have more serious problems. Most worry about being a good mom. And I’m willing to bet most moms occasionally feel that they’re not up to the job.

But there’s one thing the woman who gave birth to her baby will never feel: guilt at having taken her baby’s life. That’s got to count for something, even if scientists can’t measure it.

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UPDATE: Read Dr. Priscilla Coleman’s assessment of the study, here. Dr. Coleman is a reputable psychologist who has worked on this topic for years.

From the Herald Sun,

So determined are the couple to have a girl that they recently terminated twin boys conceived through IVF.

[…]

The woman, who is consumed by grief over the daughter who died soon after birth, admits she has become obsessed with having a daughter and it has become vital to her psychological health.

Victoria’s Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008 bans sex selection unless it is necessary to avoid the risk of transmission of a genetic abnormality or genetic disease to a child.

All IVF clinics in Australia must stay within National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines that say sex selection should not be done except to reduce the transmission of a serious genetic condition.

Australian IVF pioneer Gab Kovacs – not involved in the case – said he could not understand why the couple should be banned from having a girl.

“I can’t see how it could harm anyone,” he said.

“Who is this going to harm if this couple have their desire fulfilled?”

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Brigitte bites: “I can’t see how it could harm anyone”, he said. Gee whiz, I don’t know. I suppose this works if we decide that the twin boys summarily dispatched just don’t count.

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Véronique adds: Harm anyone? How about the poor girl who will eventually be conceived? I can’t see any harmful psychological baggage here (shaking my head in disbelief). When “having a daughter (…) has become vital to her psychological health” it makes you wonder how fit to parent the mother is. Children, girl or boy, don’t fit neatly in the little moulds their parents want to fit them into.

A recent comment from a reader about regret and abortion led me to question the link between regret and our current cultural climate. Studies vary on the percentage of women who do and do not regret their decision, some quoting 70% do not regret it, others quoting 80% (pregnant from sexual assault) regretted their decision. Assuming for the sake of argument the 70% for absolutely no regrets is accurate, one wonders how this high percentage is possible.

In a growing “Culture of Me”, perhaps instead of thinking these figures are high we should be asking ourselves why women who undergo abortions should be any more remorseful than the rest of the population. In fact, narcissism, a primary trait of which is lack of empathy, has become so prevalent in our society it may no longer be considered a disorder.

The American Psychiatric Association recently announced it’s considering lifting narcissistic personality disorder — along with four other personality disorders — from its highly influential Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

[...]

…the diagnosis may be dropped for the manual’s 2013 edition, Campbell says, essentially because it’s a manifestation of normal personality.

So, he says, the same patient would be told he or she has “a combination of traits that maybe lie on a continuum or a spectrum. You have high levels of traits that are associated with narcissism.”

A New Normal?

But the way narcissism is treated — in the majority of cases, with therapy — wouldn’t change much.

“There’s no treatment for extreme narcissism that’s somehow different than moderate narcissism,” Campbell says.

And while things won’t change much for those on the couch, he says, the way we talk about narcissism in culture might.

“When this happened I went and looked at Twitter just to see what people were saying about it,” Campbell says.  “The most common response was, ‘It must be so normal now, it’s no longer a disorder.’”

And the second-most?

“‘Gee, I guess I’m OK, then’,” Campbell says. ”People see there’s narcissism everywhere, and they’re just shocked … that they’re considering getting rid of it. It’s such a perfect term for so much of what we see in society.”

It’s easy to laugh at the amount of “Me” promoting we all participate in on a daily basis, the status updates of our every thought and a general sense of entitlement to whatever we desire. We should have it, we deserve it, and dag nabbit we want it now. Quite a disconnect from Mother Teresa’s “A life not lived for others is not a life.” to Snooki’s “I think I’m fascinating.” But what effect will a narcissistic society have on our children?

The Narcissist turns other people from people into objects and they relate to other people primarily in terms of what the other can do to enhance their self esteem.   This is what I mean by my title, “objectifying the object.”

In our culture, one of the worst outcomes of such objectification concerns the way in which we treat our children.  We give lip service to the idea that our children are the most important people in our country and then turn around and make cultural and legal decisions that enhance the desires and pleasures of adults, often at the expense of children.

A growing body of literature supports the idea that children do best when raised by two, married parents.  (There is not enough data yet to know how children of same-sex couples fare.)  Yet our culture has consistently made it easier for people to have children without marriage and easier to divorce once children are in the picture. In the weighting of what is best for the parents versus what is best for the children, the children’s needs come in a distant second.

Another place where this is an issue is in abortion. At one time there was no question among people that life began at conception. Whether or not you believe that holds, it is certainly true that for a wanted pregnancy, the child begins to become a real person, invested with the love, hopes, and dream of its mother, fairly early in pregnancy. By the time of quickening, when the baby’s first movements are felt, no prospective mother would call her baby anything but a human being. On the other hand, in order to make it psychologically possible to abort an unwanted baby, the prospective child has to be turned into a devalued object, a mere “fetus” or a “choice”.

[...]

In a Narcissistic culture, children are increasingly seen as objects, possessions, if you will. Abortion fits into this paradigm because a possession can be easily disposed of while a child is a person who may have other desires.

If NPD is removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, will it simply be the norm? Currently, there is no treatment for narcissism, but the first step, as always, is to recognize that there is a problem.