Stephanie Gray wrote an article this week about how family members of aborted children work through the abortion issue. Or don’t.

This excerpt talks about survivor guilt:

That does something to you psychologically.  Consider the words of child and family psychiatrist Dr. Philip Ney who has done extensive research on the effects of abortion on siblings, something he calls post-abortion survivor syndrome:

“[Siblings of aborted children] have in common many of the conflicts that were found in those people who survived the Holocaust. For instance they have survivor guilt. They feel it is not right for them to be alive. And they wonder why they should be selected when their little siblings were selected to die … which is precisely what happened to the people from the Holocaust. Why were they selected to live and some of their friends, relatives, and family were selected to die? And it leaves this deep sense of guilt. And that is a difficult, difficult thing to treat, because it is so deeply embedded. And of course with that is how can you trust your parents? Are they capable of killing you too?”

This one isn’t about abortion, but about IVF and how it affected one woman’s determination of when life begins:

If that weren’t bad enough, it gets worse.  While speaking to a young female college student, my colleague was having a difficult time convincing her of the scientific fact that our human lives began at fertilization.  My colleague invited me into the conversation, hoping I could convince the young lady.

In our conversation I learned that the student was conceived through in-vitro fertilization (IVF).  And in that moment, I realized I had a nearly insurmountable task ahead of me.  It was no longer easy to explain that life begins at fertilization—not because it doesn’t, but because of what it means.

In directly making the case that life began at fertilization, I’d be indirectly making the case that siblings she’d always longed for actually existed…

Abortion affects not only the woman who is making “her choice.” It affects the family, the community, and society. It affects our understanding of who we are, what life is and when it begins. It affects our understanding of love, sacrifice, freedom and independence. It can affect our understanding of so many fundamental and foundational realities. It can change everything.

Another day, another story about pro-choice/pro-abortion aggression towards pro-life activists. The right to freedom of expression in Canada is heralded, except when it isn’t.

Georges Buscemi, president of Campagne Quebec-Vie, said the number of incidents at pro-life vigils lately raises concerns for him about freedom of speech. “These types of altercations seem to be almost routine now,” he said. “They’re not provocateurs or anarchists. They’re everyday people who seem to consider the message and people second-class citizens.”

The thinking behind it, he suggested, is that “those guys, their statements, are out of bounds so we’re allowed to push them around.”

Since this is an Ottawa couple, I heard about the birth of their baby, a total and utter surprise with the mother never knowing she was pregnant, prior to the national media picking it up. I had the usual thoughts… “how on earth…” I do wonder whether we these sorts of surprises are facilitated by the birth control pill–a woman doing Creighton day in day out, for example, is going to be much more aware of her body by default (again, just one more reason why if you believe information is power then the Pill ain’t powerful)

But after those musings, all I have to say is congratulations.

The 33-year-old audio engineer dubbed the episode a “miraculous birth” on his Facebook page and told CTV by phone “it was the most amazing thing that can happen to you.”

 

Because we should laugh on Monday mornings.

Or know a couple who is struggling? Here’s a great article that compares and contrasts NaPro Technology to IVF. Marie-Claire Reer mentioned the benefits of NaPro in our interview a few weeks ago.

If you’re looking for a NaPro-trained MD in Canada, these fine people can refer you to one.

I work with a NaPro doctor, not for fertility reasons, but because I have a fairly uncommon hormone issue. I saw 19 doctors over 18 months who couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. The NaPro doctor diagnosed me in three appointments over the course of two months. The additional training they do to be NaPro practitioners is so valuable. I’m a big fan. And I find the NaPro approach incredibly pro-woman. It’s about correcting underlying problems and supporting vibrant health.

And as I’ve mentioned before, I have friends who struggled with infertility who conceived with NaPro and know women who have struggled with hormone-related problems that were finally diagnosed by a NaPro doctor after years and years of pain and suffering. I just mention this because so few people are aware that there are alternatives to IVF and the like.

Here are a few quotes from the article:

With all of these corrections in health, the woman’s body is better equipped to support a pregnancy, which leads the NaPro quoted pregnancy rates of between 60-80% at 1 year after therapy has begun. Even the best IVF clinics in the nation only quote success rates in the 50% range. However, you have to keep in mind that only those couples who can afford IVF are getting that success rate. There are many couples who can’t even try IVF. That being said, because NaPro techniques are correcting medical problems, the majority of the tests and treatments are covered by insurances, even when “infertility” is not included in the policy. This allows for a greater number of couples to seek treatment! Even couples who have tried assisted reproductive technologies (ART) to conceive but were unsuccessful are still candidates for NaProTECHNOLOGY treatments. There are many stories of couples who have tried ART, some more than once, and later conceived and delivered babies with NaPro. […]

NaProTECHNOLOGY is a relatively new women’s health science that works cooperatively with a woman’s natural cycle. As mentioned before, it can be used to diagnose and treat many gynecologic, hormonal, and even emotional problems. However, what it seems to be known for best is treatment of infertility. The approach that a Medical Consultant (a physician, advanced practical nurse, or physician’s assistant trained in NaPro) takes is that infertility is not the diagnosis but a symptom of other underlying disease processes. By identifying the underlying cause or causes (as it is often multi-factorial), NaPro is able to treat the source of the problem instead of using a Band-Aid solution.

At least, that’s the only place I’m hearing about this story. I’m awfully busy these days and struggling to keep up, so correct me if I’m wrong.

However, I think it is of more than passing interest to society at large when girls carry their dead babies around in their bags while going to Victoria’s Secret.

We’ve written before about how the Ontario government passed legislation in order to withhold abortion data from its taxpayers. Pat Maloney, pro-life blogger and superstar is taking the government to court over the move.

We’re still not clear why the government did what it did in passing that ridiculous legislation. Pat continues to ask questions though. Here’s her exchange with her MPP Madeleine Meilleur.

I asked her why the government put the abortion exclusion clause into FIPPA.

Ms. Meilleur responded:

“We amended the Freedom of Information Act at the request of the hospitals to maintain the quality and the privacy of the information, so it was not specific to abortion. It’s among other things [in the act]. I don’t think you would like your private information to be disclosed to the public.”

I explained to Ms. Meilleur, that the change had nothing to do with privacy. That I agree that private information should never be released, however there is no private information in what I’m asking for. I’m asking for totals of abortion statistics, those done in hospitals, in private physician offices and clinics. I said that private and personal information is already excluded from the act. I said that because it is important to have good statistics, and it doesn’t matter if you are pro-life or pro-choice, we need to have accurate statistics for all health concerns for women.

I asked her again, saying that I’m just trying to understand why the Ontario government did this. They haven’t excluded information for woman who have breast cancer, or knee surgeries. So why did they exclude abortion services?

Keep up the good fight Pat! Perhaps someday we’ll have answers…

At 25 weeks. Pretty cool.

After practicing a few times with a model of jello and a grape — the grape standing in for the heart, the jello standing in for the surrounding body — the doctors performed the procedure on Sept. 25. Mom had local anesthesia and was sedated. The baby was given anesthesia and a muscle relaxant so it wouldn’t switch positions at an inopportune time.

Having removed any and all rules associated with sexual behaviour, I’m not terribly surprised then when it is reported that sexual violence is on the rise. I’m sad, but not surprised.

I don’t have time this morn to comment on the study or the findings, but I thought I’d link to an article (which contains a link to the original study) for those of you who want to dig into the materials.

Researchers found 40% of these women mentioning something financial, 36% in some way discussing the bad “timing” of the pregnancy, 31% raising a partner issue, 29% speaking of “other children,” 20% talking of the child somehow interfering with future opportunities.

Less than 20% mentioned something about not being emotionally or mentally prepared (19%), health related reasons (12%), wanting a better life than she could provide (12%), not being independent or mature enough (7%), influence of family or friends, and not wanting to have a baby or to place a baby up for adoption (4%). [1]

These do not add to 100%, of course, because women tended to give more than one reason. And some other important qualifications need to be made to give a proper analysis

Looking more carefully at the data

These responses reflect a women’s self-reported subjective assessment, not some independent analysis of her situation. As such, it is a good guide to her perceptions (or at least to her beliefs about what others will consider an acceptable justification). But they do not necessarily tell us the facts about her circumstances.

For example, though we know from demographic data reported by the authors that 45% of women participating in the survey were receiving public assistance and that a considerable portion (40%) were not able to indicate that they had “enough money in the past month to meet basic needs,” we do not know what these women’s precise income was or what mix of public and private resources were available in their communities.

Would they have arrived at the same conclusion if someone had sat down with them, looked at the sort of resources available to them, and given them the sort of budget planning advice and assistance that is available at many local pregnancy care centers?