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'...and still they weep'

Psychiatrist Professor Philip Ney says:
'From clinical and research observations, I have concluded that abortion is the most deeply damaging trauma that can happen to any human.'

Read the following articles:
- Who is at Risk
- Manifestations of Post Abortion Trauma
- Post Abortion Syndrome
- The Effect of Abortion on the Mental Health of Women (external link)

Post Abortion Syndrome

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Psychological Interest Article - Post Abortion Syndrome by Pete Randall.

P E Randall
Psychologist
The University of Hull
Social Policy and Professional Studies
Hull
HU6 7RX

First British Serial Rights
1330 Words

There is much sadness and pain in my line of work. People come with such deep sorrows and walk through my door hoping that I can do them some good. For the most part I can accept their pain but not envelope myself in it, a necessary defence against burn-out. Yet, sometimes the barrier fails, something gets through and I hurt for them. There was the three-year old child who joyously explored an electric socket as the last game he ever played, the parents who watched a brain disease steal their little girl bit by bit, first her high bright chatter, next her sight, finally her life. And there was the child shattered by the hit-and-run merchant who died much later, long after her parents had started to hope again.

The loss of a child is the greatest pain and it echoes down through the years of family life, casting a shadow over every sunny occasion. We can all empathise with this and try to reach out to those who grieve.

Yet there is another tragedy too, that sometimes breaches my barrier of concerned detachment. It is also the pain of loss yet there is little sympathy for those who experience it.

I refer to the aftermath of abortion, the pain that many women feel maybe weeks or months after the event, a pain that may last a lifetime. Take Cara, whose feelings cast a shadow over her family life when, finally, she did have children.

She got pregnant when she was only sixteen and knew her very devout parents would disapprove. "I didn't want sex but he made me. It wasn't that he raped me but he was older and he put so much pressure on me. Later he paid for the abortion but after that he left without a word."

Cara was relieved to be free of the tremendous worry that her pregnancy brought her and carried on with her secretarial training. It was only later that she began to feel different about the experience. "It started as a sort of confusion with me spending loads of mental energy trying to find the source of it. It ended with me grieving for the baby I had murdered, hitting the bottle to deaden the pain."

This article is not about the rights and wrongs of abortion - it is about the victims of it. Most of us, if we think about it at all, believe that the only victims of abortion are the children who might have known life. Well, this is too restricted a view - there may be other victims: the mother, father, would-be grandparents and, sometimes, brothers and sisters. Cara was a victim - young, naive, frightened and without support she had submitted herself to a process that solved problems in the short term but left her with a lifetime of guilt.

Grace Kirkham of the British Victims of Abortion writes of the mothers, "They have to convince themselves that they did the 'right thing' for themselves and the fetus. Many women then go into self destruct. Subconsciously they think, 'How can I be a worthy person when I have killed my own baby?'"

As this feeling builds it may bring a whole set of other problems and many women feel they are going mad. Fortunately there is now growing acceptance that they are victims of an all too common after effect of abortion. The condition has a name - Post Abortion Syndrome.

It has been thoroughly defined by two American researchers, Ann Speckland and Vincent Rue and, despite the disbelief of many doctors, it has found its way into the manuals that proscribe the diagnosis of psychiatric illness.

Vincent Rue speaks of abortion causing an "...immediate void in the patient characterised by ambivalence, emptiness and confusion. As the foetal child dies, so does a part of the parent - male or female, married or not, minor or adult. Abortion is not just a pregnancy termination. It is a personal and relational amputation... Parents are parents forever, even of a dead child." Perhaps that's why Cara told me that she carried her unborn child with her wherever she was, even after her other two children were born. Every family joy is tinged with sadness and, as she says, "Every Christmas day and birthday party we have, I feel there is someone missing who should be there."

Post Abortion Syndrome (PAS) is not hard to spot once a woman starts to talk of her feelings. That's why there is often a double tragedy in the wake of abortion. It is not only tragic that the mother should have had to go through the process itself, it is also tragic that she has had so little after-care counselling that she may only discover by chance that she is not alone. That's why Cara's situation so saddened me. She had all the major signs, so easy to spot.

To begin with she experienced the confusion that is so common even several months after the event. Gradually she began to relive the experience, her mind, and sometimes, her dreams re-visiting the reality of the abortion. She found that she had to turn away from articles in TV programmes about abortion as she could not bring herself to join in conversations with other women talking of that subject. Both the anniversary date of the abortion and of the probable birth date were hard dates for her to face. They still are, nearly fifteen years later.

All the time that these feelings are growing Cara tried hard to deny them. She went to great lengths to convince herself that her feelings were nothing to do with the abortion but instead were to do with the fact that the baby's father had deserted her soon after. Along with this denial came a gradual shutting herself off from her friends and usual social activities. She found that she was becoming a recluse for whom day-to-day social life was somehow unreal.

Other symptoms started to crowd her, sleeplessness, secondary anorexia and eventually, alcohol abuse. Only then did she begin to accept the true reason for her state.

Vincent Rue rightly associates this syndrome with Post Traumatic Distress Disorder which psychiatrists are familiar with as a long-term reaction to severe traumas, possibly years after the actual event. Unfortunately it took the medical establishment over twelve years to recognise that, during which time many veterans of the Vietnam War suffered terribly and with little help.

He estimates that, in America, about 10 million women have experienced abortion over a fifteen year period. His own survey figures suggest that between two to six million of them suffer, or are at risk of suffering from PAS. The risk climbs with every extra traumatic event that may occur from the time of the abortion. A significant risk factor for adolescent girls is inherent to the amount, or lack, of support they have.

Victims of PAS need support and often therapy as well. It isn't just a matter of accepting the loss of their unborn children, it is also their need to come to terms with their role in that loss and the guilt that comes with it. As for Cara, self-esteem has to be rebuilt and the whole cartload of emotional unfinished business placed in the context of the rest of their lives.

If my own casework experiences are anything to go by there is a vast number of women out there who feel the way Cara did. Letting them know that they are not alone in their feelings is vital and guiding them through the healing process is a challenge for the caring professions and society in general. Right or wrong, abortion is legal in our society. Let us at least make sure that its victims are helped through the aftermath.