She was 19 and he was 21. She just graduated high school and was working to save so money so she could ultimately attend the local community college. She had dreams of owning her own nail salon. He took construction jobs whenever available and had thoughts of being a site manager. They were both good Catholics so they used the rhythm method for birth control.
Then she got pregnant.
They struggled with what to do. They were too intimidated to go to their priest so, instead, they talked to a friend or two and some family members. Ultimately, they decided to have an abortion. At the time, she was nine weeks pregnant. It was a very sad occasion for both of them but neither could envision how they could raise a child on their income and cringed at the thought of sending their child to a public school in the Bronx. She knew, of course, that she could put the baby up for adoption but could not imagine carrying the child until birth then handing it over to another family. She did not want to spend each day wondering what her child was doing in some other part of the country. It was all a very sad occasion but they did what they thought was best at that moment.
Nine years later, things had changed. They made their way out of the Bronx and started making a comfortable living in Pennsylvania. She was a civil servant and he ran a local hardware store. Then, she became pregnant again. And this time they had their baby.
After giving birth, she started thinking more about her abortion and a transformation of sorts took place. She started thinking that if she had had that first child maybe things would have turned out differently. Maybe there could have been a way for her to finish college and turn things around. She couldn’t stop saying to herself: “what if?” She started reading pro-life literature and discovered resources for women who had come to regret their abortion. She dove in head first, joining organizations and attending rallies.
Like the others who had had similar experiences, she never went out and said that abortion should be a crime, that we should throw women and the doctors in jail for participating in the procedure. No, their approach was more subtle than that, on its face more “caring.” Because they knew that women knew absolutely nothing about their reproductive lives, they merely wanted to talk to them about the affects of abortion, the dangers. They just wanted women to know the “truth.” Their compassion for these women was dripping off the walls.
Of course, they never talk about the millions of women who have had abortions and who, dare I say it, are actually okay today! They don’t’ talk about the person in my family who over the course of 12 years had two abortions and today has the
most amazing family. Yes, in private conversations she will admit that she might think about the two abortions at times, but only fleetingly. It certainly has not affected her to the point where she wants to go out and join some pro-life organization or seek counseling. No, we can’t talk about those women.
Make no mistake about it – these women who have had abortions and now say they are total basket cases have one goal in mind – to make abortion illegal in this country once again. They want to back to the days when women, despite the laws, sought out abortions, often with disastrous consequences. Don’t let the sweet talk fool you. In the back of their minds, they are thinking: “You are killing a baby, my dear” but they will sugarcoat it by dangling before you the prospect that you will be totally paralyzed with guilt for the rest of your life if you get that abortion.
The irony, of course, is these women who now regret their abortion, including the one above, actually had an abortion! They made the decision based on their moment in time, based on whatever information they could gather. And this morning, there is a woman who is facing the same situation.
I have absolutely no problem if that pregnant woman wants to read volumes of pro-life literature. She can go, if she wants, to a crisis pregnancy center and talk to their “counselors.” The more information (if truthful), the better for her decision making process.
But, make no mistake about it. Behind all the nice talk and the offers of assistance, the bottom line is that these women who now regret their abortions thought they were doing the right thing at the time. And they now want to take away that decision making process from the hundreds of thousands of women each year who are in the same position.
Related articles
- Surprise! Crisis Pregnancy Centers Don’t Separate Education, Religion (hayladies.wordpress.com)
- All Pro-life Today 7/26/2011 (deaconjohnspace.wordpress.com)
August 3, 2011 at 11:03 am
Again, some more on the fake clinics: http://cpcwatch.org/ws_amanda.php
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August 3, 2011 at 1:39 pm
Deanna, you said something above that reminded me: you say you support birth control that does not cause an abortion. Please tell me specifically which forms of birth control do you support? Thanks
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August 4, 2011 at 5:17 pm
I have terrible news about Deanna– passionate as she is about providing documentation for all her arguments, I don’t think she has read many, if any of them. To find out about women who were coerced into having abortions (I’ve met only one, who happened to be 15 at the time and not at all pleased about it), I looked for the study she quoted, VM Rue et. al. “Induced abortions and traumatic stress: A preliminary comparison of American and Russian women,” Medical Science Monitor 10(10):SR5-16 (2004). It’s not available unless you pay for it.
However, there are a zillion hits on Google where the title is quoted in blogs, websites and posts. It leads me to conclude that when someone of her ilk reads something which seems to support his view, he opines on it and mentions the supporting documentation without actually sharing it. This is repeated by all who want to believe his opinion to be true and factual, and eventually it comes to Deanna, who loads it into her blunderbuss and discharges it.
In short, that is just one study served up without her perusal. I do remember that I did find and review another she offered up about the superiority of abstinence, in which it was quite clear that the non-abstaining group actually had a higher rate of abstinence than the abstainers, both in practice and in contradiction to the experimenters’ model.
I have to conclude that it is quite likely that while Deanna is passionate about her topic, she is not particularly well-informed about the literature on which she bases so much of her hope. She is not doing us any favors by undercutting her argument with very sloppy workmanship. But it does prove how strongly the so-called “pro-lifer” focuses on abortion, not only to the detriment of care for human life, but to standards of scholarship.
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August 4, 2011 at 6:57 pm
Wow, Charles, sounds like you did a lot of work. A true scholar, you. And now I await the rebuttal!
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August 4, 2011 at 9:07 pm
Also, FYI, that is not the only study that shows a relationship between abortion and mental health issues. This study : Associations Between Abortion, Mental Disorders, and Suicidal Behaviour in a Nationally
Representative Sample Natalie P Mota, B A ‘; Margaret Burnett, MD, FRCPC^ Jitender Sareen, MD, FRCPC^. shows the same thing. They state that, “Conclusions: Our study confirms a strong association between abortion and mental disorders.”
Possible mechanisms of this relation are discussed.
Can J Psychiatry. 2010;55(4):239-247.
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August 4, 2011 at 9:12 pm
They went on to say: Ciinical Implications
• Some women with a history of abortion develop emotional problems, and clinicians should
assess for mental disorders, particularly SUDs, in these women.
• Clinicians should screen for a history of abortion in women presenting with mood, anxiety,
or SUDs as a potential contributing factor.
• Women presenting for abortion should be screened for a history of violence.
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August 5, 2011 at 6:38 pm
“A true scholar, you.’ — You’re right, Pat. I’ve met a lot of them. Chuck is one of the better.
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August 4, 2011 at 9:02 pm
Wow! You have just summed me up and put a ribbon around me huh? Sorry, but I have been in the pro-life movement a looong time. I do know a thing or two about it.
Your statement that the study is not available unless you pay for it is not true at all. The entire study is free on the internet in PDF form. You just gotta know where to look. Also, FYI…..I have subscriptions to several research sites. As a home school parent my state provides these to me as they would any public school, including colleges. You shouldn’t assume things you don’t know about.
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August 5, 2011 at 7:47 am
DeAnna – you don’t know squat, you self admitted outlier freak.
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August 5, 2011 at 7:51 am
Hey, Harold. We dont need that crap. Stay away from the personal attacks or we’ll censor you…
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August 6, 2011 at 10:38 am
Attention all: despite what Deanna says, a fetus is NOT a baby, unless it’s HER baby. It is important for so-called “pro-lifers” to insist it is a baby in order to make their work look heroic.
She says that the study on women coerced into having an abortion is available for free as a .pdf document, but she did not provide that link, only a read-for-pay link. I believe her when she says she subscribes to any number of journals, and it reinforces my belief that her family income is right up there with First Dude Todd Palin’s oil-field unionized worker’s $160,000 a year (which makes adopting six kids quite affordable).
Now, here’s a Grand Bargain which can end the fighting forever between the two sides:
–A Federal law which alllows a pregnant woman to select in any way she chooses a “pro-lifer” to pay all her costs of pregnancy and to whom she will give the resulting baby, regardless of its mental or physical condition, ethnicity, race, etc. Then chosen “pro-lifer” will be mandated under penalty of a fine and imprisonment to raise the child to adulthood, with the usual and customary support of government programs. He, she or they (if a couple) will be forbidden to avoid that responsibility.
Whaddya think? I think it satisfies the right to choice to a great degree and allows so-called “pro-lifers” to prove me wrong. Of course, both sides are going to be a little unhappy with it, which shows what a great compromise it is.
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February 8, 2014 at 4:28 pm
We were given your website by Lisa Balkowski, Tyler is a fnreid of Matthews. Your photos look great!We would like to book you for Tyler’s Senior pictures. Do you have locations or would you come to West Bend to shoop photos?Our phone # 262-629-9271 or e-mail. to set up a time if you’re available.Thanks,Sharon Tennies
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August 17, 2011 at 12:34 am
Its peoples choice. This is a free country. Mind your own damn bussiness and leave people be. Jesus, what about the poor souls that are impregnanted by rape? Should they be forced to suffer more than just dealing with the rape itself? No, so your choice is your own, let people make theirs.
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August 17, 2011 at 4:40 pm
Suppose my choice is to kneecap you, Brynn, because I don’t like the way you spell your name!
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September 24, 2013 at 4:38 pm
I’m sorry to hear your son is/was not in good health. Watching anonye suffer is unpleasant; watching children, especially your own, suffer and not be able to help them is awful.I wasn’t there, and so can’t comment on your experience, but I find it difficult to believe anonye would literally take a child from you and vaccinate him against your wishes, except in the most exceptional circumstances (e.g. there have been cases where babies of HepB +ve mothers have been involuntarily vaccinated due to the much higher risk of not vaccinating). It would certainly be astonishingly rare that such a thing would happen in an Australian health care setting these days.However, personal experiences aside, even taking your case into account doesn’t change the fact that vaccination is still certainly safer than traveling by car. Anecdotal evidence can be very compelling to those who experience it directly, and to those who know you or trust or respect your opinion, but it still incorrect to generalise from one bad outcome to all vaccination is bad , and that is even allowing that, for example, it was unequivocally proven that your son’s poor health was/is caused by a vaccine.
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September 22, 2013 at 6:55 pm
The rates of adverse rieatcons to many drugs can indeed be underestimated due to poor reporting. However, major adverse events are typically reported at a high rate as most people, and their doctors, are unlikely to ignore significant problems (seizures, anaphylaxis, permanent disability, etc.) while many mild or transient health problems do indeed go unreported (mild nausea, headache, lethargy, etc.).The list of potential adverse effects noted in the product information sheet that accompanies medications, including vaccines, includes just about every adverse event that happened to anyone in either phase III clinical trials of the drug, or in large post-licensing studies or based on post-marketing reporting by doctors to agencies such as the Australian Adverse Drug Reaction Reporting System. Because safety is a high priority, especially with vaccines, the regulatory bodies involved do not even impose a burden of proof; that is, even if there is no good evidence that the drug/vaccine _caused_ whatever adverse event is being described, the simple temporal correlation is enough to have such events included on that list of possible side effects of the drug.This means that, contrary to your assertion that less than 10% of serious events being reported, we tend to end up with a long list of adverse events that are quite probably not related to the drug at all, along with those that are caused by it. This amounts to an overestimation, or over-reporting, rather than the other way around, in most cases.
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