Congress began the 2015 session proposing more anti-abortion legislation, keeping in step with legislators at the state level doing the same. Abortion rights have been chipped away so continuously, many of us have come to expect more, no matter how ludicrous.
The proposed laws calling for intrusive, expensive, and uncomfortable (even painful) transvaginal ultrasounds and mandated scripted information containing unscientific , inaccurate or incorrect information to abortion patients serve no purpose but to promote anti-abortion propaganda and delay access to abortion services. Some proposals are truly bizarre. An addendum to legislation in North Carolina that passed in 2013 is currently being pushed by some politicians to “…[establish] governing and quality assurance boards and [designate] a chief executive to handle day-to-day operations…” Exactly what will an additional layer of bureaucracy in a medical practice accomplish for women’s health?
When asked to describe the benefits of these laws, the answers are generally the same and women generally have reactions of disbelief to their claims:
Women need to be “properly” informed. Once they are provided the right information, they will be less likely to have an abortion. Uh, yeah, even we women know that we really just do not know what we are doing when it comes to pregnancy, abortion, or other decisions involving our reproductive lives. Yep. We women need the wisdom and personal, often religious, convictions of politicians before we can feel confidence in our decision. We should not trust ourselves or our medical care providers.
It protects women’s health. Abortion is such a dangerous procedure with two victims – the pregnant mom is scarred for life and her child is killed. Can you please just give specifics about how it actually protects women? Are you saying that childbirth is safer or, really, be honest, are you just trying to put another barrier in place to stop women from choosing to have an abortion? Or, are you thinking illegal abortion would be better somehow?
We care about women and children. Oh, I know, I know…you will eventually convince me to give birth whether I am a healthy young woman, a 46-year-old woman with four children and no desire for more, a woman with chronic health conditions, a 13-year-old unprepared for pregnancy and parenting, an 11-year-old pregnant as a result of repeated sexual molestation from a male relative, or any other woman in any other circumstance. You care so much that you will promise to support me spiritually, emotionally, and financially until my offspring become adults. Oh, wait…I forgot, most of you actually stop supporting women once we give birth, once the fetus becomes a child.
If we assume for a moment that those who support abortion restrictions are sincere in their claims that they believe women should be properly informed, that the laws protect women’s health, and that they care about women and children, then they should also support other reproductive healthcare-related proposals that have the same goal in mind. If the premise of restrictive abortion laws is really about informing and protecting women, then laws must be developed to ensure that all women who get pregnant and plan to give birth are aware of the risks involved. All medical practices that have pregnant women as patients must arrange for structural modifications to their facilities to ensure women and the government that they can properly respond to medical emergencies that might arise. The medical providers of pregnant women must also be required to make specific, politically dictated statements about the range of risks involved in pregnancy and childbirth although, unlike the “abortion information,” statements can be based on empirical data and medical facts.
Research by Elizabeth G. Raymond, MD, MPH and David A. Grimes, MD and published in the American College of Obstetrician and Gynecology’s Obstetrics & Gynecology (February 2012), concluded, “Legal induced abortion is markedly safer than childbirth. The risk of death associated with childbirth is approximately 14 times higher than that with abortion. Similarly, the overall morbidity associated with childbirth exceeds that with abortion.” (Full PDF article available at no charge through embedded link.) While I am not interested in shattering the joy of women learning of a wanted positive pregnancy test, fair is fair. There are risks associated with pregnancy and childbearing for which women should receive appropriate medical information. Given the political and religious propaganda out there, the chances are that a lot of women think that pregnancy and childbirth are safe. If women cannot be respected as able to independently make decisions about abortion, how can we possibly believe them able to make decisions concerning pregnancy and childbirth?
In addition to pregnancy and childbearing putting women at a higher risk of death than abortion, there are numerous risk factors that require medical attention and monitoring, including prior to conception. Rh incompatibility, kidney disease, diabetes, polycystic ovary syndrome, and autoimmune diseases are among the many conditions that can dramatically complicate the health of pregnant women and their babies. Age and lifestyle are other factors that obstetricians must consider during preconception consultations and prenatal treatment practices. The latest blow to pregnant women and fetal wellbeing is research concerning the influence of the time interval between the delivery of the first baby and conception of the second. “[A]n interval of less than 12 months causes an increased risk for severe preterm birth in women who already suffered preterm birth in their first pregnancy” was the primary finding of the research, which will be presented this week at the Society of Maternal-Fetal Medicine’s annual meeting.
Obesity is one of the most common risk factors for women in developed countries. According to research published in Science Daily (July 2010), “The heavier the woman, the higher the risk of induced preterm birth before 37 weeks, with very obese women at 70% greater risk than normal weight women. Overweight or obese women also had a higher risk of early preterm birth (before 32 or 33 weeks). Again, the heavier the woman, the higher the risk of early preterm birth, with very obese women at 82% greater risk than normal weight women.”
All proposed Pregnancy and Childbearing Risk Awareness legislation should reach far to include all possible complications – just as restrictive abortion legislation underscores improbable complications such as a perforated uterus or death. For example, maternal mortality is on the rise in the United States, with roughly 18 out of 100,000 women dying from pregnancy-related complications in 2013; between 1998 and 2005, the figure was much lower, with roughly eight deaths per 100,000 pregnant women. In 2011, the Center for Disease Control reported 17.8 deaths per
100,000 pregnant women, noting also significant racial disparities with a rate of 12.5 per 100,000 white women and 42.8 per 100.000 black women. The death rate from abortion is one for every one million abortions performed at eight weeks or less, one for every 29,000 abortions performed at 16 to 20 weeks gestation, and one for every 11,000 abortions performed at 21 weeks or later. Obviously, far more women die due to pregnancy-related complications than abortion complications, even at the later stages of gestation. It is only appropriate to ensure that women have the correct information so that they can decide if they really want to be pregnant and if motherhood is actually worth such possible health concerns.
Those of us who believe that reproductive justice is critical to achieving social and economic equality for women know that women can and do think for themselves in every sphere of life and most especially their reproductive lives. We also make many household and relationship decisions, not to mention educational and career decisions. We do not need politicians, pastors, or “sidewalk counselors” to help us make informed, personal decisions nor do we need them to create laws to try to impose their views on us. If they feel they must be a part of our reproductive lives, they should go about it fairly and provide complete and accurate information on abortion and pregnancy.
Abortion - Abortion Clinics, Abortion Pill, Abortion Information 
February 4, 2015 at 9:28 pm
Absolutely dynamite, Kimmie!
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February 4, 2015 at 9:37 pm
Many thanks RRTL Chuck!
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February 4, 2015 at 10:40 pm
My response to this will be a repeat of what I have previously said dealing with this subject and those who believe they have a right to control the reproductive rights of females. The only thing that is going to stop this constant assault on the right of females to chose when , where , how and if is to make those doing the assaulting fear doing so. This will not happen until those of us who support the right of females to choose are willing to make this fear felt by those doing the assaulting.
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February 5, 2015 at 6:57 am
This is your second interesting comment, KVT, I asked you to amplify your first, but you didn’t. That means you won’t with this one either. So I’ll give it a try:
The only thing that is going to stop this constant assault on the right to life of young people is to make those doing the assaulting fear doing so. This will not happen until those of us who support their right to keep on living are willing to make this fear felt by those doing the assaulting.
There are a few of us pro-lifers who believer that (most of us are the peacefulprayerfulloving types) but very few who have been willing to act on it.
Did I get it right? Silence means yes.
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February 6, 2015 at 9:41 am
Mr. Dunkle, you remained quite silent on the matter of Romanian children being treated like animals, forced to sleep upright because they were crowded eight to a bed, denied food, underwear, pants, medical care and human interaction– but you rejoiced at their being born. Did your silence mean yes?
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February 6, 2015 at 10:25 am
Chuck, there are lots of ways of treating human beings inhumanely. Torturing them to death when they’re very small is just the worst way.
And I did not remain silent when I saw those Romanian children being treated like animals. I said, “Oh My God.”
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February 6, 2015 at 10:27 am
John, your comments simply affirm that you consider the zygote, embryo, or fetus to be a person. Do you not agree that women should be made aware of all the risks involved in pregnancy and childbearing?
How is your son these days?
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February 6, 2015 at 12:41 pm
don’t ask him about his son. It looks very much like he wants lots of other kids to grow up just like his kid.
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February 6, 2015 at 2:11 pm
Oh geeze Chuck, we all die.
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February 6, 2015 at 4:59 pm
I’ll modify that: He doesn’t want other kids to grow up like his kid; it’s that he doesn’t care if other kids grow up like his kid.
“We all die,” yes; but he doesn’t care how slowly and painfully we die, nor how inhumanely we live before we die– even the plight of the Romanian orphans does not give him pause to reflect upon his responsibility for the real children he wants others to bear.
It’s a lot cheaper and easier to buy a megaphone to deal with abortion than it is to worry about a real child for eighteen years or more.
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February 6, 2015 at 2:20 pm
And yes Kimmie, I do consider zygotes, embryos, and fetuses to be persons the same as toddlers, teenagers, and octogenarians. What about you?
Certainly pregnant women should be made aware of that.
Matthew is both brightening and saddening our days if you can believe that. I’ll let you know.
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February 7, 2015 at 10:27 am
Okay, John, if women should be made aware of the risks associated with pregnancy and childbearing, some (particularly those with certain medical conditions) might choose abortion if they realize the gravity of those risks, even if they wanted to bear children.
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February 7, 2015 at 11:49 am
That’s a chance I’d take — that some would kill the child to avoid the risks.
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February 7, 2015 at 3:22 pm
John – I appreciate that you would be willing to take the chance that some women would choose abortion if made aware of the risks involved in pregnancy and childbearing. I am not sure you intended my interpretation, but that you admit/accept that women are at much greater health risk with pregnancy and childbearing is truthful and reasonable. Now, I get that you would then argue that abortion is “higher risk because it kills a baby” – I see zygote/embryo/fetus as science does and not as an independent human, as you do. Thus, it appears that alas, we agree on something.
I am sure there is indeed a combination of brighter and sadder days with Matthew. I experienced that with my mom in her final days. Something as simple as seeing her express joy at the placement of a wind chime on a fire mantel, for example, made those days of intense caregiving a bit joyful.
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February 9, 2015 at 7:53 pm
All he can think about is someone killing something to avoid a risk. He cannot bring himself to think about the need to care for a child he insists be born.
Not even the sight of 25 Romanian orphans raised for years with only three beds among them can make him start to think about it. Apparently it doesn’t bother him that other children might suffer even worse than Matthew before they die Matthew’s death.
Aborticentrism is even worse than I thought.
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February 6, 2015 at 12:40 pm
So, you would consider your work to be saving “children,” but you will not consider protecting them once they’re born?????
Why does your concern for a life you consider human get guillotined once an actual child is born?
It sounds very much like the person you want to have happy is not any real child, but yourself–you want to be comfortable knowing that children have to be born, no matter how little anybody cares for them.
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February 6, 2015 at 2:13 pm
You can’t protect everybody. You have to concentrate those in the most danger. These days they’re the little guys.
Later, Chuck, if they go after slightly goofy middle-aged single dads, I’ll try to be there for you.
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February 7, 2015 at 2:12 pm
I think the assaulters must stop assaulting the anti-assaulters and then all of the assaulting will stop, unless of course, they are assaulted on a Sunday.
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February 8, 2015 at 6:52 am
Took the words right out of my mouth.
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February 7, 2015 at 2:11 pm
How do we make them “feat” what they are doing? I assume you are talking about fear at the polls?
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February 7, 2015 at 2:14 pm
I meant “fear”.
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February 7, 2015 at 7:11 pm
Doesn’t sound like that to me, Pat. Sounds as if he is promoting the use of illegal force.
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February 5, 2015 at 6:42 am
This is burying the opposition inside a mountain of rhetoric. Now let me read the top three comments.
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February 7, 2015 at 2:15 pm
Yeah, this thread is already giving me a headache…
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February 7, 2015 at 4:34 pm
I don’t know if compulsory ultrasound is the best way to go about it, but I do agree that women should be fully informed of what they are doing before they go ahead. I know from personal experience, (though over 25 years ago) that fear of my parents finding out meant I rushed into it on the advice of ‘friends’ who thought it best and didn’t think clearly about what I really wanted to do. Only afterwards did the finality of it hit me. Maybe I am in a minority, or was more naive than most, but I doubt I am the only one who feels this way. I also don’t think the law (UK) was correctly applied in my case as none of the medical profession even asked me what my reasons for it were.
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February 7, 2015 at 4:42 pm
Regretful –
Thank you for your candor. Neither pregnancy or abortion is something women should do without significant thoughtfulness. Some women easily choose abortion in short time frame after realizing they are pregnant and have absolutely no second thoughts. Competent medical providers will make the effort to ensure that abortion patients are comfortable with their decision and, in my own experience directing a clinic, I cannot count the number of patients I sent away because they did not seem comfortable choosing abortion. Most came back – when they were ready. Some remained pregnant. I am sorry that you had the experience that you did. Perhaps giving birth would have been better for you. Maybe not. Either way, all decisions involving our reproductive lives deserve accurate information and women deserve respect for their choices.
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February 7, 2015 at 5:39 pm
I hope things have moved on since my experience in the 80’s. I was in a state of shock, panic, vomiting every day and felt unable to think straight. No counselling was offered, and I think if it had been I would have kept the baby – in hindsight it would have been the right choice for me. I did have a child not long after (also unplanned, an attempt to somehow ‘replace’ the one I had lost I think). I am having counselling now at a crisis pregnancy centre, which also offers post-abortion counselling, and it is helping to work through my grief, finally. I have read negative articles about these centres in America, but in my experience the one I visit is non-judgemental and only want to help. Maybe the UK is different.
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February 7, 2015 at 7:53 pm
Regretful, I’m curious about the child you did have, who would be in his/her mid-thirties by now. Would you care to share your parenting experiences? And is there anything you would do differently?
I was a single parent for the last fourteen years of my son’s minority– and despite sarcastic comments from so-called “pro-lifers,” there was no woman involved in my time with him.
If there had been parent-child centers available when he was born, I would have done a lot of stuff differently. As it was, they weren’t created until he was fourteen, so I did a lot that was counter-productive or worse. I expiated my ignorant parenting by expending a lot of my time and money working with children whose parents were in the same situation I had been in.
I hope you did better!
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February 8, 2015 at 6:59 am
I shouldn’t be doing here what I knock others for doing — jump in on a very interesting exchange — but sometimes I don’t take my own advice.
Chuck, could you explain your second paragraph?
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February 8, 2015 at 10:18 am
I have had so-called “pro-lifers” state with no knowledge of my situation that I must have had a live-in girl friend. That was true for six weeks out of fourteen years. Nor did I ever have a boy friend, live-in or otherwise.
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February 8, 2015 at 11:19 am
So why didn’t she raise the child?
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February 9, 2015 at 7:54 pm
She needed to take care of herself first. We both could see that.
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February 8, 2015 at 11:23 am
And you’re blaming someone’s nastiness on his pro-life beliefs. Can’t a nasty person have good parts too?
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February 9, 2015 at 7:56 pm
It was essential for the so-called “pro-lifers” to make themselves look as superior as possible to me. I didn’t hold it against them.
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February 8, 2015 at 7:32 am
What I would do differently in lfe is to have had my first child.
But in terms of parenting, (my eldest is actually in his late twenties now). I was only a single parent for the first 18 months as I was then in a relationship and have since had 2 younger children. I did take my son to lots of mother & baby mornings and playgroups, and didn’t feel at all out of place being there on my own. I do however have much more experience of single-parenting from the child’s point of view, as I was brought up by my dad after my mother died at a young age. From that stance I would do what I could to make sure that the child has a role model/s of the same gender.I personally think I would have benefited from having an older female to talk to about things I didn’t feel able to talk to my dad about. I am sorry to hear you had to endure sarcastic comments, I don’t think my dad had to put up with anything like that. The ‘debate’ does seem to be a lot more heated in America than the UK..
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February 8, 2015 at 10:27 am
Thank you, regretful. I would guess that your father was not engaged in the reproductive rights debate, hence his freedom from spiteful comments. Thanks to the work of parent-child centers in America, I now witness dads being much more attuned to dealing with their child on the basis of the child’s need for nurture rather than on my father’s generation’s need for male domination, which was the model for men of my generation.
It is quite likely that the British so-called “pro-lifers” are not as driven by very strong emotional needs as are the American ones, which would explain their lower level of hyper-acrimonious Christianity.
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February 8, 2015 at 10:46 am
You are right Chuck, it wasn’t something that was ever talked about, to the extent that I had only a dim awareness of what the a word meant until my friend suggested it to me. Yes, they were different times, Single parents were less common in my father’s generation, and yours too I imagine, I remember he used to say how hard it was to be both a mother and father, it is good that there is more support these days. It is shocking that people were so spiteful with, as you say, no knowledge of your situation.
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February 8, 2015 at 8:57 pm
regretful, they were just trying to dump on me because they knew I wanted them to hew to a high standard of personal responsibility in caring for human life.
In America, most so-called “pro-lifers” do not make much money and do not have a very high level of education. As a result, they suffer social and economic stressors that render them rather powerless (lacking personal resources to correct the injustice of their situation, they claim that God is looking out for them). They are angry, and rather than channel that anger to change things for the better, they vent on people who oppose their philosophy. A similar behavior can be seen in America’s poor whites who blame immigrants for “taking all the jobs,” rather than organizing.
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February 9, 2015 at 4:58 am
As with most things in you life, Chuck, you got this back-asswards. Want to find the trouble-makers? Follow the money trail.
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February 8, 2015 at 7:33 am
*life not lfe (is there a way to correct posts?)
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February 9, 2015 at 6:32 pm
Chuck, it sounds like you have had the misfortune to become involved with some angry people! I have considered joining some of the groups outside clinics here, they seem peaceful types. I want to do what I can to help people not to make the mistake I made. There was nothing like that there for me, and I wonder if there had it might have made me think. But not being religious I don’t know if I would be welcome. The cpc I attend for counselling helps people too, so maybe I could think about volunteering there eventually. I have read some of your posts here and you seem to do a lot to support needy people. In my case all the support I needed was space to think and some moral and emotional support, What I got was peer pressure from college friends who pushed the ‘a’ word as the only sensible course of action, making me believe I was stupid to consider having a baby in my circumstances. And so I caved in, and have spent my life regretting my weakness. I think a combination of shock, nausea and tiredness from hormones can stop some women (not all, some lucky ones feel well!) thinking clearly. I am in a couple of online support groups and have seen stories of women who have conceived after IVF (so by definition a planned pregnancy), then feel unable to cope, abort, regret it and are then faced with IVF again. It makes me wonder, did the hospital / clinic not question their motives?
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February 9, 2015 at 8:17 pm
regretful, people almost always try to help their friends through the lens of their experience, and your friends meant well, but they weren’t you.
I have a relative who had a similar but opposite experience from you. She wanted to get her pregnancy to end in an adoption (this was before Roe v. Wade, when planeloads of American women were flying to Sweden for legal abortions; read David Lodge’s “Trading Places”), and her father said, “No grandchild of mine will ever be raised by a stranger!” Unfortunately, he was as bad with grandchildren as he was with his own children; at one point, a six-year-old granddaughter said to him, “Grandpa, if you keep being nasty like that, I’m not coming back!” (Quite the kid!)
His daughter realized that if she was looking for the worst sort of authoritarian support as an unwed mother, her dad was going to be it. So she ignored his advice. What she eventually decided was, “I have three older sisters who have traveled to other countries, including one who’s been around the world twice. When I am their age, I will still be a single mother with a twelve-year-old kid.”
I dealt professionally with families, mothers, children and pregnant women for over quarter of a century, including women who didn’t want to be pregnant yet bore the child, women who chose to have an abortion, women who yielded to pressure and had an abortion, and women who wanted to have a child and were deeply disappointed that they didn’t get the child they fantasized about. In each one of those cases– and all the other variations thereof– my job was to connect the woman with the tools she needed to make the choices she felt were best for herself and her baby. If she didn’t want to, that was her choice; my job was to let her know somebody believed she should be in charge. I felt like Santa Claus all year long.
Now, remember the good intentions of your friends, and how it didn’t work out for you, and ask yourself, “Will I be doing to some other woman what my friends, with the best of intentions, did to me?” Remember that their lens of experience is, when you come down to it, different from yours.
It’s good to hear that you and your kids are doing so well!
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February 10, 2015 at 1:52 pm
Thank you for sharing your experience Chuck. You don’t mention if anyone regretted the choices they had made? From what I’ve seen in post-ab support groups, many do rush into it without thinking it through and live to regret it, I am not alone in this. And yes I can only base my views on my own experience, and those I have met via support groups.
Did your relative go ahead with the adoption in the end? I have heard that many regret giving a child up for adoption, but as an adoptee myself who has traced my birth mother I have never heard her say as much. And I have never asked, maybe I don’t want to hear the answer! I like to think I would be like the Grandad you mention if it came to one of my as yet non-existent grandchildren being adopted, and I would take them in. Ironic that one of the things I feared most the first time round was my dad’s reaction, and yet when I did tell him he was to be a grandad, he told me ‘don’t listen to any comments other people make’. Times were changing by the 80s and there were no negative comments, but he still had a 1950’s view on life. I just didn’t have the maturity and life experience to understand that even if he was angry to start with he would come round with time. Though I do know not everyone is lucky with supportive family.
I am not so sure we are doing well, there is and always will be a person missing. Through no fault of their own my kids have had to live with my sorrow over that.
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February 10, 2015 at 2:35 pm
God used you to create that child, regretful. You have cooperated in giving him or her everlasting happiness. It’s you, your other children, Chuck, and I who are on the spot. We’re the ones who need your help.
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February 10, 2015 at 3:44 pm
Well that’s one way of looking at it I guess John, but I’d still rather have them here. Chuck, I can’t find a book called Trading Places by David Lodge. There is one called Changing Places, but it doesn’t seem to be relevant, is that the one you mean?
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February 10, 2015 at 10:55 pm
regretful, the book is indeed Changing Places; my copy was not at hand to check. In one passage the American headed to London to swap jobs with his counterpart British prof is astounded to find himself the only man on the plane, that’s all. The rest of the book is on another topic entirely, quite funny and with a really bizarre ending. I don’t know how any editor decided it was worth publishing, but I like it.
The so-called “pro-lifers” here make a big deal out of “post-abortion” syndrome, but of course they only use the concept to justify their adherence to a dysfunctional twelve-step program (similar to the Alcoholic Anonymous twelve-step program, but it focuses on reinforcing the dysfunction rather than addressing it). Their biggest problem is their inability to care for real children.
In my job, the most frequent expression of regret for their choice that I saw displayed was women who screamed at, belittled and sometimes struck their children. They were largely from the group known as “high risk families,” women under 20 who had not completed 12 years of school, ignorant of the risks of sexual activity and quite often feeling (and rightfully) so unloved that they conclude a child would love them.
As the infant’s needs diverged more and more from their idealized notion of a baby– and failed to love them in the way expected– their frustration turned into resentment and then anger, and the child would receive years of horrid mis-nurture. One example: As the school bus approached, the mother railed at her eight-year-old, “Now, don’t be stupid like you were yesterday! Don’t make that face at me! You want a good smacking?” And then as the child got on the bus, “Goodbye, I love you!” So she gave the child the message every school day that when you love someone, you belittle him and threaten him.
And there were the women who would beat their children, and the worst result would be not when the child was removed from the home, but when he would, sometimes as young as five or six, smirk at her and say, “That didn’t hurt.” That child had just cut whatever bonds of affection had tied him/her to the most important person in life– and Mom was the agent of the disaster.
Of course, if I asked such a woman if she regretted having a child, the words spoken were always a denial, but they were at variance with the actions. Mothers WANT to be good mothers, and therefore they MUST declare they do not regret the way the child is turning out. My job was to help them be what they wanted to be, but there often was an awful lot of stuff in the way.
The most interesting thing about abortion was discovered around the time of Roe v. Wade, when states set up panels to authorize abortion upon application– the board would quiz the woman and authorize or deny on the basis of her presentation. It was found that the more clearly a woman ranked abortion among her other priorities– education, job, present family responsibilities and so forth– the more likely she would be granted permission to have one, but the more disorganized, impulsive, uneducated, and less-resourced the woman was, the more likely she would be denied. In other words, the woman less likely to be a good mother was forced to become one. As you consider advising women not to have an abortion, you might reflect upon that.
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February 10, 2015 at 10:56 pm
Starting a new thread to make this more readable:
regretful, the book is indeed Changing Places; my copy was not at hand to check. In one passage the American headed to London to swap jobs with his counterpart British prof is astounded to find himself the only man on the plane, that’s all. The rest of the book is on another topic entirely, quite funny and with a really bizarre ending. I don’t know how any editor decided it was worth publishing, but I like it.
The so-called “pro-lifers” here make a big deal out of “post-abortion” syndrome, but of course they only use the concept to justify their adherence to a dysfunctional twelve-step program (similar to the Alcoholic Anonymous twelve-step program, but it focuses on reinforcing the dysfunction rather than addressing it). Their biggest problem is their inability to care for real children.
In my job, the most frequent expression of regret for their choice that I saw displayed was women who screamed at, belittled and sometimes struck their children. They were largely from the group known as “high risk families,” women under 20 who had not completed 12 years of school, ignorant of the risks of sexual activity and quite often feeling (and rightfully) so unloved that they conclude a child would love them.
As the infant’s needs diverged more and more from their idealized notion of a baby– and failed to love them in the way expected– their frustration turned into resentment and then anger, and the child would receive years of horrid mis-nurture. One example: As the school bus approached, the mother railed at her eight-year-old, “Now, don’t be stupid like you were yesterday! Don’t make that face at me! You want a good smacking?” And then as the child got on the bus, “Goodbye, I love you!” So she gave the child the message every school day that when you love someone, you belittle him and threaten him.
And there were the women who would beat their children, and the worst result would be not when the child was removed from the home, but when he would, sometimes as young as five or six, smirk at her and say, “That didn’t hurt.” That child had just cut whatever bonds of affection had tied him/her to the most important person in life– and Mom was the agent of the disaster.
Of course, if I asked such a woman if she regretted having a child, the words spoken were always a denial, but they were at variance with the actions. Mothers WANT to be good mothers, and therefore they MUST declare they do not regret the way the child is turning out. My job was to help them be what they wanted to be, but there often was an awful lot of stuff in the way.
The most interesting thing about abortion was discovered around the time of Roe v. Wade, when states set up panels to authorize abortion upon application– the board would quiz the woman and authorize or deny on the basis of her presentation. It was found that the more clearly a woman ranked abortion among her other priorities– education, job, present family responsibilities and so forth– the more likely she would be granted permission to have one, but the more disorganized, impulsive, uneducated, and less-resourced the woman was, the more likely she would be denied. In other words, the woman less likely to be a good mother was forced to become one. As you consider advising women not to have an abortion, you might reflect upon that.
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February 11, 2015 at 5:05 am
I guess it’s more readable but I still don’t know what the heck you’re talking about.
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February 11, 2015 at 10:49 am
If you are telling the truth: The reason you can’t understand it is that you unconsciously block information which would put you at risk of realizing that to be a so-called “pro-lifer” has been one huge lifelong mistake. This is to say that you are really crippled.
If you are not telling the truth: To admit you understand is to erode the base on which you have built your entire career, i.e., that there are more important and more pressing responsibilities toward children than simply compelling pregnancies.
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February 11, 2015 at 8:46 pm
What?
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February 11, 2015 at 3:23 pm
Chuck, I found a synopsis of the book and articles discussing it – sounds like a complicated plot.
I’ve read about post-ab ‘syndrome’ while looking for support on the internet. No idea what criteria are required for a syndrome, and I doubt is it as well defined as all that, but it was a revelation to me that abortion can be linked to anxiety. I suffered from stress-related illness from a few months after mine – headaches, nausea, panic attacks etc. I was off work for weeks at a time, endless tests, no cause found and I was told it’s ‘stress’, but I think the doctors thought I was a hypochondriac. Not one made a connection with what I had been through. To read that I am not the only one was like a light bulb going on.
Obviously the scenario you describe should be avoided, and beating children is terrible. But I’m not sure if education & age by themselves determine parenting ability. In my family (birth and adoptive), most left school at 16 (some stopped going at 14 & 15)and most became parents before age 20, (some at 16 & 17). I would say they are all far better parents than I am, even though I was a bit older. No child-beating happens, of course, but it would be better for my kids if I wasn’t wrapped up in my own grief. You don’t say how long ago this happened, but in the UK these days poorer people tend to have children to get housing and benefits, so abortion would be the last thing they would do. But don’t all things health-related have to be paid for in America, so maybe it’s different there?
Reading your description of the panels set up to authorize things, I am left wondering why we didn’t have those here. Nobody asked about my priorities. I do value family above education and job, so that could have been picked up on if they’d asked. (I’ve only had part-time low paid jobs, and am happy with that). I saw the form had a box ticked that it was detrimental to my mental health to continue the pregnancy and thought ‘no, that’s wrong’, but was too stupid to speak out.
I’m not thinking about counselling women with crisis-pregnancies yet, it is hard to be around anyone in the early stages of pregnancy. Plus I still sob my way through half a box of tissues each week at my own counselling, and a tearful counsellor can’t be a good thing. I could fund-raise as they are a charity, and perhaps consider post-abortion counselling at some far off point in the future – they do this in local prisons too.
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February 12, 2015 at 9:41 am
regretful—
I hope that your counseling is covered by NHS, and that you find it helpful. Is it specifically post-abortion counseling, or is it of a more general nature?
Clearly, you are aware of how your state affects your ability to be a mother for your children, and you are to be commended for identifying and dealing with the problem.
I doubt that your siblings are “much better parents” than you are; I suspect that you’re just devaluing yourself. It might help to consider the role of objective standards by which to judge whether one is a good parent. Some of them, parents set for themselves: “We will make sure Junior does his schoolwork every day,” or, “We will see that she appreciates the value of a pound.” And others are set by society’s standards: “That Jones child is always so helpful to the elderly! I wish all children were like her,” or, “They’re poor as church mice, but their children always finish at the top of their form!”
Do you actually measure your children in this way, or do you base your self-appraisal on your feelings? I can’t imagine that your children are in any way inferior to everybody else’s, and I think you just don’t realize how good a job you’ve been doing despite your affliction.
When I started my job, I was given a book written by two British women. I believe they were social workers, but they might have been psychologists. It was about good health, but being in good health was only a small part of it.
They started off with a series of statements which the reader could apply to himself on a scale of one to five. Questions like, “I am always able to get my opinion considered in a discussion,” “I am happy with my bodily proportions,” “If I want to, I can pursue more education” and, “I have one or more friends upon whom I can absolutely rely for anything.”
These unusual questions bore on the fact that “good health” is not merely the absence of sickness, but the ability to do what one needs to or wants to. This definition of “health” meant the person had to have sufficiently broad knowledge (both formal and informal ), a support network (family, friends and government) and the physical ability to set realistic goals, develop strategies to attain them and use physical, mental and emotional powers to strive for them. As a result of reading it, I wonder if you feel this is the way your situation just has to be.
I regret that I cannot remember the title of the book or the authors, but it is possible your therapist would know of it.
As to my relative’s quandary: Over the years, birth control failed her four times and she had abortions, because she knew she would never be as good a mother as she needed to be. She put out for adoption the one child she bore and never looked back— until the movie “Philomena” came out. She left the theater with a resolve to contact the adoption agency. She called them, and they asked, “Has he been in touch with you?” It turned out he had contacted them three days earlier. They’re both doing well.
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February 12, 2015 at 1:14 pm
Wait a minute: “Over the years, birth control failed her four times and she had abortions,”
I thought you guys say contraceptives prevent abortions:
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February 12, 2015 at 2:01 pm
Well in her case, contraceptives succeeded 20,487 times. In other words, one out of every 5,121.75 she bought was defective. Cheap Chinese manufactures!
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February 12, 2015 at 5:25 pm
Doesn’t matter how many times they worked, they resulted in four murders.
Step one in outlawing murder is jailing and fining the manufacturers and users of contraceptives.
(racism, Chuckles, racism)
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February 12, 2015 at 7:33 pm
It’s too bad your feelings are hurt. Get back to me after you start caring for real children.
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February 12, 2015 at 9:27 pm
There you go again. Next you’ll be saying a child is not real unless he has a brother or sister.
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February 13, 2015 at 2:32 pm
It’s actually a charity that does specific counselling (Christian, but you don’t have to be yourself). I did have a referral to an NHS service, but in a place that does that does the ops so it seemed wrong. Maybe I should try that too, see if their approach is different. That was a sweeping statement, I was including extended family (cousins, nieces etc) not just siblings, and it is based on feelings, that others seem to have a more closeknit relationship with their kids. I will run that book you mention past my therapist, see what she makes of it, can’t say I’ve heard of it. Is your job something in the psychology field?
Your relative – quite a story there! It seems sad that she felt she wouldn’t be as good a mother as she needed to be. Times have changed I guess, these days all we have to aim for is being a ‘good enough’ parent. I don’t think there are many perfect parents out there! Three times (plus the adoption I assume)? I can’t imagine. For me it would feel like I was a toddler putting my hand in the fire twice (or three times). Reading people’s stories on the web though, some say they don’t regret any of their (insert number here) abs, others do and feel it took them (insert number) times to realise it was wrong. I’ve wondered if they were more deeply damaged, numb maybe, but you say she has never looked back so maybe not. Good to hear she has been re-united with her son, and amazing timing. I wonder if the film triggered both of them? I hope things work out. It’s not easy finding a parent after so many years (22 in my case), but is worth it, even just to finally know where you came from. I’ve not seen Philomena, but think I should.
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February 13, 2015 at 7:10 pm
regretful, “Philomena” will make you cry. It made me cry, but not very much, because I’m a guy.
Do you have an absent parent? Or are your referring to your mom when you say “22 years”?
As for “perfect parents,” the harder they try to be perfect, the worse it is for the child. Some of those “perfect parents” got arrested when they started beating their child on the plane back from Russia, where they had just adopted him.
Your generation is fortunate to be much better educated about it than mine ever was, but the price you pay is that you know so much more, you have more to worry about!
I’m retired, but I look back on those years dealing with families as getting paid to learn how to be a better father! I only wish I’d gotten that education years earlier.
I’m curious about whether the clinical workup— the gathering of information at patient intake— is the same for the clinic you attend and an NHS clinic. If you ever try the latter, let me know. I went to a chiropractor once for treatment, and then a few years later, when I could afford it, I went to a doctor for the same ailment. I was amazed at the difference in the workup. The doctor sent me to the lab for a blood drawing, to make sure there wasn’t a genetic component, plus asked me a lot more questions. The chiropractor educated me about the spine and his therapies. Both treatments worked, though.
As for the cousin who had the abortions:
I had seven sisters, three ahead of me and four after, and our female role model was our very effective mother. When she was in her sixties, she took an assertiveness training class. She called it “aggressiveness training.” She explained to her sister how it taught people to persist in getting what they needed. Said her sister, “But you’ve always done that!”
As had all Mum’s sisters— they were known throughout their lives as the Louie girls, and anybody who knew the Louies realized those girls were capable of being the Pirate Queen. Their husbands toed the line until death did them part. They were lucky to die of old age.
The only thing that kept them in check was the patriarchal and rigid Catholicism installed in them by their mother. For almost all of their lives, they believed men were smarter, worked hard all day and deserved to come home, eat, read the paper and relax, while they did all the housework and bore all the kids.
But when it came to practical matters, my sisters learned from our mum that as long as you’re a good person, it’s all right to fight for what you need, and to keep fighting for it.
Because she had had 11 children, my mum felt it right to join the so-called “pro-lifers,” but she only lasted one protest. She made the mistake of going across the street to chat with the counter-protesters, opening with, “You must really be dedicated to be out here in this weather!” Her protest group frostily let her know they disapproved, and she decided they had faulty judgment. So she quit.
Women’s Lib came along when Mum was about sixty, and by the time she was 75, she decided the Church was way too paternal, so she stopped following the line mindlessly and became a flexible Catholic to her dying day. This was way too late to overcome the effects of parenting a herd according to the Catholic tradition, but that’s a whole ‘nuther story.
At any rate, while my father figured his girls would have 77 kids, they produced only ten— and five of those were by the dutiful eldest daughter (there’s a syndrome by that name; you’ve probably heard of it). The other six decided that if Mum could get what she wanted, so could they— and they didn’t want to be “ninety-nine months in a maternity smock,” as she used to put it. Not only was The Pill available, but they were not at all bashful about telling their men to use a condom or else.
And quite a few of the female offspring of the other Louie Girls were the same. Not a one of them believed the paternalistic claptrap spouted by either the Church or American culture— and of course, they didn’t mind divulging information to us lesser people (their male cousins) when they thought it a good education, which was how I learned (years later) about the one who had the abortions after she delivered the baby she put up for adoption.
Mum was never sentimental about life. As one of my sisters once remarked, “Her motto is, ‘Let it die!’ ” She and my dad had a pact that if anything happened to either of them in the house, the other would wait twenty minutes before summoning help; she was quite prepared to see him gasp his last breath, clutching at his heart. Kids who came in bloodied were expected to clean themselves up if they were old enough, and the biggest lie was, “I love you.” (When I heard I was going to be a father, my first thought was, “Well, I know what I’ll be doing for the next eighteen years.”)
So, all these women knew what they would have to be doing for at least eighteen years if they got pregnant, and most of them had learned that you stand up for what you want and most of them knew they didn’t want to inflict on any child the sort of stuff that had been inflicted on them. Apart from the Eldest Daughter, all of them bore as many children as they wanted to, and those children turned out to be nice enough. And those who bore children did so when they had achieved the other goals they wanted to reach first— the education, the job, the right man. And one of them adopted two when she was 38.
All of this is just to say that for at least one of my relatives, abortion was the lesser evil, like military service or being a waitress at Hooters (male chauvinist pig restaurant chain in the States). Louie Girls don’t self-recriminate. So, you don’t have to feel sorry for her or worry about her state of mind. And she does enjoy being the third grandmother!
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February 13, 2015 at 10:10 pm
See what happens when you abandon your Catholic faith? You screw up your son.
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February 14, 2015 at 2:29 pm
Your analytical power leaves me speechless. Of course, laughing that hard always leaves me speechless.
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February 14, 2015 at 7:17 pm
Chuck, I mean my birth mother, I traced her when I was 22. (The absent parent was my adoptive mother who died when I was young). There’s no clinical workup for the counselling, just form filling, history etc, but it’s not a clinic. They are qualified accredited christian counsellors though. No idea how a Christian counsellor differs from a non-christian one. (Maybe the emphasis on ‘forgiveness’ – how will that help? But I can leave that out if I choose.) I don’t know how the NHS clinic works, but given they are doing the thing that causes people to need the counselling in the first place…surely a conflict of interest?
Life for your mother sounds harsh, probably more typical of that era than today. Especially the big families. Families with 11+ kids have their own TV shows now! There’s never been the heated debates and demos you describe in the UK – not much room to sit on the fence there. Not heard of a dutiful eldest daughter syndrome, if that’s what you mean. The ’99 months in a smock’ remark seems a bit negative, but maybe meant as a joke? (Obviously not meant literally – you don’t wear it from day 1!) Do you really believe “and the biggest lie was, “I love you.””? Sad, all children should feel their parents love them. Do you think your own experience may have coloured your views on abortion?
It will be interesting for you to meet your new-found adopted relative – I’m guessing he’s around 40 now? From the little I know, adoptee access to birth records depends on which state you live in (another online group I joined). Some have sealed birth records and it takes court action to get them unsealed. One person commented that the states with the most pro-life attitudes have the most restrictive access to birth records. They fight for you to be born, but once you are adopted you have no right to even see your own birth cert. and should be grateful you were born at all. No idea if that’s true but someone said it.
Brave of your sister to adopt two children. I don’t think I could adopt (perhaps hypocritical for an adoptee to say that, and I am grateful I was adopted). But if you really want children, and can’t have them, as with my parents, it’s the only option.
I suppose it depends on the individual’s point of view whether it’s the lesser evil, but I would never see it that way. Another thing I’ve seen discussed by those who’ve had multiple abs is self-harm, (when the topic is favourite knives I have nothing to add!) Makes me wonder, which came first, the abs or the self harm? They might be a tiny minority, but they are there. Maybe abortion could be considered a bizarre form of self-harm? And I have heard of that controversial restaurant chain.
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February 14, 2015 at 8:01 pm
Regretful, you are truly amazing. To wade through ll that and to respond! Makes me feel cheap.
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February 14, 2015 at 8:13 pm
Haha, John. Yes, it was a long post and my reply is way too long too! But a long post justifies a long reply.
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February 14, 2015 at 9:18 pm
Nothing wrong with having a long keyboard session in front of a TV showing a crackling fire on a chilly evening!
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February 15, 2015 at 6:10 am
Your mother had those ten daughters fifty years too late, Chuck. By that time women’s lib had driven the Church into the underground and what we have now is the american catholic church.
Fifty years earlier, though, seven of those girls would have become cracking good nuns and saved the best elementary schools any nation has ever known.
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February 15, 2015 at 10:19 am
regretful, “eldest daughter syndrome” isn’t worth looking up, unless you are an eldest daughter. If my sister had not been one, she wouldn’t have had five kids— and she would have gotten divorced a lot sooner.
So, your father who raised you was your adoptive father? And did you ever find your birth mother? Is she alive? Are you in regular contact with her?
Friends of mine adopted a girl who gave them an extraordinarily hard time when she was a teenager. Just after she started college, she tracked down her birth mother and visited her. Then she went home and wept as she thanked her parents for adopting her.
My mother’s family’s fortunes descended into poverty when the last two children were born; her dad made enough money to support a family of seven, but not of nine. My uncle used to say they caught up with the neighbors financially when the Depression hit. If you want to read about her childhood, she fictionalized it a bit in her book, “They Do It in Church.” St. Martin’s Press (she’s the Irene character). So she learned early and long that life was hard.
She was not a harsh woman; if she’d not been in control of her life, she would have been harsh. She enjoyed meeting new people, had close and good friends and was highly skilled in dealing with others. But she had learned from her mother that expressions of affection were dangerous and that children must be tough. She felt that anybody who saw a therapist was just feeling sorry for himself, an opinion she held until the day one of us adults tried to commit suicide. It was fairly easy for any of the kids to grow up wishing we’d never been born. (Quite a few people who feel that way take it out on society, often homicidally.)
“Self-harm” comes first, by the way. One expert in the field, author of a book about how to raise children to avoid drug abuse, told me about the problem his staff was having in a group home for juveniles— residents were cutting themselves. He knew that continued cutting would lead to suicide attempts, either soon or years later. He also knew that therapy could reverse their descent— much like American serial killer Ted Bundy could have been prevented from killing three to five dozen women had someone paid attention to him.
To conserve meager resources, the staff could only resolve the problem if they could identify the potential cutters among an entire population of kids with low self-image. Many of the children were too depressed to have the energy to self-harm, while many others did not have so great a self-image problem. But between those two groups were the cutters and potential cutters. Which were the ones with such persistent self-image problems that they would try suicide?
So they set to work to find out how the road to self-harm started. They identified a simple and apparently innocuous behavior that was the first of three steps in becoming a cutter. When they found a child doing that first step, they began intervention.
Do your children use NHS health and dental services? How does that fit with your feelings about NHS counseling services?
I once dealt with a woman who could not afford ob/gyn care. I told her that she could get free annual checkups, mammograms and Pap smears through Planned Parenthood, and she dismissed the thought, saying, “They do abortions.” Well, no, the local PP didn’t do abortions; women had to go to another PP clinic for that. But the woman was adamant. (She was as prejudiced about PP as I am about my branch of former military service.) Do you feel that strongly about NHS?
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February 15, 2015 at 11:37 am
May I suggest the title for your autobiography, Chuck — “They Did It In Church”? Pair it with your mom’s book and I’ll bet they’d sell.
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February 16, 2015 at 4:01 pm
Chuck, yes, I was raised by my adoptive father, birth mother was the one I tracked down. She is still alive, though I’ve not seen her in several years. I see other assorted family though. Your friends daughter’s experience sounds hard, were the birth family not what she expected? I’m lucky with my family I guess, and have more in common than with my adoptive family. There seems to be a book recommendation with each post! I will look that one up too. Therapy was a relatively new idea in your mother’s day I suppose, much more popular nowadays. It seems to have come here from America. I’m not sure if we can say for sure that killers can be prevented through a better upbringing. There are killers who seem, on the surface at least, to come from perfectly respectable backgrounds. Also, people from harsh backgrounds who do well in life. The old nature/nurture debate.
I’m not against the NHS as a whole. The problem is that the post-ab counselling is done (at least the one I was referred to) in (NHS) abortion clinics. So there could be post-ab counselling happening in one room and next door someone could be having one done. I don’t know how it’s organised, but in theory you could share the same waiting room. Apparently take up of NHS post-ab counselling is low, and I’m not surprised given the way it’s run. People probably don’t want to go back. I don’t know when counselling was introduced, but I wasn’t offered any – either before or after – years ago. In my view it should be compulsory, especially at younger ages. It’s hard to get doctors to agree to sterilisation at a young age in case you change your mind, so seems wrong that this is so easy.
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February 16, 2015 at 7:14 pm
Okay, let’s stop this right here. I love regretful and Chuckles too. In about a minute they;re going to be going after each other’s throats. Shut up, both of you.
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February 16, 2015 at 7:52 pm
You could learn something from her, Mr. Dunkle. Pay attention.
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February 17, 2015 at 7:00 pm
regretful— My friends’ daughter found her biological mother struggling in a recovery program after getting out of prison; she lived in an “affordable” trailer park, etc.— I’ll leave it at that. The girl realized she would never have had a chance to do well in both school and football and well enough to get a scholarship to a very decent college.
You must have reflected after meeting your mother on what it might have been like had she raised you; I hope you did not notice such profound differences as my friends’ daughter did.
Feel free to ignore the books and films! I have had ample leisure to read and watch a lot of them, and I have a tendency to throw recommendations as though I were flinging candy off a parade float. I come from a family of readers.
(My eldest sister loved to read when she had the chance, and her kids got used to seeing her dip into a chapter in odd moments. One day the boat in their garage tipped and pinned one of the children against the wall (not seriously). The others rushed into the house and one said, “Mom, the boat fell on John! Don’t read a book now!”)
Sometimes life is like a window shade. You wonder what’s out there, you roll up the shade, and then you decide whether you want to go outside and see more. Or, you roll the window shade back down. Books give me the power to roll the shade up. You’re probably getting the same effect with counseling.
I’m glad to see you are less prejudiced toward NHS (because of its abortion component) than I was toward the Navy. I had a chance to get a postgraduate degree using the GI Bill, but refused to have anything to do with the military. Years later of course I was wondering what graduate school might have been like. My son went, though.
“Nature versus nurture” is being resolved. About forty years ago, they found out that the psychological profile of intentional killers (not the impulsive ones) and surgeons are pretty similar— which means that “nature” has a role, but “nurture” determines which path they take. Ted Bundy was very well-mannered, articulate and sociable, just the way you describe.
Luckily, nature and nurture aside, about 30% of the kids who grow up in bad circumstances manage to rise above them. This was proven by Dr. Emmy Werner Smith. She identified 5 traits the kids had. I don’t remember all of them now, but your counselor would know. One was that they can rely on their feelings when they face a problem. In the first five minutes of “Philomena,” you’ll see she doesn’t understand that she’s facing a problem.
In that group home that I wrote about, getting the potential “cutters” to develop those five traits was an arduous, long-term process, which was why the staff had to be able to identify them, to effectively focus their efforts. Knowing the significance of that first behavior was a big step forward.
And about counseling, both before and after having an abortion: It sounds as though you went in, they handed you a bunch of papers and said, “Fill in here, here, here, and here,” and then whisked you through. Rather treated you like a product on a factory assembly line. That’s reprehensible. Our local Planned Parenthood takes care to ensure the woman is fully informed about and quite comfortable with her decision. If she’s not, they do not proceed. Post-abortion counseling is too little, too late, in my opinion, an indication you were not at all served well. For-profit clinics can be something else, sadly…
As for sterilization, one 19-year-old I knew wanted to be sterilized, because she already had three kids (three-year-old and newborn twins). But they wouldn’t do it because she was under 21, even though she was living on her own. God bless our paternalistic society!
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February 18, 2015 at 9:05 am
Wow, this is a very deep thread. Way to high-brow for me!
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February 18, 2015 at 1:11 pm
regretful is an heroic person– she’s clearly leading a busy and demanding life, maintaining a family with her significant other, raising kids, making ends meet– and doing it all under a heavy fog of depression around issues like abortion, low income, and loss of two very significant role models in her life– her biological mother and her adoptive mother. I’m interested in how she does it all and hope that I might have information from my somewhat comparable background which she might find helpful.
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February 18, 2015 at 1:38 pm
If she’s Catholic she might find the rosary helpful too.
btw, I like the sound of “a heroic,” like “a horror; usually though it’s “an,” like “an hour.”
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February 18, 2015 at 3:13 pm
Hahaha, Chuck, I’m hardly heroic! My pay isn’t all that low, I meant lower than average compared to my college friends who seem to be head of this or that, according to facebook at least. And we’ve mostly had 2 incomes coming in, so it’s not that bad. Most people find it hard financially when kids are young. Now they’re more or less grown it’s less of a problem. I would say it’s more grief than depression, I’ve never been depressed but I think that is more of a flat feeling, whereas grief comes in waves. You may know more. Sorry, I didn’t mean to turn this into my own pity party! What brought me to this site was the recent case of Emily, which I read about on facebook. I googled to find out what happened to her and found this site. Her situation resonated with me so much – warring parents apart – I thought she was fortunate that someone will be there to help her, give her the support she needs, like I wished there had been someone there for me. But of course she went ahead anyway. Always interested in reading, so happy for recommendations, and I have been thinking about watching Philomena for sometime. Will have to take more time to digest the rest of the post. John – I’m not catholic, or even religious. Sorry I can’t work out how to reply to individual posts.
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February 18, 2015 at 3:44 pm
Cick on “Reply” at the bottom of that post.
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February 18, 2015 at 3:45 pm
Click, right Pat?
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February 18, 2015 at 3:52 pm
Ah, this might work. I’ve been filling in the box at the bottom. Thanks.
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February 18, 2015 at 9:06 am
uh, “too” high-brow, right?
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February 18, 2015 at 9:28 pm
regretful, it’s good to know you have two incomes coming in!!!! I’m not at all familiar with the economic situation for the 99% in the UK, but here in the US it is terrible compared to when I was a young parent. A family of four— two parents working, two children— needs to be making at least $19.00 an hour to get by in my state, but the average pay here is $14.50, which means that the government— if it is good— has to provide the food, clothing, shelter and health care that the family might lack. And the US government is not very good at this time. The party in power is worse than Margaret “steal your baby’s milk” Thatcher ever was.
Thanks to the paternalism the Christian Church promoted throughout the history of Western Civilization, you are comfortable with the lie that mothers are not heroic. You shouldn’t be. If you were paid the market rate for your services as a wet nurse, cook, nanny, scheduler, teacher, nurse, counselor, housemaid, etc., you would be making (in the US, that is) over $32 an hour. Translate that into pounds and compare it with your present wage. All you— and every other woman in your position, for that matter— usually get is condemnation when your kid is caught smoking a cigarette. If you’re REALLY good, once in a while somebody will say, “What a lovely child you have!” But no money, and damned little support where you could use it.
As a single parent, I didn’t have the options of coming home and letting some woman take care of everything while I flopped on the sofa after work, and I resented divorced men whining about what their ex-wives were doing with the child support money. For five years I taught classes of children whose parents were interested in making their family life better, and one time I remarked to one of the kids, “A real man is one who watches TV and drinks beer.” The next week, his mother reported to me that he asked her, “Mommy, is Daddy a real man? He watches TV and drinks beer.”
The point is, almost EVERY woman considers it normal to not only be bearing 85% of the whole household/family load, but feels guilty that she can’t do better— as you illustrated when you said , “I am not sure we are doing very well” and that all your relatives “are far better parents than I am.” You, like almost every other mother in the world (except the ones who can afford the household help and might not have to put up with a male who is basically a two-year-old capable of a five o’clock shadow), bear up as best you can under a huge load, and you don’t even give it a thought!
Except of course when it crushes you, and then you go online and chat with women who are equally depressed or more so, or to your counselor, who is spending a fortune on tissues for your sessions. If I did what you do, I’d get even more depressed, to the point where I would shoot myself. But you and the women of the world PRESS ON!!! I am in awe. When you see a badge that says, “Hero,” buy it and wear it.
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February 19, 2015 at 4:54 pm
If average pay is less than needed to live on, does it get topped up with benefits? A big problem in the UK, many people’s pay is topped up, have enough children and the payout is more than average full time wages, just for staying at home! Families with one income pay more tax proportionately with no allowance made for upkeep of the non-working adult. The scenario you describe sounds like the UK circa 1950s! I don’t know much about America (unless you count Homer Simpson – according to Wiki he “embodies several American working class stereotypes: he is crude, bald, overweight, incompetent, clumsy, lazy, a heavy drinker, and ignorant;”). Are there real people like that in America? The UK is more egalitarian, with both parents responsible for childcare / housework. Not much chance of coming home and flopping on the sofa!
By not doing very well I mean because one of us is missing, lost to abortion, someone who should be here but never will. Better parents would not do that to their own offspring. The only blight on my life is sorrow over a person I will never know. The people on PASS boards (though I still don’t think it’s an actual syndrome) understand because they’ve been through it, mostly women but there are a few men. It’s grief rather than depression. I don’t see my kids as a load, they support me much as I support them. The only regret is that missing person.
You mention paternalism, but the UK abortion law was introduced by a man – David Steele. And Norma McCorvey (Roe v Wade) is now pro-life and says she was manipulated by her lawyers. Before that we had enforced adoption. OK, abortion isn’t usually forced, but there is subtle pressure (and sometimes not so subtle) to take that path in a society which frowns on single mothers. Though it is more acceptable these days.
Re the 21 year old with newborn twins, I imagine she is sleep deprived, probably not in the best frame of mind to make decisions about sterilisation. At 21 a lot of us don’t really have the perspective on life to think about long term futures. I would say it’s sensible for the medical profession to encourage her to think about it a bit more, they’re the ones who have to do all the reversals!. As for my experience with the NHS, the appointments were whisked through, but there was a 4 week wait. Plenty of time to think, but I just buried my head in the sand. Many of the commenters on PASS lament that they didn’t think. Compulsory counselling provides that space and support. It’s still optional in the UK, though the CPCs push for it to be made compulsory. People should have choices, but should also be protected from making unwise decisions at vulnerable times in life. If someone was suicidal and threatening to jump off a tall building, most of us would try to talk them down, not shrug and say ‘it’s your choice’.
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February 19, 2015 at 8:18 pm
The start of your second paragraph, regretful, made me wonder if you had read this by one of our great poets:
THE ABORTION
Anne Sexton
Somebody who should have been born
is gone
Just as the earth puckered its mouth,
each bud puffing out from its knot,
I changed my shoes, and then drove south.
Up past the Blue Mountains, where
Pennsylvania humps on endlessly,
wearing, like a crayoned cat, its green hair,
its roads sunken in like a gray washboard;
where, in truth, the ground cracks evilly,
a dark socket from which the coal has poured,
Somebody who should have been born
is gone
the grass as bristly and stout as chives,
and me wondering when the ground would break,
and me wondering how anything fragile survives;
up in Pennsylvania, I met a little man,
not Rumpelstiltskin, at all, at all…
he took the fullness that love began.
Returning north, even the sky grew thin
like a high window looking nowhere.
The road was as flat as a sheet of tin.
Somebody who should have been born
is gone
Yes, woman, such logic will lead
to loss without death. Or say what you meant,
you coward … this baby that I bleed.
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February 21, 2015 at 4:05 pm
John, reading this made me cry. I’m not sure if I have seen it before, it seems familiar but that may because it is in tune with my own feelings. I looked up the author too, interesting life she had, if short.
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February 20, 2015 at 7:04 pm
regretful, there are states here that have enacted laws saying that if you want to get benefits for your family, you have to pee in a cup. Does Britain have any laws like that? That’s what paternalism is capable of.
Those laws been overturned here, but more states are even now trying to pass them.
One of the more popular American sports is known as ‘the race to the bottom.’ Over the last 40 years, the upper class has had its way with directing more of the national income toward its coffers. The result has been that the bottom 80% has had no increase in real (inflation-adjusted) income in all that time. They have been able to sustain their lifestyle by doing two things– borrowing a LOT (and losing their homes– 14 million of them– as a result) and having both parents work.
With support services funded on the basis of a cup of pee, family stress levels can skyrocket. Here’s an example from life:
The woman, with four kids, 2-14, became too sick to continue working, and she lost her job. She got food stamps and a cash grant, but it was insufficient to cover heating fuel. When the fuel ran out, she tried keep the family warm with the open electric stove, and the electric bill caused the family’s eviction. Her only recourse was to move in with her sister’s family, which meant three adults and seven children in a three-bedroom apartment (from which, had that landlord known about it, she would also have been evicted).
You would think that if anybody would understand the plight of the poor in America, it would be her. But if I mentioned African-American families on food stamps or undocumented immigrants’ children in the local school, she would get very angry, even though she was on food stamps and her children were in the local school.
And that’s how the ‘race to the bottom’ works in America– even though they themselves are at the bottom, they have no sympathy for others who are almost as bad off as they are. I believe that woman resents others who they think are getting a “free ride” because she knows things are not going well for her, she’s angry about it, and “those others” present a safe target onto which she can unload her anger. She would be very happy to see them denied what their families need.
(And I believe the people who call themselves “pro-life” in America are angry about abortion largely for that same reason, the same way people here are angry about fluoridated water.)
*****
Half of the children in America grow up in the absence of their biological father; I don’t know how many of them grow up with the continual presence of the same adult male in the household for the duration of their childhood– but probably less than 10%. As a single father, my belief is that any man who is opposed to abortion has a duty to raise every child he insists be born. I haven’t met (or converted) one yet.
My sense is that the at-home fathers of my town are somewhat more attuned to family and fatherhood responsibilities than they were a generation ago, but throughout America, women are still doing about 85% of the load. Count yourself lucky that the cultural norm in the UK is so much better!
And if David Steele had been paternalistic, he would have fought any measure permitting abortion– perhaps yet another indication of the difference between the British and the American male attitudes towards women. The same senators (Hatch and Hyde) who fought to prohibit federal funding of abortion also fought to prevent funding of pre-school education and day-care. THAT’S paternalism! They could relate to pregnancy, but not to children.
I’m happy to hear that Norma McCovey can change her mind without being punished for it; I’ve often wondered whether she ever raised any children. We could share stories!
Best of luck with both the counseling and the chat line. Avoid the whirlpools and keep looking for your epiphany.
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February 21, 2015 at 4:38 pm
Chuck, you make America sound a very divided society, the gap between rich and poor wider than the UK – no peeing in cups here. I don’t quite see the connection between being angry about free-loaders and being angry about abortion, the more kids you have the more you can free-load, surely aborting them defeats the object? I don’t know UK figures for children growing up without biological father (is that such a big deal? – I’ve never met mine). David Steele himself has said he had no idea that his law would result in the high number of abortions we have today. I think it would have been better if he had addressed the reasons women were driven to take such action in the first place, rather than making it easier to achieve. And giving men who didn’t want to raise their own child a get out clause – just persuade their girlfriend to get an easily obtainable abortion – I have seen one particularly nasty (to me anyway) site that advises men how to do this. To me the online support groups are lifelines, not chat lines, (chat conjures up images of trivia, not grief). I think the epiphany was 2 days after my ab, when the realisation of what I had done hit me, together with the knowledge that there was nothing I could do to turn the clock back. Looking back, my stupidity astounds me, all I had to do was pick up a book on foetal development to know that my friends insistence that it was only ‘a few cells’ was a lie. There seems to be a lot of help out there for those who are religious (such as Rachel’s vineyard), not so much for those who aren’t, unfortunately. But I will keep looking.
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February 21, 2015 at 5:03 pm
beautiful
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February 21, 2015 at 8:52 pm
regretful, I was just using the example of resentment against others who are in the same boat as an example of how we Americans will happily keep everybody else as miserable as us, rather than rejoice at their good fortune if they happen to get for their kids what we get for ours.
I’m confused why you would have any concerns about free-loaders having more children in order to get benefits, when you know that bearing another child is a beautiful thing. It seems to me that you would be encouraging them to have another child rather than being dismissive of them. Or am I misreading you?
On the other hand, assuming you know a few of those, what do you think of their intelligence level? I have known women in America who have had children knowing that their benefit levels would increase, but they never understood that the level never, ever increased to meet the family’s increased needs. I thought of those women (and sometimes their men) as “low slearners,” a term I picked up from a teacher talking about obtuse students. Are benefits that much more generous in the UK? Britain’s richest woman doesn’t think so, and she said that paying into the support system with the taxes from her millions is her idea of patriotism.
As for reducing the need for abortion both here and in the UK, federal law in the US COMPELS insurance companies to provide Viagra for men so they can have sex for up to four hours at a time, but Congress has failed to pass a law compelling those same insurance companies to provide contraception for women, which would reduce the need for abortion much more than a prescription for Viagra does. How do you feel about reducing abortion by making birth control accessible to all women capable of ovulation?
My comment about the absence of the biological father points to a major parenting problem in the US– and you can be sure that any number of those absent guys are the same ones looking for the advice about how to pressure the woman into having an abortion. Boys especially need fathers, because when they don’t they almost always pick up their male behaviors from their peers, who are incapable of adult decisions. When boys have a number of male role models in their life, they can easily pick the wrong behaviors as “normal.” So, it’s much easier to beat the girl friend because Mum’s boyfriends used to be her, that sort of thing. And for a boy to grow up without a father or father figure might be as big a deal as for a girl to grow up without her mother or a mother figure. You’ve probably explored this with your counselor. Did you come to any conclusions?
America is indeed the country of “savage capitalism.” Be glad you don’t live here. In everything except military spending, we are a banana republic.
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February 21, 2015 at 8:56 pm
“used to beat her,” not “used to be her.” Cross-dressing is not a major problem with most male role models…
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February 23, 2015 at 5:25 pm
As someone absorbed by my own grief, I’ve not given much thought to what ‘freeloaders’ do (sorry, your actual term was “free ride”) so probably do sound dismissive. But I don’t think limits should be put on how many children people on benefits can have! Abortion can also be detrimental to income – as one who walked out of one job and was sacked from another in the year which followed I can attest to this. Not all poor people are violent as you describe, and it’s better to direct money to those who need it than to subsidise child care costs for dual income families – as happens here. Since last year benefit is capped at £26,000 per family – the average wage – but prior to this a family could get up to £50,000. A bigger economic problem is rich tax-avoiders, (Starbucks makes a loss in the UK, apparently, so doesn’t pay much tax). This might be what prompted Britain’s richest woman to speak out. Then there’s politicians’ fraudulent expense claims, banks etc, etc. If all that could be sorted out there would be more for those who need it.
But yes, for those who do want fewer children, education in contraceptive use (always free, seems odd it isn’t in America?) is important. Injection or IUD have less room for user-error so are probably best. (This might prevent cases like the woman last year who’d had 9 abortions – nobody had ever explained things to her, she said, and her life was ruined). Accidental pregnancy is a crisis in a person’s life, and when an ‘easy’ way out is peddled there can be temptation to take it. This is why it’s vital that full information is given about precisely what this word means (it was just a word I had barely heard before), and of the devastating consequences which can follow, for some. Plus all the other options need to be discussed. These things seem obvious to older people, who have debated this for years, but to someone young, naïve and scared they aren’t.
Regarding intelligence, I don’t think people on benefits are one homogeneous group, and on the whole are probably averagely intelligent. (As one raised on benefits, or dole as it was, I think I am fairly average.)
I don’t doubt that absence of a father impacts boys growing up, but is aborting them the best solution? I view that as barbaric. The conclusion I draw from counselling is that if I’d had a mother to turn to for support I would never have done what I did. Though nobody knows for certain how they would have acted if things had been even slightly different. (Maybe if I’d kept it to myself and not confided in ‘friends’…IF,)
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February 24, 2015 at 5:00 am
If you’re average, regretful, I’m a retard. Shut up Chuck.
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February 24, 2015 at 9:33 am
regretful,
The British government sets its poverty level (Households Below Average Income) at 19,200 pounds ($29,641, for the American readers) and allows benefits up to 26,000: ($40,178). But the US government sets its poverty level by household size; your own family of four is not considered poor here in America unless your income is below $23,850, which means that if it goes, a lot of benefits get stopped (a few continue beyond that). Now, if we adjust for a pound purchasing what a dollar will (purchasing power parity; a dollar in America buys somewhat less than a dollar would in the UK), imagine your household making 14,000 pounds and unable to qualify for any support. Welcome to America!
I consider it absolutely brutal, and it is why I always take exception to comments about the “undeserving.” What is sad, though, are the people here who make only a little more than that who wonder why the truly poor are better off than they are. Of course, in America the social philosophy is, “The beatings will continue until morale is improved.” And with its reduction from 50,000 pounds, it looks as though your government is racing us to the bottom.
Starbuck’s makes a profit in Britain, but thanks to the laws passed at the behest of their ilk, they can legally juggle the books to make it look otherwise. Their CEO’s last reported income as $149.5 million; its last quarterly net profit was $983 million. The next time you see a barista, whisper to him: “Organize!” People here in the US are largely distracted by their appliances: cell phones, TV, the social media— Twitter, Facebook, et. al— and don’t pay attention to what’s important. I do what I can.
In the name of making Britain more like America, we’ve sent over a Yank to destroy NHS; it was nice while you had it, but get over it.
Britain’s richest woman spoke out not because she thought corporations had a problem but because she had spent a considerable amount of her time as an unemployed single mother. This is what she said about paying huge amounts of her income in taxes: “A second reason, however, was that I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall.”
You understand what it’s like for a boy to grow up without a father, since you grew up without a mother. It didn’t occur to me before that you actually are suffering from three losses— Not only a baby, but two mothers— biological and adoptive. I have a feeling that all three losses are very intimately intertwined, and that perhaps in a way you see yourself as a mother who absented herself (metaphorically, died) against her baby’s wishes, which would add a layer of grief that I hadn’t realized— that maybe you see yourself as the mother who can’t be there despite her baby’s wish, just as you wished for a mother in your childhood? I can’t imagine how a counselor could deal with that.
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February 27, 2015 at 5:54 pm
My own epiphany. . .
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February 28, 2015 at 6:55 am
Chuck,
I don’t know how much influence poverty has in this decision (more information and time and space to talk things through was all I needed).
You seem to imply that being aborted is better than living in poverty. Although in rich western countries poverty is only relative not absolute; we don’t have mothers and babies starving to death, not in the UK at least. It is also often temporary, as shown by UK’s richest woman, (I’d thought you meant the Queen), but I would rather a lifetime of poverty if I could have my child back. My children are more precious to me than anything else. And who’s to say, if your spirit hasn’t been broken by such a loss, you may feel more able to build a career and be better off in the long term, rather than live a life consumed by grief.
The race to the bottom in ‘Austerity Britain’ is partly due to taxpayers having to bail out banks, and the rich – individuals AND corporations- avoiding tax. This was mentioned in the interview you referred to. The latest scandal is a bank helping the rich evade, rather than merely avoid, tax. Aside from that, benefits pegged to average wages is reasonable, not poverty at all. If they are too high not working becomes the sensible choice for those who would otherwise work, and I personally know several who have made that choice. I can well understand why the working poor resent paying tax to support people who are then better off than they are! (I am not including those in genuine need here). I have a relative who hasn’t worked for 15 years – she didn’t want to take a job to be worse off and likes the lifestyle she can afford on benefits. Now she is being forced to look for work, but having not worked for so long has become deskilled; the best she can hope for is minimum wage.
My losses are intertwined, though losing parents is the natural order, losing a child isn’t, that grief that is far more difficult to process. My own birth mother couldn’t have done what I did because it was illegal then, I was protected by the law. My first child didn’t have that legal protection, and if something is legal it seems OK to do it. So it was left to me and I wasn’t up to the task, I wasn’t strong enough to stand up to the expectations of society and I failed to protect my child.
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February 28, 2015 at 10:28 am
Paragraph 4 is one of the most powerful pieces of writing I’ve encountered. God uses despair as he used his son’s.
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February 28, 2015 at 5:42 pm
John, that’s a nice thing to say, it’s just how I feel. And I’m not the only one, (I realise though that not everyone feels the same). This site is traumatic for me, I need to take a break from it now to concentrate on my counselling.
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February 28, 2015 at 5:37 pm
regretful, I do not believe that being aborted is better than living in poverty. I do believe that it is wrong to assume that someone else will be a better parent than I was, and therefore it is immoral of me to advise them to bear a child I will not nurture to adulthood.
That relative of mine was advised by her female roommate: “Pregnant? Cool! We can raise the child together, and it’ll be soooo groovy!” Except that a year and a half later, her roommate split the scene— and would have left my relative just as she feared— a mother without the resources to raise her child as well as you’re raising yours.
It is clear that you want to regain that child, but you know you can’t. Is this a pattern in your life— that when you wrong somebody and feel terrible about it, you do nothing to show that you are willing to make amends to regain their trust and love? Have you always just walked away and simply lived with the guilt produced by your mistake?
Or have you taken steps to repair the relationship through expiation, through making amends, even when the one you offended has not reciprocated?
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February 28, 2015 at 5:58 pm
Chuck, I assume you would agree that they should be given full information about what they are doing and the possible consequences of their actions, rather than just being glibly told ‘it’s normal, lots of people do it’? How would you react to someone who said they thought they could manage? Would you tell them ‘don’t be silly, you won’t be able to manage’? Or would you help them consider that option? Encourage them to consider what they think is right for them? Your relative may have managed perfectly well. In any case, being raised by less than perfect parents is better than not being allowed to live at all.
I have not only wronged my child, it was the wrong thing for me as well. I am the one living with the loss, looking at my children and knowing they should have an older brother or sister. I can’t recall anyone else I have done wrong by, I am sure I must have done – as we all do – I just can’t recall any instances. I imagine I have probably made amends, I wouldn’t like to leave someone feeling bad.
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February 28, 2015 at 7:28 pm
Just to add, I would feel it immoral to let someone go ahead and do this knowing they might end up feeling the way I do. Sometimes people just need others to believe in them when they are doubting themselves.
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