The Elliot Institute News
From the Leader in Post-Abortion Research
Vol.5, No. 7 -- Sept. 18, 2006
Visit us online: http://www.AfterAbortion.Info
IN THIS ISSUE
Institute of Medicine Lists Abortion as a Risk Factor for Premature Birth
The Institute of Medicine has released a report that lists first-trimester abortion as an "immutable risk factor" for subsequent premature birth.
The report, entitled "Premature Birth: Causes, Consequences, and Prevention," includes a list of "immutable medical risk factors associated with premature birth," with "prior first trimester abortion" at number three on the list. However, IOM's news release and most media coverage on the report did not mention the link between abortion and premature birth, pro-life advocates reported. The IOM is part of the National Academies of Science, which was created to advise the public and the government on health issues.
According to a paper published in 2003 by the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, at least 60 significant studies published since 1963 have reported a link between abortion and premature birth. Premature birth is the leading cause of neonatal death and also increases the risk of cerebral palsy, vision and hearing loss, mental retardation and other lifelong health problems. In 2004, an Australian court ruled that a doctor was not responsible for a child's cerebral palsy because the mother had previously had an induced abortion.
The report follows a unanimous vote by the U.S. Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to approve a bill aimed at preventing premature birth. The bill would expand funding for research into the causes of prematurity and coordinate efforts to assess and lower the risk for premature birth. Among supporters of the bill are the March of Dimes, which has downplayed evidence of the abortion/premature birth link while supporting genetic screening tests for diseases where the only available "treatment" is abortion.
Elliot Institute director Dr. David Reardon pointed out that not only is abortion a risk factor for premature birth, but that it is also linked to other factors, such as smoking and drug abuse during subsequent pregnancies. that increase the risk of premature birth.
"The president of the March of Dimes has claimed that the increase in premature births is a 'mystery,' which appears to reflect either a distressing ignorance of the medical literature or a calculated case of selective recall," Reardon said. "The only mystery is why the March of Dimes has failed to call attention to this major risk factor."
Reardon said that those truly concerned about the well-being of women and their children should urge lawmakers to support legislation that includes funding for research and education on the link between abortion and premature birth.
"The Institute of Medicine's inclusion of abortion as a risk factor for premature birth should be a spur for lawmakers to seek to fund honest research on the health issues related to abortion, including the risk for premature birth," he said. "Women and their families deserve no less than to be given accurate information about this issue."
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Becoming "Silent No More," Part III
Nancyjo Mann, Founder of Women Exploited by Abortion
Editor's Note: This is part III of Nancyjo's testimony. The first and second parts appeared in the most recent two issues of the Elliot Institute News.
Three weeks after my abortion, I chose to be sterilized by tubal ligation. I couldn't cope with the idea that I could ever possibly kill again. It was too devastating. Too mind-boggling. My body which had the potential of creating life was now too easily a host of death.
I became preoccupied with thoughts of death. I fantasized about how I would die. My baby had struggled for two hours. I've tried to imagine myself dying a similar kind of death. If a pillow was put over my face to suffocate me, I would struggle for a bit, but in less than four minutes I would pass out. But she had suffered for two hours. Would I be so tormented?
Four months after my abortion, the bleeding and infection were still persistent. Too ashamed to go to my own ob/gyn, I returned to Dr. Fong and he performed a D&C to clean out the uterus. He cut off my cervix and left the packing inside of me. Three weeks later I was grossly rotted out inside. Seven months later, at 22 years of age, I was forced to undergo a total hysterectomy--all because of that "safe and easy," legal abortion.
By this time, I didn't care if I lived or died anymore. I was going through a radical personality change and was becoming increasingly self-destructive. Though I had been shy as a teenager, now I forced myself to become bold and aggressive. If I could only become tough and callous, I reasoned, I would be protected from the hurt. So I began to hang around the tough crowd, imitating their ways, taking on their attitudes. What attracted me to them was their destructiveness--their contempt for the world. Soon I was carrying guns and knives, and biking around with motorcycle gangs and worse. The people I ran with were out to destroy, steal, and maim, and that is what I wanted to do to both others and myself.
The desire to destroy is a double edged weapon. It is both a sword of wrath and a ritual suicide knife of hari-kiri. I hated the world only as much as I hated myself. By becoming destructive I was able to release my growing hatred towards this world that had abandoned me, abused me and exploited me. At the same time, by running outside of the law, by attacking others, I opened myself up to attack. I signaled the world that I was ready to be punished and even killed. It didn't matter. Anger, defiance, self-punishment and self-destructiveness--all were one, and they were me.
I tried to immerse myself in destruction. I wanted to prove to myself that destroying others didn't hurt. After all, once you've killed you should be able to do anything. By doing every conceivable wrong, I hoped to strip myself of my conscience. I hoped to destroy all the values I had ever held. If only I could prove to myself that everything was meaningless, including the innocent daughter I had killed through abortion, then perhaps I could have the peace of total meaninglessness.
The natural center of this destructive, escapist world in which I lived, of course, was drugs. I began to fire up on heroin, cocaine--anything and everything I could find. I took acid every day for a year-and-a-half. I smoked an ounce of pot every day. Drugs were my refuge, my comfort, my slow fuse to self-obliteration. Whenever I was stoned, I didn't have to think. If I couldn't think, I couldn't feel, and if I couldn't feel that was almost as good as being dead. It was a lot better than facing myself.
On top of all of this, I swiftly became promiscuous. Sleeping around was a way to degrade myself, while at the same time feeding on the false comforts of a sexual embrace. Through these quick and desperate intimacies, I secretly hoped I would someday find the love I so desperately needed, but all I found was sex. Soon this turned into prostituting myself to any man who could supply me with the drugs I needed. The promise of forgetfulness was worth any price.
I lived a life like this for four and a half years. It was a hell that can't be described. During this time, I was constantly pushing my abortion out of my mind. I never talked about it. I never dared to let myself even think about it. But it was never far away. In fact, a boyfriend of mine at that time later told me that almost every time I was stoned (which was every day) I would confess to him in a daze: "I had an abortion. You know, I had an abortion." No more than that. I would just keep telling him I had had an abortion and he just kept telling me, "That's all right. It's in the past. Just forget about it." But I never remembered telling anyone, especially him. To me it was the deepest, darkest secret. It was only when all my conscious barriers were dropped that it came tumbling out.
The subconscious rumblings of my abortion revealed themselves in other ways, too. For example, after my abortion I became deathly afraid of the night. I would never go to sleep when it was dark. The night was the time during which I had labored for death. Only at five in the morning, when the new dawn was breaking, the time when my labor had ended and my daughter had been released, did I finally settle down and prepare myself for sleep. Never knowing why, my nights had become a time for escape, a time for restless fear.
Four years after my abortion, my self-destructive attitudes turned into an open desire for death. Suicide beckoned me, and I had no place to turn.
My suicidal desires climaxed on one bitter night in January of 1978. After putting the children to bed I sat dazed and despondent. What reason did I have to live? My two children were the only people I loved and valued. But did I really even deserve them? I wasn't worthy of their love. And the only love I was capable of giving to them was shriveled and distant. I took more than I gave. They would be better off with someone else. If anything, love for my children was a reason to die, not live. There were no reasons to live. Life was only pain and loneliness.
I was so low. There was no place lower to go. No place to hide. There were no more scraps of comfort to be found in the beds of strangers or the lines of coke. There was nothing. I was nothing.
I cried and I cried. My longing for death had become so overwhelming that I was scared that I was really going to do it. There was no reason not to die. Suddenly, I jumped up and ran into the bathroom and flushed my bottle of sleeping pills down the toilet.
Everything in me wanted to die, but I was scared of death. What was on the other side? Where would I go? I felt like I needed to die, but I was afraid to.
This long, dark night was filled with the bitter tears and taste of salt. Wanting to die. Afraid to die. My only escape was filled with unknown terrors.
In that brief sort of faith born of desperation, I cried out: "God, you've got to give me a reason to live." But even as the words left my lips, I was certain that it could not be. Even if there was a God, He could never love me after all that I had done. All my life I had ignored Him and mocked Him. Why should He come to my aid? My life was worth nothing.
I finally found sleep that night in the weakness brought by tears. Early the next morning, as if in answer to my faithless plea, hope came to me in the form of a phone call. It was Mark, a friend who seemed to have a knack for always popping into my life when I was in trouble. At first I was mad at him for calling so early in the morning, but it was worth it. His news was great. "Nancy," he said, "I'm down here in Kansas City and there is a studio here that wants to record you!"
To earn my living during this time, I had became a country pop singer for a small band that played the bars. "Baby, I've got it made," I yelled. "Kansas, here I come!"
The recording date was set for April 28th. For four months I lived on that promise of fame. I practiced eight hours a day and took drugs all night.
Months later, after my recording date in Kansas turned out to be fictitious and my friend Mark dropped out of sight, never to be heard from again, I decided to take my career into my own hands. Leaving my children with my mother, I headed off to Golfport, Illinois. There I hoped I would find the big break which would get me a recording opportunity in Nashville.
Those were my plans, but they were scattered like straw when I was involved in a nearly fatal motorcycle accident. The front wheel simply popped off the bike and I went skidding down the highway at full speed. Instead of Nashville, I found myself in the hospital with second and third degree burns covering approximately 50 percent of my body. In some areas, asphalt and gravel were imbedded up to three inches in my flesh. The pain was unbelievable. My vain dreams of glory were gone. I was back in the state of desperation from which I had first called out to God.
I was at the bottom of the barrel. This time, I was certain that I was going to die. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, so I prayed, "God, please be with me. I need you." And again, He answered my prayer. After having resisted for so long, I allowed Him to become my Lord and Savior. The void in my heart that I had been trying to fill with everything else was finally filled with faith in God. From that moment on, I knew I wasn't going to die.
About nine months after leaving the hospital, I finally started to face the abortion I had tried so hard to bury. It was a very, very painful process. The wounds of abortion run deep, especially when they have been pushed down for so long. I nearly went through an emotional breakdown. I had to relive it all, to sort it all out. But this time the Lord was with me offering support and forgiveness. Step by step we went. But He was patient. It took three years, but finally I was able to forgive myself. That's the hardest part. God's forgiveness is ready and waiting. It's forgiving yourself that's hard.
By 1981, I had not only found peace with my abortion experience but felt drawn to help other women to overcome their pain and hurt. I knew that if I had hurt so much, surely there must be at least one other woman who felt the same. In early 1982, I founded Women Exploited By Abortion (WEBA) to minister to the needs of aborted women, to help them heal their pains. It immediately began to grow on its own. A newspaper article was written, then another and another, followed by radio and television appearances. Women from around the country began contacting me. As it turned out, there was a pent-up demand for a place of refuge, a place where women could share their abortion experiences, share their pain, share their strengths, and rebuild their lives.
With the founding of WEBA, the aftermath of abortion was no longer to be ignored. Women were no longer to be abandoned to silently suffer alone. It was time for this "evil necessity" to be purged in the open light. It was time for people to learn that abortion does not solve problems; instead, it changes them, warps them, and creates new problems. It was time for society to learn that abortion was no favor which women had the "right" to enjoy. It was a trap. A curse. A cheap substitute for love and support. A tool for the manipulation and exploitation of the women society has abandoned.
We are its victims, the aborted women of an unwanting society.
~~~
Reprinted from the book Aborted Women, Silent No More, by David C. Reardon (originally published 1987, reprinted in 2002 by Acorn Books). For ordering information, call 1-888-412-2676.
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View New Unchoice Ads at www.UnfairChoice.info
"They said I made the right decision ... but I was never given a choice."
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The latest in a series of print ads exposing coerced, unwanted abortions can now be viewed at www.UnfairChoice.info. These powerful ads raise awareness of the trauma women face before, during, and after abortion. Help us expose the truth behind the rhetoric of "choice" by bringing this message to light.
The ads can be downloaded at www.unfairchoice.info/display.htm. The site also includes fact sheets, booklets, and other PR support materials to help educate activists and the public on this vital issue.
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News Briefs
Chinese Activist Imprisoned for Protesting Forced Abortions, Sterilizations
A Chinese activist who was working to expose the brutality of the country's one-child policy and help women and families who were victimized has been sentenced to four years in prison.
Chen Guancheng, a blind, self-educated lawyer, had been attempting to organize a class action lawsuit on behalf of thousands villagers in the eastern city of Linyi who said they had been subjected to forced abortions and sterilizations by population control officials. Chen, his wife and his mother had been under house arrest since last September and he and his supporters described being beaten or detained by local officials attempting to silence them. Linyi officals charged Chen with damaging property and inciting a mob and also arrested Chen's lawyers on what many are calling trumped-up charges of theft, preventing them from representing Chen in court.
The case garnered international attention from the media and Chen's conviction drew protests from the Bush administration and pro-life advocates as well as from numerous human rights advocacy groups.
Oklahoma Parental Notification Law Can Be Enforced During Lawsuit, Court Rules
A federal appeals court has ruled that an Oklahoma law requiring abortion businesses to notify the parents before performing an abortion on a minor girl can be enforced despite a legal challenge by an abortion business.
A three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request for an injunction to prevent the law from being enforced while the legal challenge moves ahead. Nova Health Systems, which owns Reproductive Services, a Tulsa abortion business, is challenging the law on the grounds that there are no deadlines for judges to approve judicial bypass requests, which are often used by abortion advocates to get around notification laws.
The law requires that parents be notified 48 hours before a teen has an abortion and also allows prosecutors to charge perpetrators who injure or kill an unborn child with two crimes, earmarks state "family planning" funds for crisis pregnancy centers, and requires abortion businesses to tell patients that unborn children can feel pain and allow them to see an ultrasound photo and have fetal anesthesia before the abortion on request.
Rape Exceptions Weaken Laws, Lead to Abortions in Columbia, Argentina
The first legal abortion took place in Columbia earlier this month after the nation's Supreme Court ruled to weaken the country's ban on abortion, putting women and their unborn children at risk.
Columbia's Supreme Court ruled in May that abortions in the largely Catholic country, one of the few in the world to ban abortions, could be allowed by the courts in cases where the mother's life was at risk, the unborn child had severe physical deformities, or the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest. According to media reports, a judge approved an abortion for an 11-year-old girl who had become pregnant through rape, despite protests and offers to adopt the child from Catholic leaders and pro-life advocates.
Courts in Argentina also approved abortions for two mentally disabled women who had become pregnant through rape. Researchers have found that women are more likely to have difficulty coping after abortion if they became pregnant through sexual assault and a survey [link to rape/incest article or VV] of women in the U.S. found that most pregnant sexual assault victims who aborted were pressured to do so by others, even though many wanted to carry to term. Critics have accused abortion advocates using so-called "hard cases" to weaken opposition to abortion and open the door to widespread legalization of abortion.
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SELECTED RESOURCES
VICTIMS AND VICTORS: SPEAKING OUT ABOUT THEIR PREGNANCIES, ABORTIONS, AND CHILDREN INVOLVED IN SEXUAL ASSAULT
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Learn the truth about how abortion advocates used the "hard cases" to open the door to abortion on demand-- and how to answer the question, "How can you oppose abortion for a woman who becomes pregnant through sexual assault?" Order now and receive a 25 percent discount!
Find out more about this and other resources at www.afterabortion.info/Resrc1.html.
To place an order, call Acorn Books at 1-888-412-2676 or email amy@afterabortion.info.
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