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The Elliot Institute News
From the Leader in Post-Abortion Research
Vol. 6, No. 6 -- April 26, 2007
Visit us online:
http://www.AfterAbortion.Info
IN THIS ISSUE:
Introduction to Giving Sorrow Words, Part I
Women's Stories of
Grief After Abortion
Melinda Tankard Reist
Editor's Note: The
following is excerpted from the Introduction to Giving Sorrow Words: Women's
Stories of Grief After Abortion, by Melinda Tankard Reist. See the end of this
article for ordering information.
This is a book about women who don't exist.
The women who tell their
stories here have all suffered abortion-related grief: a depth of grief they
were not prepared for and which many carry still.
But they go unheard. Emotional trauma after an abortion is treated with disdain,
dismissed by abortion advocates as an invention. A number of Australian reports,
as well as recent books on abortion, give the topic scant, almost indifferent,
consideration.
An international
conference of abortionists, held in Queensland, Australia in Nov. 1999, devoted
just one workshop to the subject. The workshop's title alone-"Reflections on a
Long Cherished Belief: Psychological sequelae of abortion"-indicated a lack of a
serious regard for the subject, suggesting it is merely an article of faith, a
fondly held myth. The workshop tone was generally dismissive of the research on
post-abortion aftermath; indeed, one participant said women were "overwhelmingly
overjoyed" and even "euphoric" after an abortion.
Conventional wisdom has
it that abortion is mostly trouble-free. Because of this, those who are troubled
are made-indeed, often forced to be-invisible.
The grief of the women
documented in this book is real. But their stories, and the stories of women
like them, have been disqualified-even by those who say we must listen to
women's voices and credit women's experiences.
Attitudes towards women
overwhelmed by grief following abortion demonstrate a cruel indifference to
women's pain. Their suffering is considered a figment of their imagination;
their guilt and remorse a by-product of social/religious conditioning. In short,
they are an embarrassment.
There is another
constraint on their expression of grief. The politics surrounding abortion have
drowned out the voices of women harmed by it. How free are women to share their
anguish when advocates extol abortion as "an act of individual self-
determination," and a "rite of passage into womanhood," a "positive moral good"
for women, and "a source of fulfillment, transcendence, and growth?"
Women whose lives are
shattered by the abortion experience and for whom abortion was not a
"maturational milestone," and who did not feel it made them a "mistress of their
own destiny," are cast aside as oversensitive, psychologically unstable, victims
of socially constructed guilt. Their experience is trivialized.
When an article I wrote about women's negative experiences of abortion appeared
in The Canberra Times in 1997, a family planning figure hastily wrote in
to dismiss post-abortion trauma. Similar reactions surfaced in a feminist e-mail
discussion about my book which lasted several days. The project was treated with
contempt by all but two participants.
One of the participants suggested that a quick on-line collection of "stories of
women not hurt by abortion" be compiled. This reaction unnecessarily pits
women's differing stories against each other and, once again, suggests there is
only one authentic experiential reality when it comes to abortion.
A woman's abortion pain
is discounted and minimized due to the prevailing view that a termination is
really no big deal, an easy fix. Abortion is promoted by many who dominate the
discourse on the subject as a procedure without repercussions. Because of this,
attempts to discuss women's abortion suffering have been constrained.
Suffering post-aborted
women feel a resentment towards a society which ignores or neglects their
suffering. They are not allowed to acknowledge or mourn their loss openly. The
disdain for women suffering after-abortion trauma sends the message: you're only
upset because you've chosen to get upset.
Herald Sun writer
Evelyn Tsitas epitomizes this attitude: "Abortion can be an emotional
subject-particularly for people who choose to get upset about it. There is a
movement taking hold called: 'I'll always regret what I did and want to burn in
hell for it.'"
This mocking response to
women's abortion-related suffering makes them feel they're being melodramatic,
oversensitive, attention-seeking. But many women are suffering emotionally from
a procedure which was portrayed as emotionally benign. They are filled with
feelings of self-loss, daily haunted by their abortion experience.
"We live with that
regret till the day we die and for some we were wishing we too were dead," wrote
a woman who signed her name, "Tortured."
These women might have
been told "there is nothing there," or that their fetuses look like "scraps of
paper" (the description given to one woman by a Queensland abortion counselor).
But to them, these were flesh and blood babies; for them, a baby died in an
abortion.
"I do not think I
terminated a 'bunch of cells' but a real human being," wrote Melbourne woman
Marguerite, whose story appears in this book.
Their arms feel empty, they don't like looking at babies, they cry often. They
ask: What would my baby have looked like? Was it a boy or a girl?
Would-have-been birthdays are quietly marked year after year.
As Margaret Nicol points
out in her important work on maternal grief, it is a myth that a mother only
bonds with her child after birth. A woman never forgets a pregnancy and the baby
that might have been. When the baby is lost and there are no memories or visible
reminders of the baby, "the feeling of emptiness and nothingness becomes
pervasive and it is this uneasy and anxious void that makes women wonder if
they're going crazy."
Women who have been
callously treated after losing babies through miscarriage and stillbirth are
slowly being given recognition. Women like Glenys Collis: "But at nearly five
months it all went wrong. I lost the baby. Of course it wasn't really a baby I
had lost, the doctor told me sternly. 'Don't cry, you silly girl. This is all
part of being a woman.'"
In 1994, The Age
published a deeply moving story about an 81-year-old woman, Mrs. Rose, who had
searched for 47 years to find the place her stillborn child had been buried.
Finally, she learned of a mass grave where her baby lay.
She walked around the grave, calling for her lost child. A photo of Mrs. Rose
showed her pressing dirt from the mass grave to her cheek. The dirt was, she
said, "the first reality I have got."
"It was not the done thing to talk about grief ... I did not cry ... I thought
about it privately," she said.
The dirt represented the reality of her buried baby. But the woman who has
aborted does not even have a handful of dirt. She has nothing to mark that there
was a baby and now there is no baby. Like Mrs. Rose many years ago, it is not
the done thing to talk about this grief; she bears alone the mantle of silent
maternal suffering.
The significance of
prenatal loss, as well as the loss of relinquishing mothers in adoption, the
anguish of indigenous mothers whose children were forcibly removed under
assimilation policies, and the loss of babies "which might have been" by women
who are infertile, has now been acknowledged. Grief for an aborted baby is
forbidden grief; it remains taboo.
* * *
Melinda Tankard Reist is
an Australian writer and researcher with a special interest in women's health,
new reproductive technologies, and medical abuse of women. Her book,
Giving Sorrow Words:
Women's Stories of Grief After Abortion, is available from Acorn Books
at 1-888-412-2676.
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12 Ways to Help
Spread the Unchoice Message
#6: Ask Pastors and
Religious Leaders to Encourage
Awareness and Healing
If Americans knew
the truth about unwanted, misinformed or forced abortions ... they would not
push women to abort or deny them the opportunity to heal. Millions still suffer
in the wake of a procedure that was never safe ... never just ... and never
about free or fully informed choices.
Americans have been kept in the dark and many unwittingly push their daughters,
wives, sisters or friends into unwanted and dangerous abortions. Meanwhile,
countless women who have lived the abortion nightmare are resorting to despair
or even suicide. It is urgent that we educate others about abortion's injustice
and danger to everyone involved. With your help, we can stop others from pushing
abortion in lieu of authentic choices and offer renewed hope and healing to
women, men and families hurt by abortion.
Below is just one
way you can help this important effort. To see the complete list of 12 Ways to
Help, click here.
6. Ask Pastors and Religious Leaders to Encourage Awareness and Healing
Encourage your pastor and other religious and civic
leaders in your community to defuse this issue by
raising awareness about the epidemic of unwanted
abortions and the need for healing and positive
alternatives. Refer pastors to
www.UnChoice.info for quick-reference resources.
Encourage them to use the free downloadable
fact sheets,
testimonies, the
coerced
abortion flyer, the
Forced Abortion in
America
fact sheet, and other new
materials they can use in talks, counseling, or
other outreach. Consider giving them
The Jericho Plan, a book that outlines a
compassionate, unifying way to preach about
abortion. Ask for permission to keep copies of
Hope and Healing on the literature table at the
back of the your church. Then, make sure copies are
always available.
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Low-Cost/No-Cost Uses
for the Unchoice Ads and Educational Materials
#2: Distribute Ads and Fact Sheets as
Flyers
 You can help spread the Unchoice message by using
our ads and educational materials -- even on a very limited or non-existent
budget! Here is just one way you can spread the word. Click
here to see other low-cost/no-cost ideas.
2. Distribute ads and
fact sheets as flyers.
Use as mailing inserts, e-mail or leave-behind flyers for:
-
reporters and editors
-
politicians
-
civic or religious leaders
-
students and educators at high schools,
colleges and universities
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pro-life leaders or civic leaders and activists
in like-minded organizations
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in doctors offices or hospital waiting rooms,
church libraries/reading rooms or other areas, where permitted, and
-
at health fairs, conventions, trade shows,
women’s or men's group meetings, youth group activities, bible studies, and
other small or large-group gatherings.
Use co-op ads and posters
to raise awareness of your organization or event, such as an educational meeting
or speaker, prayer service, post-abortion support group or retreat, or other
activity. Flyers or posters can be posted on bulletin boards in church, civic or
public buildings such as libraries, community events boards, etc.
Use flyers and other materials as billing or mail inserts and email attachments
If you're already mailing to your group or organization, simply drop in an
ad or
fact sheet or the
Download Free Resources Online
flyer. (Or use as e-mail attachments.) You can also send them in mailings to
other groups as well, or use as an educational flyer in your church bulletin.
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Find out more about Elliot Institute books and resources, visit
www.unchoice.info/resources.htm.
To place an order, call Acorn Books at 1-888-412-2676.
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