Reblorgable upon request!
alwaysthisrestless asked: Hi there - just wanted to point out a few things. While many studies may show that there is no pattern of trauma after abortion, many other studies show that there are. (For example, please go to my URL and then type /tagged/hannahandfreckles — if all goes well and I didn’t spell anything wrong here, you’ll see a tiny bit of my own research as well as my own personal experience!)
[cont’d]:
Also (I didn’t include this in my other “question” because I ran out of room), when it comes to the abortion vs. adoption argument, my final stance is this: abortion ends a human being’s life and can cause physical and emotional trauma to a mother not caused by regular pregnancy; adoption - while it may be complicated and flawed, most every process is - allows life to continue. Lastly, I’d like to suggest you read “Gianna: Aborted, and Lived to Tell About It” by Jennifer Renshaw.
This is the page alwaysthisrestless is referring to, on AfterAbortion.org, a website run by the pro-life Elliot Institute.
Before I go on, here’s a post I wrote about the problems with studies on abortion and depression. All studies are not created equal - I wrote another post on how to evaluate them. I anticipate encountering a number of these issues as I look through the studies.
Right off the bat, there are a few studies that need to be thrown out. Studies done by researchers with a clear and stated bias are immediately suspect. For example, David Reardon is the director of the pro-life Elliot Institute and is an anti-choice advocate. Actually, he was described by the New York Times as the “Moses” of anti-choice activists. Which, uh, weird. Anyway. Not only that, but his methodology has been repeatedly criticized: He published a survey taken from members of a group called Women Exploited by Abortion which found - surprise! - high rates of nervous breakdowns, substance abuse, and suicide attempts. David Reardon failed Proper Sampling 101. He has a degree from an unaccredited correspondence school, Pacific Western University, which was shut down following a lawsuit filed by the state of Hawaii.
So, he’s out. So is the entire Elliot Institute. Bias and politics have no place in research.
E. Joanne Angelo is out, too. While her writing on hospice is valuable, she has held leadership positions in pro-life organizations, like the University Faculty for Life and Women Affirming Life. She’s also a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life. Her contribution to this page had no research on abortion behind it; instead, it generalized to the entire population the reactions of some of her clients, many of whom had mental health issues or external problems before their abortions.
There are way too many ancient studies on this page. Not a single one was done before 2000. That’s a problem. Generally, you want to stick to studies that have been done within the past 10 years, unless it’s a really good one (lots of citations, replicable results, huge population, etc.) or a classic. It seems odd that people purporting to be interested in informing people of scientific findings wouldn’t be keeping up on the latest research. Now, if I was going by that criteria alone, that would eliminate - well, all of them. But, for the sake of argument, I’ll check some out.
Carl Tishler’s case study from 1981 discusses two cases of suicide attempts following an abortion. Patient 1 had attempted suicide previously and described herself as depressed. Patient 2 had a history of self-harm, running away from home, and a family history of suicide and alcoholism, as well as troubles at home. The studies cited in this case study discussed suicide and teen pregnancy, not abortion.
Also, they cited him and Angelo twice. That’s cheating!
Esther Greenglass’ study, “Therapeutic abortion and psychiatric disturbance in Canadian women,” actually comes to the exact opposite conclusion, so I’m not entirely sure why it was included on this page. 88% of the 188 interviewed women never sought psychiatric treatment. 30% had had treatment before, and 21% of them had a psychiatric disorder after the abortion (compared to 8% of the rest of the women). From the abstract: “The author argues that abortion itself is not a primary cause of psychiatric disturbance; rather, the social and psychological context of the pregnancy and the abortion may contribute to psychiatric disorder.”
Just for funsies, I looked at Reardon and Ney’s “Abortion and Subsequent Substance Abuse” study from 2000. No citations listed on PubMed, meaning nobody else has used this study to replicate the findings or support their own study. Bad news. This also relied on self-reporting, which skews the results in all sorts of ways. The percentages of respondents who’d had abortions didn’t match the national average, either. In the end, the sample size was narrowed down to 85, with 14 respondents with a history of substance abuse having aborted their first pregnancy. Of the 6 who began using around the same time as their first pregnancy, 5 had had abortions. That is a tiny-ass sample size. And, again, this only studies correlation, not causation.
It’s awesome that you kind of did some research, but it takes a hell of a lot more than pulling some studies out of thin air to make a point. I’m not a scientist - hell, I’m not even any kind of science major, but I was able to tear down a lot of those studies fairly easily. That would not happen with valid studies. The APA did a comprehensive report on mental health and abortion, which I linked above for my post on problems with studies on abortion and depression. They looked through every empirical study on the topic since 1989 and had to throw most of them out because of severe methodological problems, like the ones I’ve talked about. I’d really recommend skimming their page on the report, and you can download the PDF there, too.
Your reasoning does not resonate with most people who’ve had abortions and adoptions. Adoption is a complex process, and the mental health of the bio parent and the success rate of adoption is heavily influenced by class, race, and family history. There is a long history of coercive adoption in this country, and it still goes on today. Adoption agencies offer financial incentives to birthmothers, targeting the poorest in our country. Bio parents are given conflicting messages: they are selfless, but they are weak, cold, and cruel to abandon their child. They have little space to grieve. They often wonder for the rest of their lives where their child is, or if they’re even still alive. And if you don’t give birth to a healthy, white baby adopted within months? Good luck ever getting them adopted. That’s the reality of adoption.
Even if adoption were a perfect system, it still would not be right to force others through pregnancy and childbirth. Nobody owes anybody their body - not for anything.
By the way, a recent study tracking 365,550 girls and women in Denmark found that childbirth is more likely to cause psychiatric problems than abortion. Here’s an article about it, and here’s the actual study. Some food for thought.
I know Gianna’s story. Do you know the stories of the girls sent away to maternity homes before Roe v. Wade? Read the book.
Your mother’s story is an inspiring one for people who want to keep their pregnancies, but you do not get to use your own unique experiences to oppress others. Just because it worked out for your mother does not mean it will work out for others, and it doesn’t mean they have to try, either. Your mother chose her path - imagine being forced down it. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody, and certainly not on my own mother. She was the thinking, feeling being with responsibilities other than to the pregnancy - I was a nonsentient parasitic being inside her. If she had gotten an abortion, I simply would not exist, just as I would not exist if my parents hadn’t had sex at that exact time, or if the contraception hadn’t failed, or if my mom had miscarried. Your existential crisis does not give you the right to take away critical choices for complete strangers.
Thanks for your message.
