Reproductive Rights Round-Up

Look what Fern found: 

A report published in Psychiatric Times on the lies that the anti-choicers tell to scare women out of terminating unwanted pregnancies.

Abortion trauma syndrome is a fabricated mental disorder conceived by anti-abortion activists to advance their cause and is not a scientifically based psychiatric disorder. So said 2 psychiatrists at the American Psychiatric Association’s recent annual meeting in San Francisco.

“Abortion does not cause psychiatric damage, but the claim that it does is a prime strategy of the anti-abortion movement, which has convinced many people in the US,” said former APA president Nada Stotland, MD, MPH.

“So if it wasn’t a psychiatric issue before, it certainly is now, and we psychiatrists have an obligation to know about it,” she added.

One in 3 women in this country will have had an abortion by age 45 years. Worldwide, 1 in 5 pregnancies ends in abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute’s 2008 reports. Annual estimates are 1.2 million abortions in the US and 42 million globally.

Major reasons cited in that report for having an abortion include inability to afford a child; interference with work, school, or ability to care for other dependents; not wanting to be a single parent; marital or partner problems; and concern about being responsible for others.

Now you want to talk about post-partum depression? That's the real deal.

Seems to me that, if you're forced to have a child you can't afford to bring up, if you're forced to give birth when your marriage is abusive or is falling apart, if you're forced to have a baby when you're not equipped, mentally, emotionally or physically, for it, you're more likely to be depressed than if you have an abortion.

Which is what the experts have been saying for years.

But the forced birthers just continue to make stuff up -- either by citing faulty research or misrepresenting good research.

A second presenter at the APA symposium, Gail Robinson, MD, professor of psychiatry and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Toronto and director of the Women’s Mental Health Program for University Health Network, focused on the studies that have examined the relationship between abortion and women’s mental health. A more comprehensive article is scheduled for the August issue of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry.

Robinson identified methodological issues in studies used to support claims that induced abortion results in an abortion trauma syndrome or a psychiatric disorder. She then compared those studies with others that avoided those methodological errors.

The valid controls for women who have abortions should be women with unwanted pregnancies who are forced to carry to term, Robinson said. The few studies that have included this comparison found that, in general, the group who carried to term had poor outcomes for both the mothers and the children.

We need to question why a woman would have an abortion in the first place and to differentiate between first- and second-trimester abortions, Robinson added. There may be several reasons women delay until the second trimester, possibly related to access or ambivalence. Mixing up the 2 groups likely muddies the results.

Other issues include whether the pregnancy is wanted; whether the abortion is requested because the woman is a victim of violence, rape, or incest; whether she is being coerced by others to have the abortion; whether she has had a prior abortion; and what types of resources and support are available to her.

But let's say it's true. Let's say we women who have had abortions are all now kookoo bananas suicide-prone whack jobs lamenting our lost fetuses.

Why the streets are over run by shrieking women, right? They're everywhere, right?

Today StatsCan released the 2006 figures -- the latest numbers - on induced abortions.

The good news is, the rate of abortion per 100 live births continues to drop. The absolute numbers are going down too.

Since abortion is no less accessible than it was before, that probably doesn't explain the decline. The cost of abortion is covered for most women so, unlike in the US, the economy is not a factor (Except maybe, in the US, more people can't afford children so they're opting for abortions.) Also, unlike in the US, our teens get better sex ed and better access to contraception.

But I digress.

The bottom line is, from 2002-2006, there were half a million abortions in Canada.

Now let's assume that means half a million women.

That's a lot of crazy ladies out there, a veritable river of post-abortion tears.

Nice try Fetus Fetishists.

Next!

A NOTE ABOUT THE IMAGE: It's by Vincent Van Gogh, and it's called Sorrow. As the artist wrote to his brother Theo:

"Last winter I met a pregnant woman, deserted by the man whose child she was carrying. A pregnant woman who walked the streets in the winter -- she had her bread to earn, you'll know how. I took that woman on as a model and have worked with her all winter. I couldn't pay her a model's full daily wages, but I paid her rent all the same, and thus far, thank God, I have been able to save her and her child from hunger and cold by sharing my own bread with her."

I bet Vincent would have been a pro-choicer.

Comments

[CityGirl]

I always cringe a bit when I see a list of reasons why women choose to terminate pregnancies. It seems to over simply a very complex decision and course of action to a multiple choice test, as if women (and couples) are filling out a form:

I want more money than kids, check...

The whole point of being pro-choice is that one believes that no woman should have to justify her choice.

And yes, the whole "you'll go crazy if you do this" is an attempt to push someone who is already facing a stressful situation, either way, into making a choice they do not really want.

[deBeauxOs]

By the genuine kindness and compassion he demonstrated, Van Gogh certainly distinguishes himself from his contemporaries - the cruel, moralizing pious hypocrites who cast out this woman, and the current screeching crowd of anti-abortion hypocrites.

[Stan]

I don't suppose it ever occurred to you that not getting pregnant in the first place might be a better choice than killing a fetus?

After all, pro choice is what it's all about, isn't it?

[Joyce Arthur]

The StatsCan release yesterday was incomplete and didn't include clinic abortions from BC or NB. (Also some clinics in Ontario didn't report but they never report anyway, meaning the numbers are always underreported each year.) So the new 2006 stats are not reliable, unfortunately, and it's impossible to tell whether abortions have actually declined. My guess, very little if at all, it's probably about the same as last year.

[sooey]

The fact is, thanks to Feminism, "unwed motherhood" is no longer the stigma that is used to be. Lots of women who would otherwise, in pre-Feminist times, have ended their pregnancies -don't.

Choice is a good thing. Where we need to go is taking that choice to women who really do want to bring their pregnancies to term but because of Conservative politics and male violence and the attendant stigma of unwed motherhood - can't.

[The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs]

"....and thus far, thank God, I have been able to save her and her child from hunger and cold by sharing my own bread with her."

"I bet Vincent would have been a pro-choicer."

Esteemed and Beautiful Moderator, de Frum Oase,

I bet he wouldn't. Notice he saved her AND HER CHILD. No mention of procuring an abortionist.

[Antonia]

Uh, wrong. She already had a young daughter, as any student of art knows.

http://www.thomasnast.com/NastAndVanGogh/AlBoimeEssayMain.htm

[William Hayes]

Thanks for the info about the Van Gogh drawing. I have a copy, but did not know the circumstances of the model.

You do not mention it, but I understand there can be significantly deleterious effects on the mother who bears a child and then gives that child for adoption--we might term this adoption trauma syndrome. Some pro life advocates who counsel young, unmarried women to continue a pregnancy have, to some extent, recognized this problem by supporting "open adoption," which allows and perhaps supports continuous contact between the birth mother and her child.

[The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs]

Esteemed and Beautiful Moderator,

I'm afraid my instinct was correct. Your link actually says:

"Here van Gogh was specifically referring to Sien, the pregnant prostitute whom he took in and sheltered. It may be recalled that, out of mixed personal, moral, and humane motives, van Gogh considered it his duty to try to rescue Sien and her daughter from hunger and degradation, but at the same time she became his model and companion."

no mention of abortion. He helped look after the baby when it arrived.

check out this link:

http://www.vggallery.com/drawings/p_1072.htm

"Despite Vincent's deep longing for a family life, he and Sien would eventually end their relationship."

I could overload this comment with quotes, but you get the picture. I would hazard a guess that van Gogh would have recoiled from aborting any of Sien's children.

[Antonia]

Uh Styg, now you are being ridiculous.

It's not like this woman could procure a late term abortion easily. It was the 19th century, FCS.

And just because a man wants a family doesn't mean he is against a woman's right to reproductive freedom or to exercise control over her body and life.

[The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs]

"exercise control over her body and life."

Esteemed and Beautiful Moderator and all you choice-wallahs,

"If No Man Has The Right To Tell Me What To Do With My Body, why can't I sell a kidney?"

(I won't cite the source for that quote, but Mark Steyn has this one nailed in the latest issue of Maclean's)

http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/08/27/do-you-notice-anything-shrivelling/