The Mental Health Source is a general medical site, with an Ask the Expert column.


"My daughter has panic disorder. Her treatment was going well, until she had an abortion recently. Her boyfriend did not seem to want the child. Since the abortion she has had a complete breakdown: she cries and wants her baby back, has attempted suicide, shows signs of bipolarism and has lost touch with reality. I can find information on postpartum depression, but nothing on depression following the termination of a pregnancy. My daughter's psychiatrist says her problems are not hormonal, but a result of her loss. What do you think?"

They have an archive of abortion-related "Ask the Expert" columns here.

This fellow is selling audiotapes with a hypnotic effect to help people relieve guilt and depression after abortion.

This week's edition of the National Catholic Register has an article--not online--called "The Other Church Abortion Teaching: Mercy".

The article is about post-abortion ministry as it is offered through the Catholic Church in Project Rachel.

Reading it, I was struck by a difference between the way that post-abortion ministry tends to be presented within the Catholic Church versus the way it tends to be presented within the Protestant church.

In the NCR article, writer Joseph Pronechen quotes five or six priests and diocesan employees who are not themselves post-abortive, as they talk about their work with post-abortive women. I don't know what all these people said to Pronechen when they were interviewed by him, but the quotes that he selected for the most part involve these people talking about their own experiences, feelings and thoughts as they work with post-abortive women.

That is to say, the article is much more about these people than it is about the men and women they serve, none of whom were quoted or interviewed. The priests and counselors quoted are also described in hagiographical terms: "the healing touch of a wise and caring counselor" is one example of that.

Within the Protestant church, post-abortion support comes across much more as peer support from others who have also experienced abortion. It has a horizontal flavor, with a "we're all in this together" tone.

Frankly, the NCR article left me feeling queasy. I am confident that effective post-abortion recovery requires a team approach--some combination of peer ministry and the unreactive, unbiased help of those who haven't had an abortion themselves. I don't think it benefits from the "we are saints-in-the-making" tone of this article.

Mississippi high court: fetus 'a person'.


"The Mississippi Supreme Court, in a decision criticized by one of its members as an assault on Roe v. Wade, held Thursday that a fetus is a 'person' under state law and wrongful death claims can be filed on its behalf.

The justices upheld a Bolivar County woman's right to pursue a wrongful death claim after she alleged emotional distress and a mistake by her doctors caused her to have a miscarriage. The fetus was 19 weeks old at the time, according to doctors.

Presiding Justice Chuck McRae, in a written dissent, described the decision as an assault on Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that legalized abortion in America. McRae said the decision will only create more confusion in the courts."

The Joy of Choosing Life.

"I didn’t think I was financially stable to have another child because I wasn’t working, and my husband, he has a really good job, but no matter how much a paycheck is, there’s always going to be other bills that’s taking it," she says. "I talked to my grandmother, and she told me that I should get an abortion because during the other two pregnancies, I stayed so sick. She told me that I didn’t need another child. At the time I agreed with her, but I knew it wasn’t right. I looked under abortion, and they’re number was under abortion. I just wanted to hear the truth of what it really was. There’s a baby in there. All it needs to do is grow."

Pro-lifers must change more than the law.

...the thought of having an abortion sends shivers up my spine.

This is part of a letter that a 16-year-old wrote to an advice columnist. Her 16-year-old boyfriend is urging her to get an abortion. The columnist encourages her to tell her parents. Unfortunately, he missed the opportunity to point out to her how wrong it is for her boyfriend to be lobbying her to abort.

The Arizona Republic posts updated testimony on the Arizona case.

Who wants a 'defective' baby?

Link courtesy of Annie Banno.

The Straight Dope is hosting a message board thread as of yesterday about whether (any/some/many?) women regret abortion. One of their posters linked to me, which is how I found out about the message thread.

Several of the posters mention that their high school girlfriends got pregnant and had abortions.

This (high school girlfriend having an abortion) must be true of somewhere between 10-20% of the adult male population in the United States, or at least of those in the 20-50 age range.

As more women speak up about lingering emotional consequences from their abortions, I wonder how that strikes these men. Does it make them wonder if their long-ago girlfriend is one of those women?

I hiked into the Grand Canyon several years ago and fell into discussion with one of our tour guides. He asked me what I do and I talked about post-abortion support. He turned white and silent for a bit, and finally mentioned that his high school girlfriend got pregnant and had an abortion.

He was clearly wondering where she was at with that long-ago decision. I was wondering where HE was at. He had never married and I had already learned from him that in addition to taking tourists into the Grand Canyon, he was an artist. He made just one product, small semi-shaped little forms that he called "yumans". They were called yumans because they weren't quite human. They had the general shape, but no specific features, so you couldn't tell their gender. He had one in his pocket that he had already showed me. You could buy single yumans from him, or yuman groupings. One of the yuman groupings showed two big yumans cuddling a small yuman.

We have good cause at times to disrespect Freud, but there's a reason that his atlas of the unconscious mind has retained its influence.

Abortion doctor faces 67 counts of sexual assault, abuse as trial starts today, from the Arizona Republic.

"Three years ago, national shock jock Howard Stern called the straight-talking, gun-loving Dr. Brian Finkel a national hero because he wasn't intimidated by unending protests and threats outside his Phoenix abortion clinic.

Not only did he patrol his now-closed clinic in a bulletproof vest and holstered gun, he taunted anti-abortion activists, calling them 'religious racketeers,' and 'mean-spirited, hate-filled Christians engaged in guerrilla warfare.'

But now his medical license is on hold and he is waging a different fight, this one for his freedom. He goes to trial today, charged with 67 counts of sexual assault or abuse of 35 patients since 1986. At least one victim was going under anesthesia when she said Finkel fondled her, prosecutors say.

Finkel has repeatedly denied the charges.

Finkel, 53, a former Air Force flight surgeon who served in the first Gulf War, relished being on the front lines of the abortion battle, terminating more than 20,000 pregnancies in 20 years and proud of it.

Of the 67 counts he is now facing, seven are for sexual assault, which each carries a term of five to 14 years in prison, making this the highest-stakes battle for the combative doctor."

Documented Maternal Deaths Incurred through Legal and Illegal Abortions.

A remarkable and fascinating account of a day of sidewalk counseling in front of an abortion clinic in Florida.

I am praying for Mindy and I hope you will, too.

The False Memory Syndrome Foundation compiles stories from "retractors"--men and women who came to believe in therapy that they had been horrifically abused as children, and who later concluded that these memories of horrific abuse were false.

There was a trend in the 80s for therapists to suspect that patients who presented with fairly severe emotional issues were suffering from traumatic episodes in their past, which they might not yet remember.

One woman who retracted her story eventually realized that many of her symptoms were indeed related to a traumatic event, and that this event was an abortion, not sexual abuse at the hands of her mother:

"By falsely accusing my mother of sexual abuse, I tapped into a dark pit of rage against her; rage that had been repressed for more than 30 years. An only child, I grew up under the thumb of authoritarian parents who pushed me to be the perfect daughter. Negative emotions were squelched, painful issues never discussed. Heading the list of taboo subjects was the stillbirth of a baby that happened when I was about four years old. Fifteen years later, that childhood event returned to haunt me. I got pregnant with my first serious boyfriend, and went through a hellish abortion. Even though I was living at home and going to university, I managed to keep the abortion secret from my parents. I tried to ignore my anguish, in vain, just as my parents had tried to ignore the stillbirth long ago. But my guilt, anger and misery festered. By the time I was 38, I was a walking time bomb. My therapist unwittingly lit the fuse."

Abortion: Is 24-hour wait fair?

This article is about whether there is a good rationale for a 24-hour waiting period in Missouri, and it interviews two women who have had abortions--one of them is now part of Silent No More, and one of them now works in an abortion clinic.

The one who works in an abortion clinic is deeply opposed to the 24-hour waiting period.

Becki Rockers, the woman quoted in the article who needed years of therapy to cope with her post-abortion grief and shame, is not treated altogether well by the man who wrote the article.

He says that she "blames the industry" for her depression, but quotes her as saying "the things I did to myself to punish myself for the mistake I made" and has no quote to support the view that she is under the impression that "the industry" is the cause of her woes.

Abortion, zealots and Randall Terry by Peter Guinta, a senior writer for The St. Augustine Record in Florida.

Guinta talks about the time he and his wife almost aborted (they were told that their child had been damaged by radiation) and how he was anti-abortion for some years after that. Then, he realized that not all children were born into stable homes where they were wanted by their parents, and decided to be pro-choice.

That's just such a weak argument. If there were a "childhood misery index (CMI)", a calculus of all the factors that make for happy versus unhappy childhoods--divorce, infidelity, parents who are emotional basketcases, parental alcoholism, etc., etc., etc.--would anyone seriously maintain that the CMI has declined since Roe v Wade?

The Atlanta Journal Constitution publishes this exchange debating the impact that easy access to abortion has had on men.

Many moons ago, SICLE Mom Ashli wrote a column on her blog compiling instances of abortion clinic workers who have gone into the territory of being nine cents short of a dime. Her column was subsequently cited by Joyce, a Canadian prochoice activist. That sparked a dialogue between Joyce and Ashli, the results of which are here.

You should read it for yourself. You might be struck, as I was, by Joyce's inability to muster good arguments. For instance, she says that abortion is not violence, because when she looks "violence" up in the dictionary, it doesn't say "abortion".

Soon, though, she abandons argument for invective, and says that women who regret and don't take responsibility for their abortions are "neurotic, weak, destructive, and selfish" and issues various taunts. Not pretty.