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Abortion Trauma and Child Abuse
Theresa Karminski Burke and David C.
Reardon
Experts agree that during the past 25 years the rate of child
abuse has increased dramatically. Between 1976 and 1987 alone, there was a 330% increase
in reported cases of child abuse. While a portion of this increase is due to better
reporting, experts agree that these figures reflect a real trend toward ever higher rates
of abuse.
These figures clearly contradict the pro-abortionists' claim
that abortion of "unwanted children" prevents child abuse. Ignoring the obvious
illogic of this argument--which suggests that killing children is better than beating
them--there is not a single scientific study that supports this theory. Instead, there is
a clear statistical association between increased rates of abortion and increased rates of
child abuse. Indeed, statistical and clinical research support not only an association,
but a causal connection between abortion and subsequent child abuse.(1)
These academic studies, like all research, can be criticized
as insufficient to prove that abortion causes child abuse. But these conclusions are also
supported by the personal testimonies of women and men who have reported a direct
correlation between their unresolved post-abortion feelings and subsequent patterns of
emotional or physical abuse of their living children.
For example, one woman described feelings of intense rage
whenever her newborn baby cried: "I did not understand why her crying would make me
so angry. She was the most beautiful baby, and had such a placid personality. What I
didn't realize then was that I hated my daughter for being able to do all these things
that my lost [aborted] baby would never be able to do."(2)
The reasons for child abuse are complex, and can't be fully
dealt with here. But clearly, if abortion contributes to feelings of depression,
self-hatred, anxiety and anger among mothers and fathers, not to mention patterns of
substance abuse, their children will pay a price.
Fatal Abuse
In some instances, abortion can lead to complete emotional
breakdowns with tragic results. For example, Renee Nicely of New Jersey experienced a
"psychotic episode" the day after her abortion which resulted in the beating
death of her 3-year-old son, Shawn. She told the court psychiatrist that she "knew
that abortion was wrong" and "I should be punished for the abortion." The
psychiatrist who was the prosecution's expert witness testified that the killing was
clearly related to Renee's psychological reaction to her abortion. Unfortunately, the
victim of her rage and self-hatred was her own son.(3)
A similar tragedy occurred just one week after Donna
Fleming's second abortion. Depressed and distraught, Donna "heard voices" in her
head and tried to kill herself and her two sons by jumping off a bridge in Long Beach,
California. Donna and her five-year old son were rescued; her two-year-old son died.
Subsequently, Donna claimed she tried to kill herself and her other children in order to
reunite her family.(4)
There is no reason to believe that these are isolated cases.
Indeed, in the years to come it may be shown that post-abortion trauma was a major cause
of the dramatic rise of child abuse cases in the last two decades.
Psychiatrist Philip Ney, M.D., a clinical professor at the
University of British Columbia, has done by far the most research into understanding the
link between abortion and subsequent child abuse. Most of his analysis, and that of others
examining this issue, has focused on the role of abortion in disrupting bonding with later
children; weakening of maternal instincts; reduced inhibitions against violence,
particularly toward children; and heightened levels of anger, rage, and depression. It is
probable that all these factors have contributed toward increased levels of child abuse
following legalized abortion.
In this article, we will attempt to expand on the work of Dr.
Ney and others by examining in greater detail compulsive behaviors and intrusive thoughts
related to child abuse that can serve as a traumatic reenactment of abortion.
Why Reenact Trauma?
Traumatic experiences are by definition overwhelming
experiences that are simply "too much" for a person to handle or understand. The
ordinary response to a trauma is to banish the experience from one's mind--to run away
from it, hide it, or repress it. On one level, trauma victims simply want to forget and
put their horrible experience behind them forever.
In conflict with this avoidance reaction, however, is the
equally powerful human need to understand our experiences and find meaning in them. Thus,
while a person may consciously choose to avoid thinking about the traumatic experience,
their subconscious insists on calling attention to the trauma. Their subconscious knows
that an unresolved trauma is unfinished business. In order to be conquered, the horror of
their traumatic event must be exposed, proclaimed, and understood.
This tension between the need to hide a trauma and the need
to expose it is at the heart of many of the psychological symptoms of post-abortion
trauma. Symbolic reenactment is one of the ways that the subconscious seeks to
simultaneously satisfy both of these needs: the need to expose trauma and the need to hide
it. Reenactment allows the person to expose the trauma with the hope that its exposure
will eventually lead to understanding and mastery over the trauma. At the same time,
because the trauma is reenacted behind a symbolic mask, the essence of the trauma it is
still concealed and protected. In other words, reenactment allows the person to call for
help while disguising the areas that need help.
As trauma specialist Judith Lewis Herman, M.D., has observed,
symbolic reenactment of a trauma serves to "simultaneously call attention to the
existence of an unspeakable secret and deflect attention from it. This is most apparent in
the way traumatized people alternate between feeling numb and reliving the event. The
dialectic of trauma gives rise to complicated, sometimes uncanny alterations of
consciousness.... It results in the protean, dramatic, and often bizarre
symptoms...."(5)
A Day Care Nightmare
For women who have been traumatized by abortion, acts of
child abuse are a natural symbol for reenactment of unresolved abortion issues. For
example, Rhonda was plagued with guilt and shame for having aborted five children. She
believed that God wanted her make up for her past by giving love to children who needed
someone to care for them. She tried to meet this obligation by starting a full-time day
care career in her home.
While Rhonda was attempting to master her psychic trauma by
giving love to children, the eight children under her care literally exhausted her. By the
end of the day she frequently became irritable and anxious. Rhonda reported that she
occasionally lost her temper with the toddlers and would find herself hitting or shaking
them in a rage of fury and frustration. After these violent outbursts, Rhonda would shrink
into a corner and cry, convinced that she was a horrible person.
By placing herself in a stressful situation with young
toddlers, Rhonda recreated her feelings of helplessness and incompetence with children,
themes that were dominant in her choices to abort. Her repeated loss of control with the
children confirmed her feelings of self-hatred and disgust. The resulting ritual patterns
of child abuse, followed by shame, guilt, and grief, mirrored her abortion experiences
with complete emotional accuracy.
Reenactment Through Intrusive Thoughts
Dianne, another patient seeking post-abortion counseling,
also had a daycare business. She watched infants in her home. Dianne reported disturbing
intrusive thoughts about pulling the babies' arms out of their sockets. She felt a
compelling desire to grab the infants' little arms and disconnect their limbs. Such
thoughts caused excessive anxiety and horrific grief. Each time Dianne was confronted with
these traumatic thoughts, she was overcome with horror and sadness. Each intrusive episode
confirmed that she was a disgusting person and filled her heart with sickening grief.
Fortunately, on the anniversary date of her abortion Dianne
finally recognized the connection between her abortion and the intrusive thoughts. In a
searing moment, the truth of what was happening to her cut through her soul, and she wept
with grief over her loss. Fortunately, Dianne sought help to deal with the long-repressed
trauma, and all the unwelcome intrusive thoughts have ceased.
Intrusive thoughts like Dianne's are a common experience for
trauma victims. Once an intrusive thought comes, it can be very hard to put it out of the
mind. Afterwards, people may wonder: "Where in the world did that image come
from?" Like dreams and fantasies, intrusive thoughts often contain complex symbols of
the trauma.
With abortion trauma, intrusive thoughts about harming
children may also include symbols of the abortion procedure itself. Kathy related the
following story:
I love my kids. There is nothing I wouldn't do for them. They
are everything in the world to me. But I get these horrible thoughts that just mortify me.
It's hard to even talk about. I might be standing at the kitchen counter making dinner and
I'll think about poisoning their food. I imagine them reacting to the poison and I have to
rush them to the hospital. I go crazy with guilt and shame. Then I imagine that the
doctors discover that I did it on purpose. They call my husband and tell him that I
shouldn't have the children... that I tried to kill them. These thoughts just jump into my
head. They are so crazy... I can't believe I think such thoughts. It makes me hate myself.
Kathy first entered counseling for panic attacks. She began
reporting these types of thoughts each week with tremendous distress. It was hard for
Kathy to even talk about them without crying. As we reviewed her life, I was hardly
surprised that a saline abortion was in her past. She visibly shook when she talked about
it. When I asked her how a saline abortion works, she described the procedure as a
"poisoning" of the fetus.
All of Kathy's symptoms developed after her abortion. Through
these intrusive thoughts, Kathy continually relived the emotional experience of her
abortion. Each episode clustered around hurting or killing her living children and the
shameful aftermath. Her mourning had become complicated and was surfacing through these
disturbing fantasies.
Kathy is one of the gentlest, most soft-spoken women I have
ever met. I know it was enormously difficult for her to experience such horrendous
thoughts. I am happy to say that these impressions, which had plagued her for years, ended
after she had done grief work related to her abortion.
Emily's case is similar. She experienced an abortion twelve
years before getting married. Afterward, she refused to allow herself to think about it or
grieve what she had lost. This "stuffing away" of emotions worked fine until she
began to have children. Emily's first flashback hit her violently when she had her first
ultrasound while pregnant with a "wanted" child. As time went on, she would get
frequent intrusive thoughts concerning her abortion when looking at the faces of her
babies. After a time, she also began to experience habitual, obsessive, and scary thoughts
about hurting her children. She imagined stabbing her children with a knife one by one,
suffocating them with pillows, and strangling them.
Emily is a wonderful and devoted mother, yet she could not
escape intrusive thoughts about death and killing. As time went on, they became more
elaborate and more real. Emily could not figure out why this was happening to her. She was
appalled that she was even capable of such hideous thoughts. She certainly had no
intentions of ever carrying them out. But her destructive thoughts were like starving
rabid animals, hounding, scratching, and gnawing at her conscience. They left her feeling
bewildered, crazy, and ashamed. She desperately yearned to silence these dangerous beasts
in her mind. Fortunately, all these symptoms were alleviated after Emily had done grief
work related to her abortion.
Conclusion
The firsthand testimonies of women, combined with therapists'
case studies and even media reports of criminal cases involving child abuse or child
homicide, conclusively demonstrate that abortion trauma can create or aggravate tendencies
toward child abuse. While most women who experience intrusive thoughts about harming their
children are probably able to resist these impulses, the fact that these destructive
thoughts occur at all is alarming both for the sake of their children and themselves. If
even a small fraction of the millions of abortions performed each year lead to abuse of
subsequent children, whether in homes or in daycare, this problem should be of grave
concern to us all.
Theresa Karminski Burke, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist. The case studies presented in this
article are excerpted from her forthcoming book, Forbidden Grief. Copyright
1997 Theresa Karminski Burke. David C. Reardon, Ph.D., is a biomedical ethicist and the
director of the Elliot Institute.
Originally published in The Post-Abortion Review,
6(1), Winter 1998. Copyright 1998, Elliot Institute.
NOTES
1. Ney, P. Fung, T., Wickett, A.R.,
"Relationship Between Induced Abortion and Child Abuse and Neglect: Four
Studies," Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal 8(1):43-63 Fall 1993;
Benedict, M., White, R., and Cornely, P., "Maternal Perinatal Risk Factors and Child
Abuse" Child Abuse and Neglect 9:217-224 (1985); Lewis, E., "Two Hidden
Predisposing Factors in Child Abuse," Child Abuse and Neglect 3:327-330
(1979); Ney, P., "Relationship Between Abortion and Child Abuse," Canadian J.
Psychiatry 24:610-620(1979).
2. Reardon, D., Aborted Women, Silent
No More (Chicago, Loyola University Press, 1987) 130.
3. Ibid, 129-30.
4. McFadden, A., "The Link Between
Abortion and Child Abuse," Family Resources Center News (January 1998) 20.
5. Judith Lewis Herman,
M.D., Trauma and Recovery (NY: Basic Books, 1992) 1-2.
Originally printed in The Post-Abortion Review, 6(1), Winter
1988. Copyright 1988, Elliot Institute.
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