The first is about a Swedish study that suggests that having an abortion could cause up to five years of mental anguish and distress. Naturally, pro-choice advocates are quick to discredit this idea.
Well, no duh you don't see a lot of women back for counseling! If you were feeling traumatized by an abortion, would you go back to the provider for comfort?However, a spokeswoman for the British Pregnancy Advisory Service - the UK's leading provider of abortion services - said most women weighed up the consequences fully before opting for an abortion.
"We don't see that many women for post-abortion counselling.
"We offer that service but women very rarely come back because they are able to cope with it by themselves."
A spokeswoman for the Family Planning Association, said: "There is no evidence to suggest that abortion directly causes psychological trauma.
"Women can experience mixed feelings after an abortion such as relief or sadness.
"These are natural reactions and few women experience long-term problems."
The second article, on the Arkansas abortionist who acknowledges that he's destroying life but feels that the benefits to the mother outweigh negative consequences like the murder of a child, has been floating around St. Blog's for a bit, but I only just read it. Here's the section that moved me to tears:
An 18-year-old with braces on her teeth is on the operating table, her head on a plaid pillow, her feet up in stirrups, her arms strapped down at her sides. A pink blanket is draped over her stomach. She's 13 weeks pregnant, at the very end of the first trimester. She hasn't told her parents.I can't add anything else to that.
A nurse has already given her a local anesthetic, Valium and a drug to dilate her cervix; Harrison prepares to inject Versed, a sedative, in her intravenous line. The drug will wipe out her memory of everything that happens during the 20 minutes she's in the operating room. It's so effective that patients who return for a follow-up exam often don't recognize Harrison.
The doctor is wearing a black turtleneck, brown slacks and tennis shoes. He snaps his gum as he checks the monitors displaying the patient's pulse rate and oxygen count.
"This is not going to be nearly as hard as you anticipate," he tells her.
She smiles wanly. Keeping up a constant patter — he asks about her brothers, her future birth control plans, whether she's good at tongue twisters — Harrison pulls on sterile gloves.
"How're you doing up there?" he asks.
"Doing OK."
"Good girl."
Harrison glances at an ultrasound screen frozen with an image of the fetus taken moments before. Against the fuzzy black-and-white screen, he sees the curve of a head, the bend of an elbow, the ball of a fist.
"You may feel some cramping while we suction everything out," Harrison tells the patient.
A moment later, he says: "You're going to hear a sucking sound."
The abortion takes two minutes. The patient lies still and quiet, her eyes closed, a few tears rolling down her cheeks. The friend who has accompanied her stands at her side, mutely stroking her arm.
When he's done, Harrison performs another ultrasound. The screen this time is blank but for the contours of the uterus. "We've gotten everything out of there," he says.
As the nurse drops the instruments in the sink with a clatter, the teenager looks around, woozy.
"It was a lot easier than I thought it would be," she says. "I thought it would be horrible, but it wasn't. The procedure, that is."
She is not yet sure, she says, how she is doing emotionally. She feels guilty, sad and relieved, all in a jumble.
"There's things wrong with abortion," she says. "But I want to have a good life. And provide a good life for my child." To keep this baby now, she says, when she's single, broke and about to start college, "would be unfair."
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