Britain seems to be a lot more honest about abortion than us here in North America. They report every year not just on the number of abortions, but also on the number of repeat abortions, and break it down by category. They can tell you how many have had 7 or 8 abortions, and how many teenagers have repeat abortions. I haven't seen stuff like that in the mainstream media here.
The Royal College of Obstetricians apparently also has said that abortion can cause mental stress, something that doctors in North America are yet to admit.
My column for the week coming up is on abortion. Canada's Governor General has named Henry Morgentaler to the Order of Canada. For those of you who don't know who Morgentaler is, he's the face of abortion in Canada. He was arrested multiple times for performing abortions illegally, fought in court, and eventually won, opening clinics across the country and lobbying for abortion to be publicly funded (which he won). Without him, we wouldn't have abortion the way we do. And our Governor General just gave him our most prestigious award.
My column is already written and sent in, but in retrospect I wish I had written more on women's guilt. I think I may have been unduly harsh, but I'll leave that for you to decide on Friday when I print it.
For now, let me give you a glimpse of abortion coverage in Britain, where the Daily Mail is profiling, quite unfavourably, a woman who had seven abortions.It says:
After her third termination, aged 26, she tried to kill herself by overdosing on alcohol and painkillers and spent eight weeks in a psychiatric unit. And yet the ease with which she was able to secure a fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh abortion with no proper assessment is astounding.
Indeed, she reveals that she went to the same abortion clinic for each of her terminations and claims she was offered only the most cursory of counselling before every one.
'I do wish that someone in those clinics had really sat down with me and talked it through properly,' says Angela, who is now undergoing counselling to help her cope with her past actions.
'The reason why I had so many abortions is that I didn't want to bring a child into the world unless my situation was perfect - but it never was. 'With each termination I felt it was my responsibility to get on with my own life and forget about it. After each one I just blanked out the emotions and never thought about it. I felt no remorse at all.'
She says she felt no remorse, but the article details her suicide attempts and depression. It's really quite sad, although she did keep one baby and he is now the joy of her life.
I think that's interesting--she thought her situation had to be perfect first. How did we ever make people think that? For millenia people have been having children before they had much money. After all, we tend to have kids when we're young, and that's before we're established. This thought that you need to have stuff first is ridiculous. Certainly we need an apartment, and money for food, but to get rid of a child because you don't have enough is silly.
Perhaps she meant that her relationship needed to be perfect. She may have a point there. But if the guy she's dating isn't fatherhood material, why is she having sex with him in the first place?
I've written another column about this phenomenon:
In the recently released movie Knocked Up, professional journalist Alison discovers she is pregnant from a drunken one-night stand with loser Ben. She doesn’t want to raise the child alone, so she chases Ben down and tries to turn him into fatherhood material. I think Alison’s onto something. Single parenthood is a rough road, and Alison knows that her baby will need a dad.
Unfortunately, Alison did everything backwards. She got into a relationship without realizing that this guy may end up being the father of her children. It’s better to make sure a guy will make a good dad before you wind up pregnant. For many young women, though, fatherhood material is the last thing on their minds. They’re looking for cool, popular, even a little dangerous, or simply someone to like them. None of those things ultimately holds up.
A little honesty on this issue could go a long way to reduce the number of abortions. Unfortunately, this issue is so charged here in America that honesty is something I don't expect to hear anytime soon.
About Me: I'm a Christian author of a bunch of books, and a frequent speaker to women's groups and marriage conferences. Best of all, I love homeschooling my daughters, Rebecca and Katie. And I love to knit. Preferably simultaneously.
Stumble It!
A little honesty on this issue could go a long way to reduce the number of abortions. Unfortunately, this issue is so charged here in America that honesty is something I don't expect to hear anytime soon.