‘Post-abortion syndrome’ A whole new spin against choice
DENISE BRUNSDON THE MCGILL DAILY (MCGILL UNIVERSITY)
MONTREAL (CUP) — The anti-choice fight has been renewed, refocused from the rights of the fetus to the rights of the pregnant. Hold onto your uterus, because it’s one masterful piece of spin.
As featured in a January edition of New York Times Magazine, “post-abortion syndrome” is the new concern that abortions cause low self-esteem, depression, suicidal tendencies, drug abuse, alcohol addiction, and more.
After decades of failing to sway public, legal, and legislative opinion using the argument that an unborn fetus has a right to life — complete with naming symbolic dolls and bronzing toddler shoes — anti-choice activists are switching gears. Through financing and administering “abortion-recovery” counselling, “post-abortion syndrome” advocates hope to convince legislators, voters, and pregnant women alike that abortions are harmful to a woman’s health.
“Post-abortion syndrome” has two glaring weaknesses.
First, it’s not based on any scientific fact. Numerous unbiased studies have proven that the psychological ramifications of an abortion are no greater than those of carrying an unwanted baby to term.
One study found 10 per cent of women experienced depression or other emotional problems following an abortion; this is the same rate for women post-childbirth. Should women experience prolonged emotional fragility or distress post-abortion, doctors usually find women to have been experiencing those symptoms pre-pregnancy.
American Psychiatric Association vice-president Nada Stotland concludes, “There is no evidence of an abortion-trauma syndrome.”
Secondly, the “post-abortion syndrome” argument doesn’t forcefully respond to the main axiom of the pro-choice lobby: personal feelings aside, restricting a woman’s personal reproductive choices imposes an undue infringement on her civil liberty.
At the end of the day, this debate isn’t about whether abortions are good or bad. Nobody denies that abortions are bad. They are costly in time and money, they are physically intrusive, sometimes they cause emotional distress, and to some they are sinful. Abortions are, by all accounts, unfortunate experiences.
The true debate, however, is whether abortions are the jurisdiction of the individual or the government. Abortions, while not “good” as a general concept, can be important or necessary to an individual. They are last-chance measures to end dangerous, accidental, or unwanted pregnancies.
The pro-choice movement believes in autonomy over one’s own body. This is an instinctive argument. If an individual is responsible for growing the baby, she has the right to decide whether or not she wishes to do so.
The anti-choice movement seeks to do more than just inform individuals of choices and their consequences. They believe that if individuals make personally harmful choices — such as they claim is the case with “post-abortion syndrome” — then the state ought to remove that choice from them.
To strive for this degree of state paternalism is significant and serious. To compel a government to systematically deny its citizens autonomy over their bodies — and for a society to allow their government to do so — requires proof that it is in the best interests of both individuals and society as a whole.
In essence, the anti-choice movement must prove that:
