Abortion and child abuse

In the US where abortion is legal, the National Centre of Child Abuse and Neglect, reports that child abuse has increased more than 1,000 percent since abortion’s legalisation in 1973.

Yet, these writers fail to understand that abortion leads directly to child abuse by one or more of several very clear psychological mechanisms as listed by psychiatrist Dr Philip G Ney, head of the Department of Psychiatry at Royal Jubilee Hospital.

I list below just some of these mechanisms for their consideration:

Mechanism No 1: “Abortion decreases an individual’s instinctual restraint against the occasional rage felt toward those dependent on his or her care — Abortion contributes to child abuse through the suppression of the instinctual response of a woman to respond to a child’s helplessness ...The aborting person must suppress the species’ preserving instinct. Having done so once (through abortion), it’s easier the next time (to suppress one’s natural inclination to treat children well.

The suppressed response is less effective, even when the helplessness is that of a whimpering child.

Therefore, more people are responding to the cries of distress with rage or neglect, rather than protection...

An aborting woman, having brutally repressed her maternal instinct already, may have difficulty in restraining herself as she deals with any child, particularly a ‘difficult’ child.”

Mechanism No 2: “Permissive abortion diminishes the taboo against aggressing (against) the defenseless.” There is no significant psychological difference between chopping up a child before it is born and ‘knocking it around’ after it is born.”

Mechanism No 3: “Abortion has devalued children, thus diminishing the value of caring for children.”

Fifty years ago, parents were willing to (and very often did) undergo great deprivation for their children. Sometimes, parents would even willingly give their very lives to save their children. Now, children are seen as a source of deprivation.

Our society, by its very attitudes, has given the green light to child abuse. Society is now beginning to hold that defective newborns are unworthy of life. As society does, individuals do; they are deciding that their children are somehow “defective,” and therefore less worthy of life.

Mechanism No 4: “Abortion increases guilt and self-hatred, which the parent takes out on the child.”

Many women have been shown to harbour strong guilt feelings over their abortions. Detailed interviews find without exception (after abortion), there are feelings of guilt or profound regret (on the part of the woman). Guilt is an extremely common cause of child battering and abuse.

Mechanism No 5: “Abortion increases hostile frustration, intensifying the battle of the sexes, for which children are scapegoated.” Many men directly or indirectly pressure women to have abortions, causing resentment and anger in the women.

Many women abort against their husband’s or boyfriend’s wishes, thereby causing guilt and anger in them. This ‘battle of the sexes’ is many times directed towards the most helpless of bystanders — their other children. These findings have been buttressed by Schoenfeld’s and Barker’s separate studies, which show that women who have aborted have much higher incidences of child abuse.

Mechanism No 6: “Abortion truncates the developing mother-infant bond, thereby diminishing her future mothering capability.” The establishment of the mother-infant bond is a delicate process and can be easily influenced by subtle changes in mother or infant.

Bonding develops during pregnancy and becomes set when the infant is born. Those who abort at any time during pregnancy interrupt a very delicate mechanism and sever the developing bond that is critical for the infant’s protection against the mother’s carelessness or rage.

After an abortion, there are long-lasting psychological changes which make it more difficult for the same bond to develop in subsequent pregnancies.

The guilt, self-hatred, low-self-esteem, and depression (following an abortion) can effect the bonding process... with an unborn baby.

It is generally recognised that an unresolved loss (through abortion) interferes with the process of attaching to a new child.

What we do know is that the very conditions leading to the increase in child abuse in the USA are present here in our nation and we can ignore these findings if we wish — but don’t cry crocodile tears for the poor, abused children while at the same time clamouring for the legalisation of abortion for the “poor” women; while doing nothing about the circumstances that lead to their poverty, low self-esteem, poor education and low paying jobs, which leave them open to abuse by those who would prey on their vulnerability.

It is only to these predators that abortion is a benefit.

Maria Annette Dopwell

mariannettegd@gmail.com