Are we ready for this in TT?

The fact that the local chapter of ASPIRE, the agency at the forefront of the pro-abortion is not as vocal as they were a few months ago does not mean that they have given up the fight. In fact, they are doing much work in the background, trying to build up sympathy and empathy to the cause. Their objective is to have abortion legalised in every country in the Caribbean and they have already succeeded in a few neighbouring countries, including Barbados, St Lucia and Guyana.

While the groups and individuals campaigning for “decriminalisation of abortion” in this region, promote it as a health issue, there are social and political dimensions to the matter beyond pro-choice propaganda that they are feeding to people in this part of the world. To score points that could influence decision-makers through the Caribbean, pro-choice advocates are careful never to move beyond their often repeated claims that the lives of woman are at risk from illegal abortions.

They put the emphasis on the medical complications suffered by women who do not have access to “safe, legal abortions” because of “restrictive laws.” However, they never, ever address the mental and emotional complications that many women face for years after having abortions.

Beyond the political and moral arguments on either side of this matter, there are consequences of abortions that they are not addressing, even in countries where the procedure has been legal for more than three decades.

This is the focus of a book by psychotherapist Dr Theresa Burke who has been treating women struggling with post-abortion issues for the past 20 years.

In Forbidden Grief: The Unspoken Pain of Abortion, Dr Burke brings to light the fact that medical professionals and therapists actually reject the idea that some mental and emotional problems in their patients are the result of post-abortion trauma.

She addresses the cultural and psychological obstacles to post-abortion healing and the “walls of silence” erected around this crucial aspect of the abortion issue.

According to Dr Burke, who draws on the experiences and insights of hundreds of women who have had abortions, in the aftermath of the procedure repressed feelings are often acted out through self-destructive behaviour, broken relationships, obsessions, eating disorders, parenting difficulties and other emotional or behavioural problems.

In the introduction to her book Dr Burke writes: “At the time I began this work, there were very few resources available to help therapists, much less the public, understand the painful and confusing processes of grief which may follow an abortion. As a result, many women and men suffer in silence, in complete numbness, or with the frightening and bewildering feeling that they are going crazy.

“Grief following an abortion can be extremely complicated and can be experienced on all levels of the personality. For many women, the source of their distress may go unrecognised, unspoken and unnamed.”

Dr Burke goes on to cite many case histories of women who were only healed of complex mental and emotional afflictions after they understood the complexities of their abortion experiences and dealt with them within a nonjudgmental environment.

I have no doubt that there are hundreds of women in this country who are suffering in silence, perhaps not realising that they are dealing with post-abortion pain.

Dr Burke has her practice in the United States where abortions have been legal for more than three decades. She is the founder of Rachel’s Vineyard, a post-abortion training and healing ministry that caters to thousands of women and couples annually.

The thousands of women she had treated represent only the tip of the post-abortion iceberg in the US, where large numbers suffer in silence for decades after they undergo what is being promoted as a “safe” procedure.

Here in TT, there are many women who are suffering the unspoken pain of abortion without any hope of getting the compassion, support and healing they so desperately need. This is a situation that those pressing for the “decriminalisation” of abortions in this country are not addressing.

No where in all the proposed legislation, declarations and studies done by pro-choicers in the region is there any serious attention paid to the medical, psychological and social consequences of abortions.

Here in TT, where we are already struggling to deal with a host of social ills, we are ill-equipped for the aftermath of legalising abortions.

NEXT WEEK:

More on post-abortion trauma.

(ssheppard@newsday.co.tt)