Excellent letter by Bernadette of Women Hurt in today's Irish Times

There is an excellent letter in today's Irish Times from Bernadette Goulding of Women Hurt. 

Sir, – Mary Favier of Doctors for Choice (Opinion, February 25th) raises the absence of the voices of post-abortive Irish women at the recent Oireachtas hearings on abortion. As an Irish woman who had an abortion, I wish to raise a voice that is often ignored, that is the voice of the thousands of women who have been deeply hurt by their abortion.I know from my own experience and from working with other women who have suffered after abortion that the grief is nearly always hidden.There is no body, no funeral, no graveside, no family and friends to grieve your loss. I regularly meet women who are suffering serious mental trauma after an abortion. People in favour of abortion sometimes blame this on social, cultural or religious conditioning.However, I have found the same suffering in many other countries where I have worked with post-abortive women.I, and women like me, would be failing mothers, fathers, medical professionals, legislators, and society in general if we did not share our experience of abortion and how it impacted so negatively on our lives. We are not women crying over “products of conception”. We are crying over the loss of our babies, the children that will never sit at our dinner table, never have a birthday party or hold their own child.Abortion damages women and ends the life of an unborn child. Women like me feel invisible in this debate and feel ignored by many of the women’s groups that are supposed to represent all women. The denial surrounding abortion regret is something that we need to deal with as a society and the voices of women who have experienced abortion and suffered as a result are voices that must be consulted as this debate continues. – Yours, etc,BERNADETTE GOULDING,
Women Hurt,
Sussex Road, Dublin 4.

Woman hurt by abortion speaks at Vigil For Life

On Saturday, over 25,000 people gathered at Merrion Square in Dublin for the 'Vigil For Life' event.

One of the speakers at the Vigil For Life was Bernadette Goulding, a woman hurt by abortion. Bernadette is a founding member of Women Hurt, a group that seeks to reach out to women who have been hurt by abortion.

Bernadette told her story of having an abortion aged 19 in England and the trauma and suffering she endured over several years as a result of the abortion. She said: 

 "Abortion changed my whole life. Before the abortion, I was never told how much I would grieve and mourn the loss of my baby. Nobody mentioned anything about the emotional scars I would carry with me from that day forward."

You can read her story in full here.

Bernadette speaking at the Vigil For Life

Bernadette urged people to oppose the current plans to legalise abortion in this country, because abortion is inhuman to women, as well as their unborn babies. She echoed one of the themes of the vigil:  love them both.

Experiences of women hurt by abortion in Saturday's Independent

On Saturday, the Independent published an article by Celine Naughton about abortion in Ireland. The article addressed the legal definition of the unborn, political discussion on the right to life, and the experiences of women who have had abortions. The following excerpt is the experiences of two women hurt by abortion. You can read the article in full here. 

Last year, in this newspaper, I interviewed Bernadette Goulding, a grandmother from Cork, who revealed the heartache she had carried with her for years, having had an abortion in England at the age of 19. Frightened, lonely and ashamed, she made her decision in haste and for a year afterwards she took to carrying around a doll in her handbag and cradling it when she got home from work."When I discovered I was pregnant, I was terrified. What would my parents think if they found out? I couldn't bring that shame on the family," she said."Afterwards, I was consumed by guilt. I thought I'd be better off dead because I'd done something so awful."

Lynn Coles from Belfast felt betrayed when she discovered that the baby she had been pressured into having aborted as a teenager was more than the "blob of cells" that the doctors had described."I felt angry at myself for getting pregnant, at my boyfriend for not protecting me and at the figures of authority who encouraged me to have an abortion," she said. Bernadette and Lynn set up a support group called Women Hurt to help others deal with regrets over abortion.

Lynn Coles and Bernadette Goulding of Women Hurt

CPP report shows 44% of women regret abortion

The Irish Contraception and Crisis Pregnancy Study 2010 (ICCP 2010) is a comprehensive study produced by the HSE's Crisis Pregnancy Programme (CPP). 

The study shows that 44% of women expressed varying degrees of regret about their abortions. The study showed that 31% of women who had abortion experienced "some regrets", with 13% reporting that they experienced “a lot of regrets”. This represents an increase from 2003, when 22% reported experiencing some regret, with 11% saying they had a lot of regrets.

The report did not investigate mental health impact of abortion. This is surprising given that there are now a large number of studies showing that abortion presents a considerable risk to the mental health of women.

There has been considerable media attention on the stories of women who wish to legalise abortion in Ireland. The same media attention is not, and ought to be, given to the large numbers of women in Ireland who regret their abortion.


The report can be found in full here. 

Psychiatric Disorders Linked to Abortion for Fetal Anomalies

Nov. 10, 2009

A study of women who experienced serious complications during pregnancy found that women who undergo late abortions due to fetal anomalies are more likely to experience psychiatric disorders compared to women who give birth prematurely.

The study of 170 German women, published in the Archives of Women's Mental Health, found that 22 percent of women were diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder after abortion, compared to 18 percent of women who gave birth to a baby with very low-birth-weight (VLBW) and 6 percent of women who had a healthy full-term pregnancy.

The abortions took place in the second or third trimester after an adverse diagnosis was given. VLBW was defined as having a birth weight of less than 1500 grams (about 3pounds) or a birth before 32 weeks' gestation. The women in the study were interviewed by mental health clinicians at 14 days, 6 months and 14 months after the end of the pregnancy.

While the three groups of women "did not differ significantly" on psychiatric disorders prior to abortion or delivery, the researchers noted a difference afterwards, with women who had abortions having the highest rates of psychiatric disorders. Further, 16 percent of women who had abortions had psychiatric disorders 14 months later, compared to 7 percent of women with preterm births and none of the women with healthy pregnancies.

The disorders found among women who had abortions included acute stress disorders, eating disorders, affective disorders and anxiety disorders, with depression and anxiety predominating over time. Just over 64 percent of aborting women in the study developed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, a finding comparable to a survey published in the Medical Science Monitor that found 65 percent of women who aborted reported symptoms of PTSD that they attributed to their abortions.

The authors reported that for most women, abortions in the 2nd or 3rd trimester after a negative fetal diagnosis "are major life events" that can cause ongoing problems even months after the event. They called for more resources and better screening to help identify those who might be at risk for problems after abortion and need psychological support.
~~~

A. Kersting et. al., "Psychological impact on women after second and third trimester termination of pregnancy due to fetal anomalies versus women after preterm birth--a 14-month follow-up study," Archives of Women's Mental Health 12:193-201 (2009).

Source: AfterAbortion.org