Sir, - Nuala O Faolain (January 13th) has written cogently about the dilemma of abortion. I would like to thank her for raising the issue once again, shedding light on a vexed question.
There are some questions about abortion that demand an answer, however hard it may be. Every woman who has had an abortion will be haunted by these questions unless there is some understanding of the implications.
Life is black or white. You are either dead or alive. That applies all the way.
On the metaphysical level, it is a universal that we all arrive in the world the same way, i.e. we had no choice. In other words, we are all members of the same club, the human race, and we are denying entry to that club on the same grounds as we received membership ourselves.
On an existential level, the whole meaning of life changes with abortion. A woman may have very serious cause for having an abortion, but it will not solve her dilemma. The decision is simply too big for any human, for in the struggle to determine and understand the meaning of one's own existence, how difficult and fraught it is to live with the knowledge that one has been the means of wiping out a life whose meaning will remain totally unknown, because not lived. That that life was intimately connected with one's own makes resolution almost impossible. This is even so in the case of rape however, it should be the mother's decision but even so she will suffer additional trauma.
On the experiential level, the incidence of post abortion trauma has been reported by Dr Patricia Casey, psychiatrist at the Mater Hospital, by feminist scholarship (in The Psychology of Women - Ongoing Debates ed. Mary Roth Walsh, Yale University Press), by Dr Philip Ney of Canada, who links abortion to child abuse (in the subsequent post abortion trauma) and by Dr Gina Giovinci, who has seen it as an existential crisis which responds to logotherapy (Franklin).
The incidence of post abortion trauma has yet to be mapped and charted. However, it does seem that the woman suffers trauma no matter what reasons seemed right at the time, and that this affects her life, resulting in depression, guilt, loss of self esteem, the incidence of anniversary syndrome and abdominal pain. Any sudden change of body programme does seem to be linked to hormonal and physical symptoms.
You ran an article on December 4th, linking abortion (which can be the result of promiscuity) to sterility. Many women are unable to move on, and have repeat abortions or an atonement child. Alas, every child is unique and irreplaceable, and therein lies the pain.
When you were coming, we weren't ready
When we were ready, it wasn't you
- Valerie Sinason
Women have to deal with a devastating loss, even if that loss is unacknowledged. There is no funeral, no private or public ceremony. Very often silence is imposed even by the people the woman knows intimately, her family. It may be a first grandchild, a loved niece or nephew which cannot be talked about.
Therefore the argument, however made in good faith, that women need abortion, could be proven wrong on the basis of women's experience alone. The argument of force majeure can seem incontestable, until we are better acquainted with the results. - Yours, etc.,
Rosemount Court, Booterstown,
Blackrock, Co Dublin.