THE UNSPOKEN TRUTH

Abortion as nonnormative. Women with Post Abortion Syndrome (PAS) may perceive abortion as nonnormative, i.e., as a violation of parental instinct and responsibility. It is generally accepted that many women bond to their child in early pregnancy. Women with PAS may have bonded to the fetal child prior to the abortion; thus their abortion trauma results from the severing of maternal attachments.

Death of a fetal child. Although abortion may not be viewed as a serious threat to a woman's life or physical integrity, the consequences to the fetus are undeniable (Koop). Women with PAS may refer retrospectively to the aborted fetus as my child and speak in horror of their perceptions of its violent death. These women may report feeling fetal movement, sensing death or panic on the part of the fetus, or viewing or otherwise coming into contact with fetal parts or the delivered fetus as part of the abortion trauma.

One woman said of her suction abortion, I don't know how it's possible, but I know I felt when my baby died. I could feel when its life was sucked out. It was awful. I have never felt so empty. I just wanted to die. These perceptions of abortion as a death experience are not limited to women experiencing PAS. In 1989, several national polls found that the majority of Americans perceive abortion as immoral and even as murder .

Taken from Postabortion Syndrome: An Emerging Public Health Concern, by Anne C. Speckard and Vincent M. Rue, Institute for Pregnancy Loss, 111 Bow St., Portsmouth, NH 03801-3819