Part 8 of my 9-part essay on abortion. (My attempt to bring some depth and breadth to the subject)
The role of patriarchy and what are called “dominator cultures” really ought to be included in any serious discussion of abortion. Yet is seldom is.
Why? Outlawing abortion is always about telling women we/they don’t know what’s best for ourselves or our potential children, but that someone else does. And that someone else is part of a powerful culture - whether family or church or state - and usually that culture is patriarchal, male focused. Even matrilineal cultures are usually patriarchal in nature. And that’s been true for thousands of years.
Abortion never occurs in isolation. It’s never just a woman and a prenate/baby in the womb. It occurs within a system, a family a community and a culture. Even when the woman wanting the abortion is single and living far from the biological father of this baby, her family, her friends, and her culture. This is important to remember and consider when looking at the impact of abortion on that baby and biological mother.
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What is the broadest implication of outlawing abortion? Let me repeat, because it bears repeating: whenever an outside force has control over a woman’s body and reproductive capacity, that female becomes a slave to that force, be it religious, political or social. This external force/control may come in the form of a mother or mother-in-law who pushes a newly married woman to have a baby, or a religious dictum that women must bear children and that contraception and abortion are sins and women will be damned for it.
It may come in the form of a law stating that abortion is illegal, at a particular gestational age of the fetus, or at any time. Or it may come in a law that prevents a man from buying a condom or a woman from buying a “morning after” pill at a pharmacy, because the person behind the counter says it goes against their religious beliefs. And the courts uphold that.
Whenever a woman who has become pregnant is forced to remain pregnant, her body and psyche are being violated, whether or not she is conscious of that fact. And our body holds memories, starting right from when we are in our mother’s womb.
I know that is true, not just from my research, but from my own experience. When I was being sexually assaulted by my father, my conscious mind compartmentalized it and hid it from me, because I was too immature to be able to deal with it. I knew I hated my father and felt repulsion when I was around him. But I didn’t know why. There were clues that might have been picked up by an observant physician, such as my extremely painful periods, or by myself, years later when I because sexually active but could only orgasm with a stranger and hated sex with a loved one.
It wasn’t until I was in my 40s that I had a body (physical, felt sense) memory of those years of trauma. It began to surface when a yoga teacher and friend simply placed her hand on my butt to show me a posture, and a vivid and felt memory suddenly emerged.
My body is wise, and it stored the traumatic memories until such time as my psyche was ready to acknowledge them. That was the beginning of the long journey to heal that early trauma.
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I repeat: Being physically – especially sexually – violated always creates trauma, whether or not that person is aware of it or not.
Outlawing abortion always entails psychological trauma. For the mother and the baby, and by extension, the family. Emotional trauma results whenever the body is overwhelmed by an experience and cannot integrate it. It lodges deep in the body, whether or not the person is conscious of its being there.
Psychological trauma, when unrecognized and/or unaddressed, has lifelong ripples for a child, and for an adult. And childbearing trauma, such as not being able to get contraception or not being able to have the abortion she wants, traumatize that woman and will affect her relationships: with other or future children, her current or future partner, her self-esteem and the decisions she makes or allows others to make for her. And research is now showing that it doesn’t stop there; unhealed, trauma continues from generation to generation.
Fortunately there has been recently a body of knowledge made public about the nature and impact of trauma, especially when it occurs early in life. We now have professionals - nurses, physicians, teachers, etc - being trained in how to provide compassionate listening and “trauma-informed care”.
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We must never forget the critical role of the biological father in pregnancy.
I don’t want to ignore the critical importance of biological fathers in the discussion of abortion. There are men who want to be a father but have created a pregnancy with a woman who either doesn’t want them involved in raising that child or who simply doesn’t think their decision needs to involve him. These men understandably feel helpless and injured when the person they’ve had sex with – or used their sperm to become pregnant with – chooses to abort. And, I would add, so do those men who would like their baby to be born “naturally” and at home, and who want their child breastfed and not circumcised if it’s a boy, but whose partner wants something altogether different.
I empathize with these men.
The idea that a biological father should have rights when it comes to a child being conceived further complicates the issue of unwanted pregnancy and abortion, because now there are three people to consider: the biological mother, the to-be child, and the biological father. Some progressive-minded couples who become pregnant yet don’t wish to stay in relationship, choose for the woman to continue with her pregnancy and bear the child, and the man to raise the baby apart from her, with or without her involvement.
As with what is occurring in trans-gendering, this should be supported. However, because it concerns a small minority of the population of the U.S., I will not go more deeply into it here.
My greatest concern always lies with women when it comes to reproduction, because it is her body and psyche that bears the physical burden and the greatest emotional pain. Denying any woman the right to abort her unwanted pregnancy, whatever her reason, dramatically affects the course of her life and all her relationships. To repeat, it is a form of enslavement.
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Let’s take a look at the harm that abortion restrictions and criminalization has caused health care workers: doctors, nurses, PAs, nurse practitioners. Anyone who providing services and care for childbearing women. The men and women are now on the front lines of the war on abortion and contraception.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision and the laws being passed across the country in state after state, today whenever they are confronted with a a woman in the midst of a miscarriage or an attempted abortion, they are in a quandary. If they provide any care and services to this woman, they may be sued in court, may lose their license to practice, may be jailed, may even be killed. That’s the truth.
A decade before the Supreme Court’s decision, hospitals in rural America were closing their obstetric services and ob-gyns were stopping their obstetric practices. Doctors and hospitals found there was not enough money to be made caring for childbearing women. And so, pregnant women often found themselves having to travel a hundred miles or more just to find anyone willing to see them. And having no choice of care provider, if they were lucky enough to find anyone offering services.
And now the situation is worse. And, as always, it affects the already marginalized and underserved populations of black, brown and indigenous people worse. As a result of the stress these women live under during pregnancy, the likelihood of going into labor prematurely, having a still birth, and of dying from complications of pregnancy and birth have increased.
I mentioned before that these dire outcomes - women not being able to find anyone to care for them during pregnancy, at birth, and in the months postpartum - could and should have been predicted. Anti-abortion activists, most of them, didn’t intend to cause that kind of harm. The minority, however, is now pushing an expanded agenda: to eliminate all teaching of sex ed and contraception and all “artificial” forms of preventing or ending pregnancy. It’s amazing the lengths these individuals are going to, and in the name of God and Christ.
There will eventually be an end to this insanity and abortion and birth control will again we legal and hopefully enshrined in an amendment to the U.S. and state constitutions. But in the meantime, it’s a disaster.
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Let us remember: Abortion is a painful choice for a woman and is seldom undertaken lightly. There is strong evidence that, immediately and in the years to follow, the vast majority of women who’ve had an abortion feel they made the best decision, given their circumstances and the options they had. They therefore carry no guilt, no self-recrimination, though they may have remorse, wishing it could have been different.
However, there are some women who are not good candidates for abortion. Research has shown that tiny minority of women who’ve had an abortion find their decision very difficult thing to live with, and they do carry both remorse and guilt. Most of these women could/should be identified during the counseling process that happens prior to abortion in respected centers like Planned Parenthood.
I believe this small minority of women should be encouraged not to have an abortion, but to carry and bear the baby and consider immediate open and cooperative adoption – where the child always knows who their biological parents and is also in contact with them during childhood.
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Let’s look again at adoption, because it’s been painted as the panacea to unwanted pregnancy - a quick and easy solution that leaves everyone happy. Although it’s seldom discussed, adoption, at any age, is fraught with complications and consequences, immediate and long-term, for everyone involved: the biological parent/s, the adoptive parent/s, and the adoptee.
In the past, especially in the U.S., there were 2 primary types of adoption. The first is those done within the pregnant woman’s biological family or extended family. A relative of the pregnant woman or girl is chosen to be the de facto “parent/s” of that baby or child, and nor court or legality is involved. The child simply grows up believing that that the person they call “mother” is their biological mother. Unfortunately, this fairly common practice was and is based in a lie and results in family secrets.
The new “mother" is usually the biological aunt or grandmother of the baby or child. I want to emphasize that it’s not only hard for people to keep secrets year after year; but, whenever there are lies perpetrated in a family, individuals suffer. And in the case of intra-family informal adoption, it’s the child who suffers most. Because can “feel” in their body that something is not right. And it is in the nature of children, when they “feel” something is not right, that they most often feels it’s they who are not right. They who are bad!
In the U.S. intrafamily informal adoption was a common practice especially in Catholic and fundamentalist Christian families in the U.S. Secrecy and lies were the norm because pregnancy in a very young or unmarried woman was a matter of deep family shame.
In tribal indigenous cultures intrafamily adoption has never been so problematic, because children in these cultures “belong” to everyone. Everyone in the group is expected to share in the responsibility of parenting that child.
A friend of mine, Sobonfu Some, an indigenous woman born and raised in a Dagara village in Burkina Faso, who came to the U.S. in her 20s, married to a man from a neighboring village, told me that she didn’t know who her “real” mother was until she was five years old. She told me that she thought every woman in her small village was her mother or grandmother. After all, as soon as she learned to walk she would spend her days wandering freely from one hut to another, always within a few feet of each other, receiving the food and nurturing hugs of every woman.
In cultures such as the dominant culture in the U.S. where there is great emphasis and importance placed on 1) heredity, 2) male dominance, and 3) parental “ownership” of children, the idea of to whom you “belong” is an altogether different matter. And adoption in these cultures takes on a whole different, and unwholesome, cast.
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The second primary form of adoption in the U.S. past was closed agency-controlled adoption. It was the norm for decades and still exists. In agency adoption, the baby is actually relinquished legally (or illegally) to an agency, and that agency selects the new parents. The adoption is “closed”: the identity of the biological parents is blacked out on the birth certificate and the child’s birth certificate and health records are “sealed” and kept in a file at the agency.
Two key components of closed adoptions are secrecy and lies. The adoption agency literally owns the rights to the relinquished baby until those rights are transferred to adoptive parents. These adoptive parents were almost universally “promised” that they would never be contacted by the birth mother or family because the child’s records were “permanently sealed”. This practice and promise was false, and cruel and harmful to everyone - the adoptee, the biological parent/s, and the adoption parent/s. It was based in a lie.
In fact, it was and became more recently often possible for a birth parent or an adoptee to search for and successfully locate the adoptive parents and extended family. An entire profession grew up around “closed adoptions”, consisting of individuals who, often for a fee, would conduct a search and locate the birth parents or grown child.
Most agency adoptions in the U.S. were ones where the adoptive parents had no biological connection to the birth parent/s and the relinquished baby. The county of New Zealand was unique.
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New Zealand had (and may still have) a unique national approach to relinquishment and adoption in which, when a baby was expected to be relinquished by a birth parent/s, the state moved in and made an exhaustive effort to find a suitable biological relative to that baby who would be willing to adopt and raise the child, if need be with the financial aid of the New Zealand government. This practice arose from an enlightened understanding that there is a strong blood connection when it comes to parenting a child. And stranger adoptions were found to be less healthy for the child than adoption by a relative, however distant.
I want to note that, in the U.S. there has been a strong fight waged by indigenous people for decades to be able to prevent indigenous babies from being adopted into non-indigenous families. That effort is finally succeeding. For several centuries, indigenous children were literally “stolen” from their families and either placed in boarding school, where they were “taught” by force and deprivation to become “white”. OR they were placed in the home white parents, Christian parents, often Mormon and coerced into giving up their native ways (language, customs, etc).
When I was researching the first of the two books I wrote on the experiences of adoption, as lived by birth mothers (and birth fathers) and relinquished and adopted children, I discovered a third type of adoption. In these adoptions, it was the birth mother’s physician or an attorney who acted as intermediary and sought out a suitable couple to take the baby right after birth. Sometime money changed hands. Sometimes not. No formal agency was involved. When it was the birth mother’s physician who found a suitable adoptive couple there might even be no formal adoption papers filed. Or the papers were filed with a court and the mother had no one to represent her except the very person who was also representing the adoptive parents. This practice was fairly common, no money was exchanged, and it was done with only good intentions, to save the birth mother from shame.
Adoption by single individuals was for many years frowned upon, as was adoption by a gay couple. Thankfully, that too is changing and it is much easier for a single person or a gay, or even transgendered person or couple to adoption.
Some birth mothers have taken an very active role in the adoption of their baby. I ran across a several well-educated pregnant women who had chosen to take charge of their relinquishment by pre-selecting the couple (or individual) who would be the adoptive parent/s. In some cases these birth mothers did not wish to have any contact with their child after placing them with the chosen parents. In other instances, the birth mother specifically chose as adoptive parents people who would promise to remain in contact with her or even give her a place in their lives.
It was not uncommon, I found, for an enlighten birth mother to insisted that she be permitted to physically breastfeed the baby, or give her breast milk to the adoptive mother to feed the baby, for at least the first weeks, to help build the baby’s immune system. This naturally created a stronger bond between the birth mother and the baby she was giving up. And that bond results in more pain and grieving for the birth mother. But she does it for the sake of the her baby, and as a gift to the adoptive parents.
Some adoptive parents have chosen to “open” what was a closed adoption, and to invite the birth mother/parents into their lives, as one way of lessening the trauma to their adopted child.
Likewise, some adoptive parents choose to renew on the promise they made to the birth mother - to stay in contact by phone, zoom, emails and mail, or to keep her in the child’s life. That is a sad fact. There’s often quite a discrepancy between the income levels of the adoptive parents and birth parents. It’s a class issue and some adoptive parents wield that power unjustly.
Psychologically, and for the general health and wellbeing of all members of the adoption “triad” - the biological parent/s, the adoptive parent/s and the baby, I believe it’s ideal when the birth mother (or couple) consciously chooses to carry the baby to term, maintaining the best possible physical and psychological health for herself (and therefor for here baby), preparing herself for the most physiologically normal (“natural”) possible birth, inviting the adoptive parents to participate at the birth. Ideally she has some time in private with the baby to say goodbye. And it is she who places the baby directly into the arms of the person/couple whom she has selects to be the parents of her child.
Ideally, the birth mother has made the decision to relinquish early in her pregnancy, has then sought out and “chosen” the adoptive parent/s as early as possible. She has understand the importance of letting the baby growing in her womb know what her plans are and why. These birth mothers hold long conversations with the baby growing inside them, and she “introduces” the baby to the prospective adoptive parents.
Also ideally, the birth mothers has had conversations with the parents she’s chosen regarding their grief about having come to the decision to adopt as a result of infertility (which is most often the case), and the hopes and plans they have for their child.
Ideally, both the birth mother and the biological father (or other relatives, such as the grandmother) form a close and ongoing relationship with the new parents, based in trust and openness, all on behalf of the baby.
This constitutes a child-centered adoption. It requires a lot from both the biological and adoptive parents: trust and willingness to be vulnerable being foremost.
I want to repeat that in many, if not most, newborn adoptions, there is a disparity between the age, background, education and economic status of the birth parent/s and the adoptive parents. It’s all too easy for the adoptive parents to take advantage of the birth parent/s, and to intentionally lie about their intentions. Or they may simply not be aware of their unconscious motives and desires. For those reasons, I believe it’s important to have a third party involved, a social worker, a psychotherapist, a skilled “coach” in an adoption where no agency is involved.
The honest, trust-based relationships formed in planned, open and “cooperative” adoptions are invaluable. They make it less likely that 1) the biological mother/parents will feel abandoned after the birth of the child, less prone to serious depression and also less likely to unconsciously go out and become pregnant again, to fill the void left by the child she relinquished; and 2) make it less likely that the adoptive parents will renew on promises they make to the birth mother/parents.
A special and invaluable benefit of creating open, cooperative adoption is that the birth parent/s are a resource to turn to if the adoptive parents separate, get divorced, or one or the other of them dies.
Most importantly, open, cooperative adoption removes the likelihood of secrets and lies being perpetrated on that child. That in itself is significant! That child grows up knowing it has been both wanted and welcomed into the world in the best possible way.
Unfortunately, there are still a significant number of couples seeking to adopt an infant but who want nothing to do with the biological parent/s. These individuals have not done and are unwilling to do the deep and necessary psychological work of grieving their own infertility. They feel entitled to procure a baby by whatever means their money can buy and the money to prove it.
With fewer and fewer U.S. babies available for adoption, since single parenthood is no longer stigmatized, many infertile couples go abroad to “developing” countries, to find a baby or child. Often the baby or child is not of their race; and that poses additional complications for the family as the child grows up.
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I’ve spent so much time on the subject of adoption in this essay because I’m tired of hearing people ignorantly touting adoption as the panacea, the “solution” to the problem of abortion.
The imprint and scars on those who were relinquished in adoptions in systems where secrets and lies prevail persist. The imprint and scars on the birth mother persist. That is one reason why adoption should never be seen as the solution to abortion! [I wrote more about this earlier in this series.]
Consciousness is rising when it comes to both abortion and adoption. The crisis that was created by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to allow states do whatever they want with regard to a woman’s rights over her body, and to procuring a safe abortion (and contraception) has brought abortion front and center for the American public, especially women. Many people who never before gave the idea of abortion a thought now find themselves vociferously championing a woman’s right to her body and to deciding what’s best if she becomes pregnant.
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Let’s look once more at what I believe is one of the 2 core issues in abortion. The first, as I’ve pointed out many times, is that limiting our outlawing abortion results in forced pregnancy and the biological mother becomes enslaved. The second is what I want to turn your attention to now: the wellbeing of the baby/child.
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More and more scientific “evidence” is showing that we humans, even as infants, and including in our mother’s womb, know if we/they are wanted, were not welcomed into the world at birth, and were not fully cared for and nurtured - physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. And not having been wanted results in deeply rooted emotional trauma. And, as we are beginning to understanding, from decades of research, trauma has deep and lasting effects. Not just on the person traumatized, but on all those with whom that child forms an intimate relationship. Trust, something that is implicit, has been broken.
There’s personal trauma. There’s family trauma. There’s cultural trauma. There’s trans-generational trauma. Fortunately, we as a culture are finally addressing it, one piece at a time.
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The now-renowned and well-respected ACEs study has been one example of rising consciousness about what constitutes psychological trauma, its immediate and longterm consequences. It has shone a light on what it takes to grow a healthy, thriving child.
The ACE Study - ACE being the acronym for “Adverse Childhood Experiences” is perhaps the largest investigation of the link between childhood maltreatment and the health and wellbeing of that individual later in life.
It measures traumatic events in a child’s life childhood, such as abuse, neglect, family dysfunction, that present a risk for that child having future problems as an adult. For example, there’s a proven direct link between childhood trauma (at least when it has not been addressed and integrated/healed) and the adult onset of 1) chronic disease, 2) incarceration, 3) employment challenges, and more.
The original 10 ACES of trauma are:
1. Physical Abuse
2. Sexual Abuse
3. Verbal abuse
4. Physical Neglect
5. Emotional Neglect
6. Mental illness in a household member: e.g. suicide, chronic depression
7. Substance addition in a household member or caregiver
8. Imprisonment: a member who is/has been incarcerated
9. Witnessing abuse, especially against a mother
10. Losing a parent- to separation, divorce, death…
Since the ACE study began, in 1995, other types of childhood trauma have been added to the original list, including: bullying, racism, community violence, natural disasters, refugee or wartime experiences, witnessing or experiencing acts of terrorism, homelessness and food insecurity.
The ACE research is ongoing and represents a landmark in our culture. It ties in with the subject of abortion because, when a girl or woman has been abused or neglected as a child, she is more likely to be exploited by an older boy or man, resulting in an unplanned pregnancy, have no “agency” over her body, be unaware of her rights and what services are available to her. she may believe, and rightly so, that she will be unable to care properly for that child.
In just a few years we are seeing the positive results of the ACES Study: “trauma-informed” health care, mental health care, and education.
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One example, and an important one, of how the ACES research is changing he face of education is that when a child seriously misbehaves in school, they are less likely to be asked by the principal or guidance counselor, “What is wrong with you” or “Why do you do these things?” The implication being “You are a bad person and deserve to be punished.”
Principals, guidance counselors and teachers are now receiving training to understand and have compassion for children who are “acting out”. They learn to ask a misbehaving or clearly depressed or angry child the open-ended question, “What happened to you?” And when asked with a caring tone of voice, the result is most often that the child will reveal what is going on at home, in the family, and who or what is the source of the hurt that has resulted in these anti-social behavior or self-destructive behaviors. Progress!
I am ending this, the 8th part of my 9-part essay on abortion, in a hopeful and inspiring way because there is lighten the darkness.
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I hope this part of my essay has given you much to think about.
I will continue and complete this 9-part series in my next piece. I hope you’ll read it.
Sincerely, Suzanne Arms