There are facts and truths that "sexual libertarians" don't want society or public opinion to know, that even they don't want to know. To sum up those facts - accumulated in different human cultures and societies - we don't need sex to live a full life and be content. To define one's identity on the basis of our sexuality alone is to reduce our human value and dignity. I am a lot more than just my genitalia, and so are you. G.S.
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My purpose in these posts is to bring together significant and, where possible, representative echoes of our best human efforts to make sense of our lives - and of our human sexuality in particular - also including the voice of Jesus Christ, the one Saviour of the world, and testimonies from his Church, such as through her teaching voice, the Magisterium. The Church has been accumulating much valuable wisdom granted her by Almighty God since her foundation at Pentecost. In this way, wherever there is darkness in our human understanding, it will serve to highlight the bright and radiant truth, which is Jesus Christ: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also." John's Gospel 14:6-7
Father Gilles Surprenant, priest & poustinik
So, abortion doesn't harm women's mental health? The stats disagree By Adelaide Mena
Washington D.C., Jan 3, 2017 A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association says that women who get abortions show no signs of increased mental health problems after having an abortion – and that in fact, it's women who are denied an abortion that suffer more greatly.
But
pro-life organizations and other researchers have responded that the study
doesn't show the whole picture, and that these findings don't mean that women
don't regret their abortions. They also counter that similar studies involving
an exorbitantly higher number of women have shown the opposite results, and
that everything needs to be taken into account.
“I
confess I'm not that surprised at what it uncovered, and it's important for
abortion opponents to neither instantly vilify the study nor to fear what it
can tell us,” Mark Regnerus, associate Professor of Sociology at the University
of Texas at Austin told CNA.
“A
sober assessment is in order.”
The
study, called the “Turnaway Study” was conducted by researchers from University of
California – San Francisco and tracked 956 women from 21 states for more than
five years. The women – all of whom had sought abortion – were interviewed once
a week after seeking out an abortion, and then every six months for that five
year period.
Antonia
Biggs and Diana Greene Foster, two of the researchers who wrote the study, told
CNA in a statement that in their study, women who were denied abortions had
more mental health repercussions – like anxiety, lower self-esteem and less
life satisfaction, in the short-term than women who had abortions. The study
also found that by six months these rates of mental health consequences were similar.
Both groups of women had “ similar levels of depressive symptoms over the
entire five year period,” of the study the researchers commented.
“We
found no evidence of increases in mental health problems after having an
abortion,” they added. Critics, however, say that the relatively short length
of the study doesn’t account for women who come regret their abortion many
years later, nor does it mean that a lack of depression or other mental health
effects means that women don’t experience regret.
Ana-Maria
Dumitru, director of Medical Students For Life, told CNA that other studies
have come to opposite conclusions. Dumitru pointed to astudy by Dr. D Paul Sullins of the Catholic University
of America published earlier in 2016 followed more than 8,000 women for over 13
years.
“The
Sullins study confirmed that even after controlling for over twenty possible
variables, there's still a clear, significant increase in the relative risk of
mental health disorders for women who have abortions.” These risks, she added
were compared to both live birth and miscarriage outcomes. Other studies from New Zealand and Norway also showed similar increased risks of mental
health issues for women who have abortions, she added.
Regnerus
helped explain some of the design of the study to CNA. He said that while
abortion is not his area of study, there were some reasonable interpretations
and qualifications to be made of the findings from a social sciences
perspective. He said the basic design of the study was “competent,” since the
researchers were able to track nearly 1,000 women over the five-year time span,
and that the findings were “illuminating.”
He
added that it’s reasonable to expect that women who do not see abortion as
wrong would experience abortion differently. “Some, of course, may come to
think differently about their abortion weeks, months, or even years later.
Others seem not to,” he said.
Regnerus
also noted that “no study can do it all,” and that there are some indirect
effects between abortion and emotional consequences that the study could not
assess. The professor also pointed out that regret and depression “are two
different things,” and the study doesn’t delve into women’s regret about their
abortions “and that's fine because it's not a study of regret.”
The
professor also pointed to flaws in the study that might be overlooked by most
casual readers. Regnerus noted that there was “a good deal of sample selection
bias – only 32 percent of women approached actually participated, leaving us to
wonder if there are differences between they and the 68 percent who didn't.”
Furthermore,
the study was unable to keep track of 42 percent of the original participants.
Regnerus added that while these kinds of sample selection bias and challenges
in collecting data are difficult to avoid in studies, particularly on a subject
like abortion, they do introduce unknowns into the study.
Regnerus
said that the study's focus on near-term emotions such as anxiety or
self-esteem “are too tangled up in the emotions of the event, the circumstances
surrounding pursuing an abortion,” and said he thought it was a “leap for the
authors to draw sensible conclusions” from such data.
What
was more noteworthy, he commented was the study’s tracking of depression over
the five year period, which remained constant. “The ability to track the direct
effect of abortion on depression longer-term,” he noted, “is this study's
contribution.”
“It
is unreasonable to presume that every abortion conducted in the United States –
and elsewhere, for that matter – will make the woman who sought it troubled or
sad over the long run,” Regnerus added.
“It
does for plenty, no doubt. We hear about it. On the other hand, we hear of
accounts to the contrary.”
Jeanne
Mancini, president of the March for Life said that in her experience, even in
cases where there is regret and suffering, those feelings can lead to more
positive states of healing.
“Abortion
takes the life of one and often wounds the life of another,” Mancini told CNA.
“Some women only come to discover such deep wounds after many years, sometimes
decades,” she said, pointing out again that the study only covered a five-year
span.
“My
personal experience in working with women who regret abortion is that when a
woman honestly faces the truth of what’s happened, she suffers tremendously,
but this in turn is the first step to finding real and lasting hope and
healing.”
© 2006-2023 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal QC
© 2006-2023 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
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