Post Abortion Syndrome: Its Place in Abortion Education?
When I was in high school, I distinctly remember a middle aged woman with a willowy figure, elegant posture, and shoulder length black hair come to our school to talk about Post Abortion Syndrome. My friends and I were sitting in our crowded auditorium, only vaguely listening at first, but as she spoke about the abortion she had in her early 20s, I was touched by her sadness. She said every October, she falls back into depression (that’s when she had the abortion) and year after year, whenever she went shopping, she would think about the daughter she lost when she saw little shoes or dresses for girls.
Today, I think this woman, while I feel concerned for her well-being, may have been mentally unstable and was in no position to come to our public high school to give a lecture. This was a scare tactic and at the time, it worked, because I thought PAS was a legitimate medical concern not usually voiced in the media.
The truth is the American Psychological Association does not recognize PAS as an actual diagnosis or condition; studies have either failed to establish a causal relationship between abortion and negative psychological symptoms experienced by women, or been inconclusive.
What were some of your experiences in junior high or high school relating to abortion education? Or sex education? What were the opinions of your classmates at that time, and did your school even foster discussion?
Christine Kim
June 18th, 2010 at 5:36 pm
There was certainly no discussion of abortion (pro or anti) when I was in middle or high school. Nothing out in the open anyway. As for sex ed, we got the typical “split boys and girls into two different groups and then have a woman on film make a uterus out of pancake batter” schtick (was that just California?), but that was pretty much it. I had to FIGHT to get condoms distributed in the bathrooms during high school.
September 22nd, 2010 at 6:18 pm
There was no discussion of abortion whatsoever in my various elementary or secondary schools. Despite the fact that I am in a deep blue city in a blue state. There was no acknowledgment that abortion even existed that I can remember, much less any encouragement of discussion.
In law school, there were several pro-life events that showcased women who had purportedly had abortions that they regreted. Since I have had an abortion that I do not regret and that was not emotionally difficult for me, I would attend these events to present a respectful, but firm opposing view. I would share my own experience and point out that one person’s bad experience does not mean that a given choice is wrong for everyone.
Similarly, I present once a year to the Med Students for Choice group, discussing my experience, demystifying abortion and dispelling myths regarding its effect on women. I have offered to do this for the LSRJ group as well, but sadly, I find that they – like many pro-choice organizations – have lately been shying away from any discussion of abortion, dwelling instead exclusively on BC or access to social support for reproduction. Meanwhile, pro-life organizations are left to spread their message about abortion, unopposed by any pro-choice or repro justice groups.
Furthermore, a few words about “PASS” – I find that some RJ advocates appear to believe that by pointing out that PASS as a syndrome simply does not exist, we deny that some women have negative emotions after an abortion, and/or invalidate their negative emotions. But that is nonsense. Of course some women have negative emotions after their abortions, and of course those feelings are entirely valid. I have never met a person in the RJ or PC movements that has or would deny this. The issue is the turning of perfectly normal negative emotions that some women feel after an abortion into some sort of “Syndrome”. For some women (not all) abortion is a difficult experience, and anyone can have negative emotions about a difficult experience. That doesn’t mean they have a psychiatric illness!
I run an abortion information community wherein we give unbiased, fact-only information. It is a safe space community; pressure and/or judgment of any kind is prohibited. I have found over the years that most commonly, women have mixed emotions about their abortions, and the vast majority of the time, any negative emotions they have regarding their abortions pass after 1-3 months. Yet any and all of these women would count as having “PASS” under the internet definition of the “syndrome.”