This writer was wracked with grief and anguish after her abortion. Rather than buck up and admit that she feels bad because she violated her own conscience, did wrong, killed her baby, she argues that the only reason she felt bad was that the mean old right-to-lifers made her feel guilty.
The few friends to whom I disclosed early on wept for me or told me that my “shocking” confession momentarily stopped their hearts. I recoiled each and every time the abortion debate surfaced on my television screen, in my inbox, in the overheard conversations of friends and acquaintances. I’d burst into tears at inappropriate moments for no apparent reason. I felt closeted, alone. Suicide crossed my mind on more than one occasion as I contemplated my “selfish” decision to abort a child.
....
I’ve never associated the guilt, shame, isolation, anxiety, or depression that I endured in the wake of the procedure with the procedure itself. In my experience, PAS represents a flawed causal model which conflates abortion (the alleged cause) with aggressive anti-abortion sentiment, sexism, and pervasive cultural stigma (the actual cause).
If having absolute strangers disapprove of what you do could cause suicidal guilt and anguish, there'd be dead bodies outside every Burger King and KFC, the bodies of those who offed themselves due to PETA-imposed guilt for having killed cows and chickens. Every Long John Silvers and Red Lobster would be the scene of carnage as guilt-wracked diners dispatched themselves in their anguish over having ended the lives of all those "sea kittens".
And if the prolifers had such a strong influence over women that we could inadvertently make them feel suicidal after abortions, why are we so unable to influence them before the baby is dead?
It's utterly irrational. But it's predictable. It's called displacement. To accept that her anguish is an appropriate response to having killed her child would be to own up to her own actions. But passing the buck -- "I only feel this guilty because those nasty antichoicers are judging me!" -- allows her to cope by pretending that her guilt and anguish have nothing to do with having caused the death of her baby.
Lady, you killed your baby. The fact that you felt awful about it is good. It means you have a conscience. Only psychopaths kill without remorse.
2 comments:
This woman is basically saying that since part of society does not approve of her actions, she is suffering psychologically. This doesn't make sense. We face societal disapproval on issues both large and small every day, and hordes of people aren't rushing to commit suicide. This shows to me that 2 things are true:
1) that the woman herself believes this is a matter of life and death and is dealing with it in her own way
2) she cannot place the blame on herself, where it belongs, accept responsibility for her situation and move on in a rational manner.
Imagine having an emotional response to denying the life of another, why pretty soon they'll be calling women human or something, and we can't have that you misogynists! Wonder who she blames for getting pregnant in the first place, or was that also the fault of us bad old antis?
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