Ultrasound helps resolve ambivalence, rejection

Option Ultrasound Saving Lives. (HT: Women for Life)

Pregnancy centers using ultrasound machines report that 88% of their abortion-minded patient reject abortion after seeing an ultrasound of their unborn baby. This is far from the first report on the power of ultrasounds to help women get past their normal initial ambivalance toward, or rejection of, the pregnancy:

• "Surprise or shock is often the initial reaction to the validation of pregnancy. Caplan (1959) indicated that initial rejection of pregnancy is common, but that it is generally followed by acceptance at the end of the first trimester." (Lederman, Psychosocial Adaptation in Pregnancy, 1984)
  
  
• "Those who plead for an extensive relaxation of the law [against abortion] have no idea of the very many cases where a woman who, during the first three months, makes a most impassioned appeal for her pregnancy to be 'finished,' later, when the baby is born, is thankful indeed that it was not killed while still an embryo. During my long years in practice I have had many a letter of the deepest gratitude for refusing to accede to an early appeal." (A. Bourne, A Doctor's Creed: The Memoirs of a Gynecologist, 1963)
  
  
• "[Members of the 1955 Planned Parenthood conference on abortion] agreed, and this was backed up by evidence from the Scandinavians, that when a woman seeking an abortion is given the chance of talking over her problem with a properly trained and oriented person, she will in the process very often resolve many of her qualms and will spontaneously decide to see the pregnancy through, particularly if she is assured that supportive help will continue to be available to her." (Calderone, "Illegal Abortion as a Public Health Problem," American Journal of Public Health, July 1960)
  
  
• "M.J. Daly has noted that the legitimately pregnant woman, and often those illegitimately pregnant too, are ambivalent to the pregnancy. This ambivalence is so universal that it may be considered normal in the first trimester. "The Unwanted Pregnancy," Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology, 1970." (Cited in Gardner, Abortion: The Personal Dilemma, 1972)
  
  
• "Ambivalence is another emotional response observed in many pregnant women. .... Surprise or shock may be the initial reaction, followed by very mixed feelings. .... Rubin believes that few women who become pregnant feel ready 'now.' .... Initial rejection of the pregnancy is common, Caplan states, but it is usually replaced by acceptance by the end of the first trimester." (Nichols and Humenick, Childbirth Education: Practice, Research, and Theory, 1988)

This can also be seen in the case of women who initially rejected the pregnancy enough to actually submit to an abortion, only to change their minds after learning that the fetus had survived the attempt on his or her life.

Which all, of course, makes it crystal clear why the abortion lobby is so dead-set against requiring abortionists to offer women the opportunity to see their ultrasounds prior to going through with the abortion.

Lawmaking 101

Make it clear whose job it is to detect violations and to pursue prosecution! Duh!

Kansas Agencies Pass the Buck at Abortion Hearings

Regarding Kansas law on post-viability abortions, it seems that it's nobody's responsibility to actually enforce it:

At issue is the Kansas ban on post-viability abortions..., which late-term abortionist George R. Tiller of Wichita has been accused of violating. That law states that abortions after 21 weeks can only be done to prevent maternal death that would be caused by the pregnancy or to "prevent substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman." It also states that before such abortions can take place, two doctors not financially or legally associated must both conclude that the abortions are medically justifiable under the provisions of the law. Those abortions must be reported to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) with the reason and basis for the abortion.

However, Greg Crawford of the KDHE told the committee that his job is simply to make sure that the forms submitted by abortionists have no empty fields. He said he makes no "judgment call" about the content of the field nor does he report any incidents where he may suspect an abortion has taken place illegally.

"I think an abortionist could put his dog's name in those fields, and the KDHE would consider that as acceptable," said Newman. "It makes the law requiring reporting for the purpose of enforcement a joke."

Larry Buening, Executive Director of the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts (KSBHA), the agency responsible for policing abortionists, also testified and was aggressively questioned by the committee. He told them that the KSBHA does not automatically receive abortion reporting forms from the KDHE and therefore are unable to make any determinations about whether abortionists are following the law.

Oh, brother!

Driven by despair

Woman Fights to Keep Baby

A WOMAN fighting to stop her unborn baby being taken from her at birth is considering having an abortion because she does not want her child to go into care.

Fran Lyon, 22, will have her baby daughter taken into care by social services unless a judicial review can convince the authorities that she does not pose a risk of causing the child emotional harm.

Ms Lyon, of St Hilda’s Road, Hexham, who received treatment for a personality disorder when she was 16, was told by social services she was considered likely to suffer from Munchausen’s Syndrome by proxy, a condition in which a mother will make up an illness in her child or harm it in order to get attention.

But top psychiatrists are backing her fight to keep her child, whom she has named Molly, and have said there is no clinical evidence that backs up social services’ concerns.

....

The case comes as concerns are mounting over the numbers of babies being taken from parents, with critics saying councils need to meet adoption “targets”.

I realize this is in the UK, not the US, but isn't there such a thing as due process in the UK? Not, evidently, when it comes to child-snatchers from CPS. Same as in the US, it appears.

I wonder if the UK has the same problem the US has, with CPS returning children to abusive homes where they are later murdered. Good parents get their kids snatched, bad parents get sympathy and an opportunity to kill.

I'm afraid that this is like Ashli's situation, where a desperate mother threatens abortion to try to get the people around her to listen and take her seriously. We can only pray that Fran won't be swooped in on by social workers tsk-tsking that in her case, why abortion would be best.

HT: Big Blue Wave