Court docs: Previous abortion triggered mental illness of mother almost forced to abort again
News services were quick to pick up the story last week of a Massachusetts Appellate Court overturning a ghastly decision by Probate Judge Christina Harms (pictured right) that would have forced a 32-yr-old mentally ill pregnant mother to get a late-term abortion (at 21 weeks) against her will and also be sterilized.
Women’s groups and pro-abortion politicians, eager for the unusual opportunity to demonstrate they were pro-“choice” and not just pro-abortion, piled on.
Pro-abortion website Jezebel called Harms a “horrible judge.” Robin Marty at RH Reality Check lectured, “Just as we will condemn those who force women to continue pregnancies against their will, we condemn those who would take away any woman’s right to continue a pregnacny [sic]. ” Elizabeth Warren, an EMILY’s List-backed candidate for Massachusetts U.S. Senate, said she was “shocked.”
The Boston Globe quoted heavily from the Appeals Court decision, as did ABC and U.S. News & World Report/MSNBC, which went so far as to link to it.
But they all failed to connect the dots glaring at them. Here they are, from the court decision, which states that the “facts are undisputed.” The unnamed mother is called “Mary Moe”….
Moe is pregnant, although the record is unclear how long she has been pregnant. She has been pregnant twice before. On the first occasion she had an abortion, and on the second she gave birth to a boy who is in the custody of her parents.
At some point in the time period between her abortion and the birth of her son, Moe suffered a psychotic break, and has been hospitalized numerous times for mental illnes….
Moe was asked about an abortion and replied that she “wouldn’t do that.” Moe also asserted that she was not pregnant and that she had met the judge before, although according to the judge, she and Moe had never met. Moe also erroneously stated that she had previously given birth to a baby girl named Nancy….
The defendant suffered a psychotic break when she was a college student. Thereafter, she believed people were staring at her and stating that she killed her baby. She becomes agitated and emotional when discussing the pregnancy that ended in an abortion. Consistent with denying that she is now pregnant, she refuses obstetrical care and testing.
Moe also states that she is “very Catholic,” does not believe in abortion, and would never have an abortion. Her parents, however, have stated that she is not an “active” Catholic.
How heartbreaking. I agree with Jezebel that Harms, now retired, was a “horrible judge.” That she would have clearly exacerbated this poor mother’s mental illness by forcing another abortion on her makes her that much more horrible.
[HT: RedState.com]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Do we have anyone there who can help this woman? My heart is absolutely breaking for her. She has all of my tears today.
Well I won’t condemn the feminists for not connecting the dots. What do you expect? I do applaud them for speaking out against this forced abortion. Thats a step in the right direction and the first I’ve heard pro-aborts speak against that. (they seem to have no problem with male coercion. I’ve watched them help male partners drag their unwilling girlfriends into clinics to abort).
I also really feel for this woman. I wish she could receive help from someone like Theresa Burke who could help her work through her abortion and grieve the loss of her first baby in a healthy way. I just want to hug her. I pray someone gets her some help!
“Moe also states that she is “very Catholic,” does not believe in abortion, and would never have an abortion. Her parents, however, have stated that she is not an “active” Catholic.”
Because she has to be an active Catholic in order to not want an abortion?
How heartbreaking…
How long until they start blaming us for ‘limiting her access’ to either bc or abortion? Feminists aren’t likely to miss a golden opportunity like this to lay blame. After the faux caring is over, watch for the condemnation of our side. I’d give it a couple hours.
Am I missing something here? I’ve looked through the links and nowhere can I find anything which supports the claim that her “previous abortion triggered mental illness”.
She is both bi-polar and schizophrenic. It doesn’t say when she was initailly diagnosed with either. It only says that she had a ‘psychotic break’ between her abortion and the birth of her son.
So what’s the truth? Where’s the clinical evidence?
“So what’s the truth? Where’s the clinical evidence?”
There is none – other than the wish to make it so. It’s based on the anti-choice fantasy that abortion causes mental health problems. As seen by a number of studies, there is no such thing as “post-abortion syndrome,” a term fabricated by the pro-lifers in order to convince women that abortion is wrong – and bad for your mental health. Now that Ms. Stanek has introduced the meme, it will soon become a truth for the pro-lifers. As George Costanza said, “it’s not a lie if you believe it.” And they continue to believe that all women regret their abortions. Thing is, it’s just not true.
It’s hardly a fantasy, CC & Reality, there are too many women who have had a negative abortion experience and emotional struggles afterwords, to lay that claim to rest. You just go ahead and tell all these women on the following support board that you know better than they & what they’re experiencing is imaginary
PASS Support Boards
http://passboards.org
& before you try to claim political bias, it’s run by a woman who identifies as pro-choice, but struggled after her abortion & created this as a safe, neutral place to get support.
CC, please take the time to read this article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/8734378/Abortion-increases-risk-of-mental-health-problems-new-research-finds.html
*Edit (because I ran of time before I could edit)
It’s hardly a fantasy, CC and Reality, there are too many women who have had a negative abortion experience and emotional struggles afterwords, to lay that claim to rest. You just go ahead and tell all these women that you know better than they and what they’re experiencing is imaginary. The PASS Site, a well-known neutral peer support site has 12 pages (with an estimated 217 stories) and 5,700 more active members on the message board community of women (and some men) who are working through post-abortion issues. In 2002, the pro-choice post-abortion hotline, “Exhale” was established and currently receives more than 500 calls a month. In addition, a number of independent, peer support post-abortion message boards have appeared over the last several years. You can’t continue to deny that having an abortion can have a negative and even profound effect on some individuals.
cc’s awfully busy on the webs today. Sigh, it must be so sad when Saturday is over, huh? Gotta wait a whole week to push more babies’ mommas down the chute…
Women’s groups and pro-abortion groups, eager for the opportunity to demonstrate that they are pro-“choice” and not just pro-abortion, piled on.
This is new…. since when have pro-abortion groups embraced a chance to support a woman’s choice to keep her child? They usually bark against the choice for life, if any controversy is involved.
Del, they have no other choice in this case. This is too outrageous to ignore and they can’t afford to look radical.
“You can’t continue to deny that having an abortion can have a negative and even profound effect on some individuals.” – I don’t. I have acknowledged that some women have had negative impacts because of abortion. Just not to the extent that this site would wish to infer.
Kiwi, that newspaper article doesn’t accurately reflect what Professor Coleman’s study found. It did not find any causative links between abortion and the increased mental issues and drug use. There was association, not cause.
I’m still wondering on what evidence the headline claim “previous abortion triggered mental illness” is based.
Reality-
I am wondering how you can truly believe that Prolifers don’t want what is best for women and their babies? Prolifer do NOT benefit by revealing the truth to women–that abortion does hurt women, whether you want to believe it or not. Think about it this way–a woman who intentionally destroys her own unborn child, better have some regrets and remorse, or they’d be emotionally devoid and therby “mentally unstable”. Actually, I believe the proper psychology terminology for one without a conscience is “sociopath” . Who does benefit from incessantly denying that abortion hurts women? Who? Those that stand to make the most money from it. The prolifers don’t make any money, maybe if we are lucky we might save a baby, or a mom.
Here is a list of 60 cases that prove mental issues.
http://hopeafterabortion.com/?page_id=756
Unbiased source:
http://theunchoice.com/pdf/DisplayAds/FlyerAds/WhatEveryAmericanAdRose.pdf
Finally, one more unbiased:
http://www.abortionresearch.us/images/Vol23No2.pdf
Reality —
Here is one more that was just published recently! It is a metastudy, the largest of its kind, again proving that abortion hurts women. It is NOT just Jill’s site that claims this or that we have you believing that–maybe it is just the truth that you cannot escape.
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/199/3/180.abstract
Finally, Russia with the largest abortion rate has released this study.
Where better to garner research than from a place that has the highest abortion rate? The stats are real. Here is a blurb:
” Russia has one of the highest abortion rates in the world. These rates have created a legacy of significant medical problems. Complications from abortion are the cause of more than one in four maternal deaths in Russia. Overall, two in three Russian women aborting their pregnancies suffer health complications as a result of the procedure, further stressing the overburdened Russian health care system. Abortion has also led to high rates of secondary sterility in Russia; an estimated one in ten women is left sterile by the procedure.”
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB5055/index1.html
Blessing, even a cursory look at ‘hopeafterabortion’, ‘theunchoice’ and ‘abortionreasearch.us’ (under the auspices of the Association for Interdisciplinary Research in Values and Social Change) clearly demonstrates that they are not unbiased sources. And I referred to the ‘megastudy’ you mention in my 7.47pm comment.
Aside from that, show me where any of these sources provides evidence supporting the claim “previous abortion triggered mental illness” in the headline of this post.
My heart breaks for this woman, and I’m concerned for both her and her boy or girl fetus. If she says she’s not pregnant, etc., what’s going to happen when people make pregnant comments in the last months, and when she goes into labor? I hope she has a ton of people supporing her and keeping watch. It sounds like both she and her baby could be at risk due to her mental illness.
Imagine if everyone went along with her belief, rooted in mental illness, that she’s not pregnant. Not helpful… This is going to be a rough road for her and her baby. Life is worth it, of course, and this situation needs lotsa prayer, kindness, and professional resources.
We support a CPC that carries out a post-abortive structured group. Women are shocked but happy to find out their pattern of experiences is pretty common.
Who would want to sit in a group going on and on about symptoms, patterns, and how to get your life on the move, if there is actualyl no problem?
I have heard women describe their experience to me, and I have heard public-speaking testimonies. What’s next: there was no holocaust? Margaret Sanger was not a eugenicist?
The “all” or “none” argument is dumb. Some women apparently do not regret thir abortion. Some feel “relief.”
Not all of the guys who got shot at, and killed people, in Iraq have PTSD.
That sure does not men that PTSD is not real.
Wow, you have to really be hard-line to believe it is a fake story that a post-abrtion women would have disturbing dreams, or have a hard time being around little babies and so skip baby showers and so on.
Really hard line. Talk abt “trust women” – if a woman describes this pattern of probems – out of the blue, without being oached cuz they have never heard of all of this, then we should not trust what they say?
CC has probably talked abt this made-up problem with a friend who actually has PAS, but CC just did not know it. That sure has stopped that conversation from ever happening.
Hi CC,
Not all women regret their abortions. Silly.
The headline here says ‘Court Documents’ – there must be a paper trail documenting this woman’s mental illness if a judge suggested such extreme measures be taken. That leads me to believe this woman has been evaluated by professionals more than once and that abortion was determined to be a triggering factor in her psychotic episode.
“She became agitated and emotional when discussing the pregnancy that ended in abortion.” Gee, that’s vague, huh. Prochoice feminist reaction to women like these? Stick fingers deeper in ears and sing loudly, and continue marginalizing and trivializing the experiences of women like these, because feminists are ‘prowoman.’
“That leads me to believe…..abortion was determined to be a triggering factor in her psychotic episode.” – talk about a stretch!
‘I can’t find any evidence so I’ll assume its what I want it to be.’ incredible.
wow, abortion is so terrible! if i believe the scott roeder-types it causes mental illness, breast cancer and whats next, ingrown toenails??!
Dylan,
My aunt drank herself to death over an abortion she was forced into. It DOES cause mental illness.
As for breast cancer, if you take a look at the physiology of the development of breast tissue during pregnancy, you will see that it makes women much more vulnerable to carcinogenic effect of estrogen and progesterone, until they reach the point of 32 weeks of pregnancy, at which point they are protected from those effects. In other words: Please take a biology or child development course before discounting something that you’ve never studied, that you’re just aping from your “pro-choice” comrades.
And Reality ‘can’t find any evidence to the contrary so she/he will just believe whatever the latest proabort op-ed piece says-in other words, whatever he/she wants to believe. Not a stretch at all for a proabort, but a way of life. Nevermind the thousands of testimonies from actual women who have suffered ill effects after abortion-they can’t possibly be telling the truth-only those few abortion zealots parroting the party line and reading from the feminist script. You have no evidence to prove abortion DIDN’T cause this woman’s mental breakdown, so prove her wrong, ‘Reality.’ Prove all those other women liars too. We’ll just wait over here. Very ‘prowoman’ of you to completely trivialize this woman’s experience-but then we expect nothing less from the ‘caring for women’ crowd. Sweep the naysayers and those who have been there under the rug, because they’re bad for business.
My, what a totally off-beam little rant MPQ.
“And Reality ‘can’t find any evidence to the contrary so she/he will just believe whatever the latest proabort op-ed piece says-in other words, whatever he/she wants to believe.” – I made no claims whatsoever as to what may have happened in this case. I simply asked if there was any evidence for the claim “previous abortion triggered mental illness” in the headline of this post. No-one has yet been able to provide any so I guess I can assume that it was just another completely bogus claim.
“You have no evidence to prove abortion DIDN’T cause this woman’s mental breakdown, so prove her wrong” – oh, so you want to play that game do you? Are you sure? Think about it?
If there was any evidence to justify the claim, where is it?
“Very ‘prowoman’ of you to completely trivialize this woman’s experience” – I did no such thing.
Try responding with some truth to the things that I have actually said.
Xalisae: Do we have anyone there who can help this woman?
Good question, X. Sometimes not.
___
My heart is absolutely breaking for her. She has all of my tears today.
There are some cases where the people are just plain so nutty that they won’t really fit in with the general “pro-life” or “pro-choice” view.
Blah blah bluster and white noise, Reality. Try responding with some truth yourself instead of deflections and ad hominems. I’m not the one claiming there’s no connection between abortion and mental problems, Prove. It.
You’re the one going off on some spurious tangent in an attempt to deflect the truth MPQ.
The headline states “previous abortion triggered mental illness” – PROVE IT!!!
Continuous diatribes ignoring the elephant in the room aren’t going to work.
The headline states “previous abortion triggered mental illness” – PROVE IT!!!
Reality,
Maybe you missed this part:
“ The defendant suffered a psychotic break when she was a college student. Thereafter, she believed people were staring at her and stating that she killed her baby. She becomes agitated and emotional when discussing the pregnancy that ended in an abortion. ”
I am guessing that you are not able to connect the dots for yourself….
Say no more. Nudge nudge. Do you know what I mean?
The headline states “previous abortion triggered mental illness” – PROVE IT!!!
Silly Reality. Everyone knows that if Event A happened before Event B, then Event A must have caused Event B. That’s just plain logic.
truthseeker, a ‘psychotic break’ does not demonstrate when her mental ilnesses first manifested.
There is simply nothing which shows us that her mental illness was triggered by her abortion.
We don’t have enough dots to be able to join them and draw a clear picture.
Silly LisaC, we don’t know that Event A happened before Event B, that’s the point. There is not enough information to draw any conclusions.
Well I keep seeing lots of obfuscations and attempts at distractions and the dragging in of irrelevancies, but as yet nothing to support the claim in the headline.
Silly LisaC, we don’t know that Event A happened before Event B, that’s the point. There is not enough information to draw any conclusions.
Yes, I know. I was being sarcastic.
Yes, it’s easy to ignore that this woman’s mental problems were obviously caused by her abortion when you take into account a.) what an abortion does, and b.) the kinds of symptoms she’s exhibiting and what it is she’s actually SAYING.
These are not the droids you are looking for, there is no man behind the curtain, and your princess is in another castle.