A chara, - You published quite an extraordinary letter (February 4th) from Geraldine Moane PhD from the Department of Psychology, UCD, on research studies on reactions to abortion. Perhaps I, although a middle aged, middle class, male, celibate cleric, may point to some of the brush strokes needed to help complete the canvas.
Dr Moane's letter speaks of the reactions of the women who have abortions. It says nothing of the reactions of the fathers of those babies. Has this been studied? What does it do to them? There are many other people directly involved in abortion: the medical staff concerned; other staff in the clinic or hospital; those involved in disposing of the remains; those who may use the products of abortion for medical research or treatment; those who refer people for abortion. They may be directly involved in this day in, day out, for years. Apart from making a living, what does it do to them?
Dr Moane does not refer reactions of another party directly involved in the abortion: the foetus/ baby whose life is ended. But then, we have no way at present to survey the psychological effects on these, so their voice is silent. We only know the physical effects.
Dr Moane does report on psychological difficulties in children of unwanted pregnancies. To speak of an unwanted child or pregnancy is not so much a statement about the child or the pregnancy, as about those who do not want it. To focus on the child, or the pregnancy as "the problem is the same as to focus on a difficult/ ill/troublesome parent or spouse or child who may equally be an unwanted problem. Yet here (in theory at least) we try to provide the support needed in order to care for the person, in question, rather than wondering whether we will have undesirable reactions afterwards if we dispose of "the problem". The real problem here is us that we are not prepared to "want", and to accept the consequences.
Saddest of all in Dr Moane's letter is the statement that "the majority of women who have had abortions have a mixture of emotional responses, with positive responses such as relief outweighing negative responses such as guilt, both in intensity and in duration". I can understand that this could be so. (Perhaps the same is true, in their own ways, of others involved in the abortion.) And yet, I remember my first contact many years ago with patients in a mental hospital, who had been committed for various acts of violence. I commented to a member of the staff that it must be a great burden for those people to know that they had done those things, often to members of their own families. He replied that what was characteristic of them was that they experienced no such remorse or guilt; rather that, detached from what we consider normal, they saw what they had done as right. Their positive response outweighed their negative response. Are we, in our turn, becoming so detached from reality that we can accept as right and normal a course of action we would otherwise see as wrong?
In all this, I am not criticising Dr Moane: she reports some of the results of research, and refers to other sources of information. It is what is implied by her report, as well as what is missing from it, that I find extraordinary: that the results of research seem so normal, so right. And that guilt is described as a "negative response". Surely it is the doing of something wrong which is the "negative". The guilt, oddly, is a positive reaction: a recognition of having done something wrong, with a strong motivation to learn from that and to act accordingly. A feeling of guilt which does not arise from having done wrong is not true guilt, but an aberrant mental state which may need attention. One could, of course, start by defining guilt as nothing more than the uncomfortable emotion which can accompany the recognition of having done wrong. In this case, one deals only with the undesirable emotion, and not with the course of action which has precipitated it. Surely bad medicine, and bad psychology.
Nor do I wish to add to the tragedy and sorrow of those who have been or are faced with a difficult pregnancy, whether the mother or any other person. As a Christian and a member of my church, and as a citizen of this country, I ask forgiveness of all who face such a situation and who do not find in Christians and fellow citizens the help they need at that time of anguish.
My concern is that our hearts do not become so coarsened that we let abortion become normal; so normal that our "positive responses such as relief" would outweigh "negative responses". If I may use language from some centuries ago, "No man is an island". Not just mothers, fathers, medical personnel, etc, but every person in our society is affected by an abortion, and we manifest reaction to it. What has the reaction of society been positive or negative? What will it be in the years to come? - Yours, etc.,
The Presbytery,
Rathdrum,
Co Wicklow.