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Post abortion syndrome (PAS) is the psychological after-math of abortion. The victims are both women and men and the circle grows to include the siblings of the aborted child, the grandparents, friends, and other family members. PAS can occur immediately after the abortion, or it can be delayed 0-6 months, 1-5 years, 5-20 years longer. These people are unable to deal with their fears, anger, shame, deep-rooted guilt, and a host of other problems following their abortion, and they feel so alone. They are unable to grieve the loss of their baby, or (if a Christian) come to peace with their Savior or any enabler who helped them with the abortion decision.
Not every person suffers from PAS. A Christian is at a higher risk, because she knows what God's Word says about abortion.
PAS develops when a woman is face with an "unwanted," "untimely," "inconvenient," or "unsupported" pregnancy. Most often she wants a quick and easy solution to her problem. Abortion is often the choice many are likely to make. I have so many PAS victims say, "I was told the abortion would only last a few minutes and then, it would be behind me...but I have found that it lasts a lifetime." Relief is often felt when the abortion is over, but those feelings don't last very long. Satan continues to be the father of all lies, and he certainly continues to deceive even the children of our Lord.
There are many symptoms of post abortion syndrom. Some of them are guilt, anxiety, doubt, nightmares and dreams, losing sight of goals, bitterness, anger, depression, a feeling of separation from God, the father of the child or her parents, and her friends.
She has suicidal impulses, grief, self-destructive behaviors (eating disorders, alcohol and drug abuse), anniversaries remembered of the abortion and date the child was due, continued crying episodes, wanting to have a replacement baby, and fear of never being able to conceive again. For the Christian she fears that never again will God trust her with one of his priceless works of creation....a baby.
It sounds like there is no hope for these lost, hurt, and wandering souls. The good news is, there IS a true healing but it comes only through Jesus Christ, our Savior.
Abortion is best described as a wide-open festering sore. The world tries to help by putting on a bandage. Alas, it eventually drops off, and the sore continues to fester. That is the reason the Law must be given. It is the Law that convicts them. These living victims of abortion are crying out to be told the truth...not just the opinion stating that abortion is wrong...but, they plead with us who have the truth, to tell it how it is! The fifth commandment states, "You shall not murder!" It is the Law that reaches down into the pus-infested sore of abortion, and it starts to cleanse it. Once the Law has been given and it has been given a chance to work, it is time to pour the precious sweet ointment of the Gospel upon it. When giving the Law we must be careful how we do it. It must be given firmly but with love and watch the tone of our voice. We must not be judgmental and remember, first of all, that we too are sinners.
As care givers for our Lord we must remember that these victims are watching us VERY carefully. They are watching our facial expressions, our eye contact, they are listening to the tone of our voice, and watching our body language to see if we are being judgmental. They are waiting for "the" person whom they can trust to share their deepest and darkest secret.
It is important to understand the grieving process the PAS victim goes through. Always take them "where" they are, not "where" you think they should be. The first stage of grieving is relief as they feel that the problem is over with. It is followed by the step of denial and rationalization. It is often at this stage that we hear, "It was something that I had to do!" Until this is dealt with, the victim cannot be healed through grieving.
Stage three is the tone of realization and when shock sets in. Many times it is here that we hear those words of reality as the victim states, "I know that I killed my baby." Following closely behind are anger and depression. These victims cannot explain the deep anger that they feel at everyone and everything. Depression is a reality and often thoughts of suicide plague them. They experience reruns of their abortion in living color, and we are told they hear the crying of their aborted baby.
The fifth step of hope and substitution comes when the PAS victims come to the cross. It is here that they know, believe, and trust that the death of Jesus on the cross was for them too. They begin to understand His wondrous, unconditional love for them. They now realize that the healing they have just experienced could not have come from themselves. They now are able to look back and see how they struggled with not being able to forgive themselves. They have come to realize that even though they have full forgiveness through Jesus, that some sins have many consequences that follow, and abortion just happens to be a sin that has many consequences. The victims, now healed, are ready to help others in the world.
It is a time of joy when the victims reach the final stage: acceptance and surrender. It is a daily battle for the victims to surrender their anger, bitterness, and self-hatred to the Savior, Jesus. They are seeking and accepting forgiveness offered through our Lord. They are learning that hanging onto anger, hate, and bitterness will only destroy them.
Can any good ever come from something so ugly and evil as the sin of abortion? Ah, yes, it is our joy to see that it was through this very sin that many souls are brought to the saving knowledge of their precious Savior Jesus Christ. Many have told me, "This sin of abortion was the one that Jesus used to show me that I was on the road to eternal damnation." So, let each of us be educated, be bold, and be ready to "speak up" on this matter of PAS. In so doing, we will know another soul will be told of Jesus, the one and the only true healing solution for sin of any kind.
by Ann Warner
[December 1993, Vol. 13, No. 3 - Beginnings]
1. GUILT: Guilt is what the woman feels because she has violated her moral code. For the woman who has come to believe, at some point after the abortion, that she consented to the killing of her preborn child, the burden of guilt is relentless.
2. ANXIETY : Anxiety is defined as an unpleasant emotional and physical state of apprehension. Postabortion women may experience any of the following:
a) tension (inability to relax, irritability, and so forth)
b) physical responses (dizziness, pounding heart, upset stomach, headaches)
c) worry about the future
d) difficulty concentrating
e) disturbed sleep
3. REPRESSION AND DENIAL: When a person experiences anxiety because of an intense inner conflict, and there is no end in sight, the mind will take whatever course of action is necessary to regain emotional equilibrium. One such defense mechanism is repression, a sort of "motivated forgetting" which simply pushes the unbearable emotions away from the conscious level of thinking. Denial is a more thorough mechanism in which one not only pushes down unacceptable emotions surrounding a painful event, but also part of all of the whole event itself.
4. PSYCHOLOGICAL "NUMBING": A person who has experienced a highly painful loss will develop an instinct to guard against future situations which might bring that much pain again. Many postabortal women may work hard to keep their emotions on a flat level, experiencing neither highs nor lows. This greatly hampers their ability to form and maintain close interpersonal relationships.
5. DEPRESSION AND THOUGHTS OF SUICIDE: While few postabortal women reach the point of an overt clinical depression, many will experience some of the following:
a) sad mood
b) sudden and uncontrollable crying episodes
c) deterioration of self-concept
d) sleep, appetite, and sexual disturbances
e) reduced motivation
f) disruption in interpersonal relationships
g) thoughts of suicide
6. RE-EXPERIENCING THE ABORTION: The most common experience that a postabortal woman reports is that she suddenly begins to have distressing, recurring "flashbacks" of the abortion episode, with no apparent explanation for what is causing them. Recurring nightmares about babies are common.
7. PREOCCUPATION WITH BECOMING PREGNANT AGAIN: A significant percentage of all women who abort are pregnant within one year of their abortion. This may represent an unconscious hope for a new pregnancy to become a replacement for the one that was aborted.
8. ANXIETY OVER FERTILITY AND CHILDBEARING ISSUES: For the Christian woman, this is a particularly poignant issue, as they will verbalize these fears in terms of God punishing them.
9. INTERRUPTION OF THE BONDING PROCESS WITH PRESENT AND/OR FUTURE CHILDREN: The postabortal woman may not allow herself to become properly bonded to another pregnancy because of a fear of loss. Or she may begin another pregnancy intending to be the "world's most perfect mother." Likewise, the woman who already had children at the time of her abortion may discover that she is beginning to look at her existing children in a different light. She may have unconsciously "devalued" them.
10. SURVIVAL GUILT: In an attempt to assuage the guilt of being the "survivor" of the abortion decision (it was either her life or the baby's life, and she chose to not interrupt her life), some women will enter a heightened and unrealistic "compensation mode" whereby there is an attempt made to atone for the selfish choice.
11. DEVELOPMENT OF EATING DISORDERS: A substantial weight gain or severe weight loss is associated with unattractiveness, which reduces the odds of becoming pregnant again. Additionally, making herself unattractive serves as a form of self-punishment and helps the postabortal woman perpetuate the belief that she is unworthy of anyone's attentions. Also, anorexia becomes a form of control for the woman who feels her life is totally out of control. Lastly, an underweight condition can lead to the stopping of a woman's periods, which would also effectively prevent any future pregnancies.
12. ALCOHOL AND/OR SUBSTANCE ABUSE: Alcoholism and substance abuse often begins as a form of self-medication--a way of coping with the mental pain of abortion memories.
13. BRIEF REACTIVE PSYCHOSIS: Rarely, a postabortal woman will experience a brief psychotic episode for two weeks or less after her abortion. The break with reality and recovery are both extremely rapid and in most cases the person is completely back to normal when it is over. It is quite possible for a person to have a brief psychotic reaction to a stressful event without being labeled a psychotic individual.
14. ANNIVERSARY SYNDROME: There tends to be an increase in many of the symptoms listed above around the time of the anniversary of the abortion and/or the due date of the aborted child.
by: Teri Reisser, M.S.
About five years ago, a young woman graduating from high school had a rather traumatic encounter. As she was in the hallway, lining up for the processional, a woman came up to her and tied a white ribbon around her arm. The woman asked her if she would wear it in remembrance of the child she had aborted who would have been in the same class. A little later the woman sent the graduate a letter, telling her what she had done, and why she wanted her to wear the armband.
The following is what the letter said:
Nineteen years ago, I aborted my first child. It was the most horrible thing I have ever done in my life. "My life!" It seems at nineteen that's all I could think about was my life. I didn't concern myself with the small beating heart that was transforming, growing, every day into a little human being. It didn't seem real. Besides, I had my life to think about...I hadn't been out of school that long. I had a job, my own place to live. I didn't want to lose all that. I wanted to live a little, enjoy life before I got tied down. How ironic that I thought this baby had to die so that I might live. But I didn't think of "it" as a baby, or as dying. It was just an abortion. It seemed quite acceptable at the time. Women's rights and liberation were at a peak.
The clinic I went to was packed. For $100 in cash, they explained the abortion procedure as a vacuum aspiration. "Much like the vacuum cleaner you would use at home." What they didn't tell me was that this procedure rips the fetus to shreds, terminating the pregnancy. They asked me how I was feeling, and I remember telling them that I didn't "feel" pregnant. No morning sickness, no headaches, none of the awful stories that you heard about being pregnant. I was taken to an examining room where my feet were put into stirrups and the "life" was literally sucked out of me.
The moment it was over, I knew it was wrong. My body began to shake and I went into shock.
They piled warmed blankets on me and kept me under observation until the shaking subsided. As I lay there, safe and warm, I could hear the nurses in the bathroom talking about the day's events and what they would do after work as they flushed the buckets of waste that had only moments before been someone's baby. I was so ashamed of what I had done.
The dreams started almost immediately. I saw my baby fully formed and beautiful as I held him in my arms. It was always a boy. He had such an angelic little face. That face would be all grown and graduating this year with you and your classmates. And though the dreams have faded away, the guilt, remorse and pain I feel for that little life taken from me has not.
I have since been blessed with four children. My two oldest children know about the awful decision I made so many years ago, and when the time is right, I will tell the others. I pray that their knowing will prevent them from making that same mistake.
I am now pregnant with a fifth child, and its movements in my belly are joyful for me, yet a constant reminder of the child I threw away so long ago. I am thankful that God has chosen to bless me so many times, in spite of what I had done. He has given me the opportunity to give life, but more importantly to give the love that I missed with my first.
My words of thanks to you cannot begin to express how much it means to me to have you wear this arm band in remembrance of my child that never was. And because of your act of kindness, you will always be special to me too.
Thank you,
from the bottom of my heart.
[February 1998 - Vol. 18, No. 1 - Beginnings]
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