Monday, September 22, 2008

Fathers Traumatized by Abortion: Approaching Critical Mass?

Even without a reversal of Roe v. Wade, if post-abortive men can establish that physicians have breached a duty and caused psychological injury to them in the course of aborting their children, the abortionists' potential liability at tort will be multiplied by two.

According to a psychologist quoted in this OneNewsNow article, "post-abortive" men often are psychologically traumatized by the abortion of their children, and have significant therapeutic needs. As such men meet and organize themselves, it's likely that they will eventually seek compensation from the abortionists who aborted their children.

Post-abortive men finally speak out
Charlie Butts and Marty Cooper
OneNewsNow

A second national conference on the negative effects of abortion on men has been held, and more may be scheduled.

The conference's purpose explores the revelation that men experience, according to LifeNews.com, profound regret and grief after an involvement in an abortion decision. Vicki Thorn of the National Office of Post-Abortion Reconciliation and Healing believes consideration and psychological care for post-abortive fathers is long overdue.

"It's time we begin speaking about it, and that was my intent in being able to organize these two conferences -- that we begin to speak through the veil of science about the fact that there's more than one partner in this," Thorn explains. "The pregnancy didn't occur in a vacuum, and so there is both a woman and a man that are involved."

Thorn knows that fact from her own practice. "I've had calls from men from the very beginning, when I first started doing post-abortion work, risking to share their experiences and seeing that, within the society, there's no validation for the fact that a male might suffer afterwards," she adds.

Over 70 percent of relationships, according to Thorn, break up after an abortion. She claims the American Psychological Association (APA) mislead the American people in its recent claims that abortion is "psychologically safe" for women. The APA refuses to recognize long-term effects on women, and certainly on men, but Thorn believes it is a legitimate problem that needs to be addressed.

Another psychologist at the conference, Catherine Coyle, believes pro-lifers should be more available to help men who are grieving an abortion and show them that they are not alone.

"It is the compassionate thing for us to do to recognize that some people -- men and women -- have profound grief and suffering after an abortion," Coyle contends. "And if we are to be a compassionate society, we must validate their pain and provide the help they need regardless of where we may stand individually on the issue of abortion."

Friday, September 19, 2008

Parental Involvement Threatens Cash Flow

According to a Family Research Council study, state-level parental involvement laws could begin to drain the troubled waters in which abortion marketers fish for their clientele. If the figures in this FRC press release are correct, the abortion industry is already suffering significant financial damage in the studied locales, and enactment of parental involvement laws in the larger markets might financially cripple the national abortion industry.

Family Research Council Releases New Study on Successful Abortion Reduction Legislation

Washington, D.C. - Today, Family Research Council released a study demonstrating which state level parental involvement laws are most effective in reducing abortions among minors. The study is the first comprehensive analysis of minor abortion data from nearly all 50 states between 1985 and 1999. Overall, the findings indicate that when a state enacts a parental involvement law, the abortion rate falls by an average of approximately 13.6 percent. The study is available on www.frc.org

Family Research Council Fellow and study author Dr. Michael J. New, assistant professor of political science at the University of Alabama, had this to say:

"This study is the first of its kind to compare different types of parental involvement laws. The study finds that more protective parental involvement laws result in even larger declines in abortion rates. Laws that require parental consent instead of parental notification reduce the minor abortion rate by about 19 percent. Furthermore, laws that mandate the involvement of two parents, instead of just one parent, reduce the in-state abortion rate by approximately 31 percent.
Minnesota and Mississippi laws are among the most effective in reducing abortion rates among minors.

"This study shows that parental involvement laws are an important causal factor in this decline in the overall abortion rate among minors in the United States, which has fallen by close to fifty percent between 1985 and 1999. Currently about 36 states have a parental involvement law on the books, but some are more effective than others in their ability to reduce the incidence of abortion."

"The overwhelming evidence in support of parental involvement laws should be a boon to legislators everywhere."