Pro-abortion writer, Katie McDonough, wrote an article sharing the results of a survey from BMC Medicine that claims, “being denied an abortion tethers women to violent men.” The study was intended to uncover the relationship between domestic violence, pregnancy and abortion.
According to demographer Diana Greene, women who had abortions were able to escape abusive men, while women who were forced to keep their baby were stuck in their relationships.
The study also found that some women wanted an abortion because they didn’t want the abusive father involved in the child’s life. McDonough explains the results of the survey by sharing two stories.
To illustrate these findings, let’s return to the example of Alicia and Beth — both women experienced violence from the man involved in the pregnancy. Alicia, who was denied the abortion and consequently gave birth to a baby, considered the man a boyfriend at the time of conception. Six months later their relationship was no longer romantic.
Still, she had ongoing contact with him and described episodes of violence at both one year and two years after seeking an abortion. At one point, she reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder that she attributed to being attacked by the man and from the stress of having had her child taken temporarily by the police.
Beth gave, as her reason for having the abortion, that she “did not want to have any part in [the man’s] life any more. “I have been mentally abused by [him] daily, and I didn’t want to have a child with him.” Beth and the man were engaged at the time of conception. She was still in contact with him six months later after the abortion, but they were not romantically involved. She reported no ongoing contact with him at two years.
Although it is fair to say that an unintended pregnancy can multiply the complexities of an abusive relationship, ending the life of another human being will never bring an end to domestic violence. In fact, having an abortion to prevent domestic violence only compounds the heartache for the woman involved. Thousands of women have revealed to the world what choice brought them: physical and emotional pain, regret and years of suffering.
After abortion, over 65% of women suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and post abortive women are six-times more likely to commit suicide then women who have given birth. And many women describe their abortion experience as ‘a nightmare,’ with 60% reporting ’Part of me died.’ No matter how you package it, abortion hurts women.
But that’ not all; research shows that abortion actually increases violence in relationships.
For example, a study published in the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care found that women who seek abortions are seven times more likely to be abused than women who do not. The study was released in 2012 and involved 9,500 women. Additionally, a study published in the peer review medical journal, Public Health revealed that an abortion within a current relationship causes more arguing when discussing future children and more domestic violence — respective increased risks of 116% and 196%.
Furthermore, in 2014, the peer-reviewed medical journal PLOS Medicine published a study that showed about 25 percent of women who get an abortion face some sort of abuse beforehand.
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These publications uncover the real problem with abortion and domestic violence. Abortion only temporarily masks a deeper issue at hand: violent men are abusing women constantly. And to make matter worse, sometimes the abortion industry covers it up because they are more interested in the $450 they will receive from each abortion, than the health and safety of women.
For example, in 2011, Kristan Hawkins who is the President of Students for Life of America, shared with LifeNews the story of a student named Melissa Pereira who watched her mother take physical and emotional abuse from her father for years. Her father even forced her mother into a Planned Parenthood facility to have an abortion. At the abortion facility, her mother was verbally abused in front of a clinic worker; but instead of helping her mother, the worker ignored the abuse and proceeded to lie about her unborn baby.
Pereira said, “My mother was 5 months pregnant, but she was told it was just a “blob of cells”. There was no counseling, no chance for my mother to make an informed choice with the guidance of informed educators as Planned Parenthood claims to be. That day was empty of truth as my mother’s womb was emptied of a person too small and vulnerable to defend himself. It became a void for my father to quickly fill with more sexual abuse.”
Sadly, Melissa’s mother had two more forced abortions; and the hands of her father completed one of those abortions. He repeatedly punched her mother in the stomach until her baby was dead.
This story and stories like it expose the ugly legacy of the abortion industry. Abusive men hurt women and force them to abort their baby; thus demanding no accountability from the abusers involved. Even though abortion may seem like an escape, it only perpetuates the cycle of domestic violence while simultaneously taking the life of countless unborn children.
