Happiness Index Suffers as Abortion Industry Continues to Exploit Women

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Oct 21, 2009   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Happiness Index Suffers as Abortion Industry Continues to Exploit Women

by Maria Vitale
LifeNews.com Editorial Columnist
October 21, 2009

LifeNews.com Note: Maria Vitale is an opinion columnist for LifeNews.com. She is the Public Relations Director for the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation and Vitale has written and reported for various broadcast and print media outlets, including National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and AP Radio.

As I paused at the bookstore coffee shop counter to order an Italian soda, a provocative magazine cover caught my eye. One of the weekly newsmagazines of record, Time, advertised a piece on the state of the American woman.

Looking up the article later online, I discovered that, since 1972, the female high school dropout rate has been cut in half; nearly half of all medical and law degrees are earned by women now; and half of all Ivy League schools currently are headed by women.

Still, Time notes some setbacks: women earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men; women only make up about 10 percent of all civil engineers; and women pay more than men for their health insurance.

Perhaps most telling of all is this line from Nancy Gibbs’ Time article: “Among the most confounding changes of all is the evidence, tracked by numerous surveys, that as women have gained more freedom, more education and more economic power, they have become less happy.”

Could it be that at least part of their unhappiness lies in the fact that women live in a culture that does not necessarily revere mothers? That they exist in a society that often tells women that the best prescription for what ails them is an abortion?

1973’s Roe v. Wade decision was billed as a way to guarantee women’s rights—but what about the right to be free from the coercion to abort their offspring? Scientific surveys have confirmed that most women are having abortions they don’t want. Is that a mark of women’s freedom?

As writer Frederica Mathewes-Green famously stated, “No woman wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg."

Given the fact that more than 50 million abortions have occurred since 1973, an astounding number of American women are post-abortive. The effects of abortion can be devastating: an upsurge in drug and alcohol abuse, an increase in depression, a greater likelihood of psychiatric hospitalization. It can be years before a woman makes the abortion-unhappiness connection, but that does not negate the fact that the debilitating effects of abortion are there, attacking her body and mind.

Any of the negative consequences of abortion can lead to unhappiness. As long as the abortion industry is permitted to exploit women, their happiness index is likely to suffer. And so will their souls.

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