Comments on: The Trauma of Abortion

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 23:55:35 +0000

It is an article by Jennifer Baumgardner called "Abortion: Trouble in Numbers?" found here. Baumgardner is a feminist writer. The article is anecdotal.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 15:26:10 +0000

Was this an academic study of some kind? It would be interesting to compare it to this one if it were.
It's statements seem awfully bold for an academic study, though. It sounds more like a reporters article.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 19:30:59 +0000

I read an article recently in which women who had had more than one abortion were interviewed. It was interesting to me that without exception, they all claimed to have no remorse about their first abortion. They had many different reasons for the abortion, pretty much all along the lines of “I was not in a place in my life where I could raise a child.”
But the 2nd abortion was entirely different. In almost every case, these women felt guilty about their 2nd abortion because they sensed that they had screwed up. They should have known better. They should have been more careful. The author was puzzled at this attitude since, if abortion can be justified at all, it really doesn't matter how many abortions one has.
But the guilt was quite strong and very universal. Most of the women felt justified in their first abortion, but nevertheless felt that it represented a lesson that they should have learned, but in fact had failed to learn. This led to remorse about the 2nd abortion.
BTW, in the abortion industry, these women are sometimes called “frequent flyers.”

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 13:00:23 +0000

“Micah, I believe those in the behavioral science field would give more credit to their studies than you have.”
Yes indeed they would. We all tend to overemphasize what our own field can do.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 12:54:50 +0000

All I was saying there Bill was that “general population” doesn't fit when only a subset of a subset of the general population can possibly be covered. I.E., we aren't finding anything out about men, or women who have never been pregnant, or children.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 02:44:51 +0000

“it's not absolutely conclusive, but I don't think it claims to be (and will never be for the general population, if only b/c the general population is a far greater number than the actual sample (pregant women) can ever be).”
We can mathematically represent a population with a sample size several orders of magnitude smaller than that population. I disagree that such a study can never declaratively say something about a population. THIS study, however, can say very little.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 02:39:59 +0000

I just went in and read the full study. It's great in the internet world that we can do that now. Back when I was pulling together articles for the literature reviews in my Psych papers, we would dig through abstract BOOKS to find relavant articles, and then go out to the stacks to collect the journals IF the library had a subscription to them.
The authors of the study were very candid about the limitations of their study. It was a very interesting read (for a behavioral science paper.) This is their conclusion in its entirety:
“The responses of women in the miscarriage group were similar to those expected after a traumatic and sad life event. However, the women in the induced abortion group had more atypical responses. This may be because the mental health of the aborting women was somewhat poorer than that of the miscarrying women before the pregnancy termination event. The more complex nature of the induced bortion event may also account for differences in the course of psychological responses between the two groups.
Women in both groups should be given information about common psychological responses to pregnancy termination, and follow-up talks with health personnel should be offered to women most affected by the event. ” (emphasis added)
Micah, I believe those in the behavioral science field would give more credit to their studies than you have. This study, though a valuable part of a larger body of research, is still pretty limited.
I would also note, that while they found a statistically significant difference between the two groups of women in categories of anxiety, guilt and avoidance(as part of their measure of anxiety) They don't say how MUCH difference that is.
It would not be surprising to know that those who had abortions had more shame and longer term anxiety over it than those who had miscarriages. What this study doesn't tell us is this. Are those differences enough to make any difference in their lives. are they different enough to require any kind of psychological treatment.
I recall my Psych advisor wisely saying, “Just because something is statistically significant, doesn't mean it's significant.” To illustrate, if we show a statisitcally significant difference (through our well designed study) between the income of the democrats and republicans who read this blog, but that difference is only $1.50 a year – we've established a statistically significant difference, i.e, we can extrapolate this to the larger population. The difference we have though discovered is not significant. $30,001.50 vs $30,000

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:50:14 +0000

I think the statement is pretty carefully worded. The study claims to “provide evidence”, and it does do this.
This sort of survey, considering the subject matter, depth of interview, and repeated check points, is very difficult to do with a large “N”. It seems more of a mixture of “soak and poke” methodology mixed in with its quantitative side.
Social science is more often than not proving with numbers what most of us know to be true already. We would expect that women who choose to kill a child will be more conflicted than those who lose a child over no choice of their own. This study gives evidence to that effect. I agree with Bill that it's not absolutely conclusive, but I don't think it claims to be (and will never be for the general population, if only b/c the general population is a far greater number than the actual sample (pregant women) can ever be).

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 20:23:00 +0000

John, with 40 and 80 subjects, this study is more a pilot study than a full blown study. One would need a much larger sample to to be representative of the population even of a city, let alone the their country or the general population.
I don't deny there are effects. This study, though, doesn't have enough power to demonstrate these effects are true of the general population, and we couldn't use it with credibility to say that the results were true of the general population. One would hope that someone somewhere has done a more significant study, say with several thousand women. Why don't we find that research and use those findings to make our point.