Author: Catherine Bolger Therapeutic Abortion, The Effect On The Mother, The Family, Society. Fidelity House (Toronto), 1989, 78pp.
In this small text, Catherine Bolger assembles a vast amount of information from sources as varied as Hippocrates and the World Medical Association to document the pervasive effect on society of “therapeutic” abortion. The application of “therapeutic” to this procedure is part of the necessary crippling of language which has accompanied every act of mass killing in this century.
A compelling theme throughout is the creation in pregnancy of an organic union between mother and unborn, to the extent that the well-being of both becomes interdependent. This state is not appreciated usually, although it is the essential basis for the normal successful outcome of pregnancy. The disruption of this union is manifest in the many consequences of pregnancy which are not measured in the follow-up studies quoted by the author. This is in large part due to the poor statistics kept by government, and to the failure of the abortion industry to carry out any meaningful post-abortion care.
The physical consequences are reviewed in detail, although their frequency cannot be estimated. Included are cervical damage, uterine perforation, intestinal injury, air and amniotic embolism, and severe hemorrhage. The psychiatric sequelae exceed in number and severity those alleged to be present before abortion, and given as a legitimate reason for abortion. A serious complication is stunting of ability to bond to subsequent children, as is the high incidence of family violence in post-abortion women, as well as marital breakdown.
The evidence assembled to document the widespread effects on society of abortion will surely dispel the cruel illusion that abortion is a private affair. The effects of this epidemic of killing are everywhere, and spreading.
The text concludes with three recommendations which ask for protection of the mother and child from conception, with expansion of social assistance to this end, and for full disclosure of abortion records at hospital and health-ministry levels. The book is recommended as a source of information on the unappreciated extent of injuries, physical and mental, which are the result of abortion, and which threaten so many elements of our precarious civilization.
