The so-called Justice Foundation, based in San Antonio, Texas, has mounted an anti-choice and anti-women initiative against women in its campaign to falsely claim that abortion causes depression and low esteem.
http://www.txjf.org/
According to a recent press release from the foundation:
- It is common for women to experience feelings of anger, fear, sadness, anxiety, grief, or guilt after abortion. The United States Supreme Court is correct that "some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained... Severe depression and loss of esteem can follow."
- Women’s reaction to these feelings vary considerably with their emotional coping abilities and pre-existing functioning. It is undeniable that significant numbers of women are injured by abortion and should not be ignored by the medical profession and that significant numbers of women suffer serious physical, mental or psychological trauma as a result of abortion.
- The conclusion that there is a causal connection between abortion and negative problems is supported by three independent lines of evidence:
(a) the self-attribution of women themselves,
(b) mental health professionals who have successfully diagnosed and treated postabortion reactions, and
(c) statistically validated studies controlling for a large number of confounding factors which have been published in peer reviewed journals.
- There is a significant body of research which demonstrates that abortion has harmful consequences for women. There is definite scientific evidence that supports this claim. The best scientific evidence to date suggests that a significant number of women who elect to abort suffer serious and enduring symptoms of anxiety, depression, trauma, suicidal behaviors, sleep disorders, and substance abuse disorders. This evidence must not be suppressed for any reason and should be provided to women as part of the abortion informed consent process. Peer reviewed research has shown that abortion is statistically associated with adverse mental health outcomes compared to women who have not elected abortion.
http://64456.netministry.com/...
This document has been signed by a hundred people who claim credentials as mental health counselors, social workers, possibly one MD, one person who claims a Professional Master of Science credential, whatever that might be.
I wonder where these persons were educated. Pat Robertson's Regent University, possibly?
This group is building its case on the recent judgment of U.S. Superme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy who famously claimed in Gobzakes v. Carhart:
.... abortion-rights advocates were alarmed by Kennedy's invocation of a legal argument that has been advanced by abortion opponents for years but has gained little traction in Court opinions: the state's interest in helping women avoid the psychological pain and regret they might suffer after having an abortion.
"Respect for human life finds an ultimate expression in the bond of love the mother has for her child," wrote Kennedy. "The Act recognizes this reality as well. Whether to have an abortion requires a difficult and painful moral decision. While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained. ... Severe depression and loss of esteem can follow."
Kennedy cited a brief that offers the testimonials of more than 100 women who have suffered physical and psychological trauma after having an abortion. The brief was filed by the Justice Foundation, whose Operation Outcry project represents women who regret their abortions.
http://www.law.com/...
Those who disagreed with Kennedy:
"Women, the new rhetoric argues, don't really understand what they are doing when they decide to have abortions," says Yale Law School professor Jack Balkin, who is sharply critical of what he labels the "New Paternalism" of Kennedy's opinion. "The new rhetoric of pro-life forces is no longer just rhetoric. It's now part of Supreme Court doctrine," Balkin wrote on his Balkinization blog.
Dissenting Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was also critical of Kennedy's language about post-abortion regrets, which she said "recalls ancient notions about women's place in society and under the Constitution -- ideas that have long since been discredited."
Ginsburg, who has spoken of her loneliness on the bench as the Court's only woman justice, somberly read from her dissent: "Though today's opinion does not go so far as to discard Roe or Casey, the Court, differently composed than it was when we last considered a restrictive abortion regulation, is hardly faithful to our earlier invocations of 'the rule of law' and the 'principles of stare decisis.'"
The Foundation was recently given a discreet plug by Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal in an article, Abortion: Asking the Difficult Questions:
http://blogs.wsj.com/...
which revealed that the foundation has been collecting the statements of women who claim that their lives have been forever scarred by decisions long ago to have an abortion. Planned Parenthood and NARAL have warned women not to give the foundations dissenting statemensts for fear that women who do will certainly have their right to privacy violated by the foundation.