The first story is about a woman named Sabrina. She was young (sixteen years old) and confused but happy when she learned that she was a mother. But she went she went to Planned Parenthood to get her pregnancy tests she felt like her questions about her pregnancy were not welcomed. The Planned Parenthood employees asked Sabrina what she planned to do and she told them that she wasn't sure.They treated her like a waste of time."They are 100% in the baby killing business and push it on you very much," she said. However, Sabrina was a bit luckier with supportive parents that definitely helped her. It was still not easy as a young mom but nothing as worldly money struggles and hard times could compare to the love she had for her daughter who is now twenty-four and a mother herself. One thing Sabrina mentioned to me was that she always thought about abortion as just a choice before. She had just listened to what everyone said about it without acknowledging what it actually was herself."I believe many girls are deceived into abortions." Sabrina told me. She now volunteers at Birthright international that helps get women supplies for pregnancies, referrals for adoption centers, how to get their GED and etc. Most importantly, Sabrina does not regret choosing life.
The second story is about a Brazilian woman who is in Sweden whose name is Pamela. At the time Pamela was dating a so called "Christian" man. Pamela became pregnant with his child and he immediately started pushing her towards abortion. He even booked her an appointment against her will, but she trusted him so she went. When she got in the abortion clinic she couldn't stop crying. She couldn't even speak with the nurses. A nurse told her she had to speak with a curator whom she could barely speak to because she was so upset. All she could really get past her lips was that she didn't want an abortion. But Pamela also thought about what it would be like having a child with a man who did not want one. She could see, as Sabrina did, how woman are pressured into abortion.
A nurse gave Pamela the abortion pill and whispered to her "If you don't want to do it, then don't."
Pamela did not take the pills when she got home. Instead she prayed. She wasn't religious at the time, but at that time she prayed. Then Pamela didn't care if she was rejected or affected. She didn't care if the father of her child would be there, she just knew she was keeping her baby. It was tough and there is no adoption in Sweden even if Pamela wanted to place her child with another family.
But most importantly, Pamela does not regret choosing life.
Friday, May 26, 2017
Friday, May 12, 2017
Abortion and Mental Health.
In the Pro-choice movement, abortion is said to be a right, but I have noticed ( as many others have) is that it is beginning to be more and more portrayed as “empowering”. It is a very disturbing evolution of an already terrible situation. Abortion is not just bad because it takes another human life; it comes with side effects. One in particular that I will be talking about is the mental health of the post abortive mother.
Many people on the pro-choice side will either deny that abortion causes mental health issues or tell you that society caused this by shaming women who had abortions . However, this doesn’t make complete sense because abortion is more supported than not.(1) It has become accepted and supported in society so to assume that society is responsible is illogical.
Planned Parenthood addressed these accusations that abortion has an negative impact on women's mental health. The research they showed says
“• Unwanted pregnancy increases a woman’s risk of
problems with her mental health.”
A problem that I have with this claim is that they don’t go into what they mean by “unwanted”. Does the mother that we are speaking of never want children or just doesn’t want a child at the moment? If they do want children eventually than that child, in a way, is wanted.If it is for a woman who never wants to have children, then this statement might have some truth to it.They also do not say if these unwanted pregnancies are carried to term, which is very important since most unplanned pregnancies end in abortion.
“• A woman with an unwanted pregnancy is as likely
to have mental health problems from abortion as
she is from giving birth.”
This statement is contradictory to what Planned Parenthood has said about the abortion and the mental health link. As I showed you in the previous statement, they said that unwanted pregnancies increased mental health risk. Here they say that abortion is as likely to increase mental health risks as an unwanted pregnancy . Planned Parenthood also stated For more than “30 years, substantive research studies have shown that legally induced abortion
does not pose mental health problems for women.”(2) It seems that Planned Parenthood has backed themselves into a corner.
• A woman with a history of mental health problems
before abortion is more likely to have mental health
problems after abortion.
• Circumstances, conditions, behaviors, and other
factors associated with mental health problems are
similar for women following abortion and women
following childbirth.
• Pressure from a partner to terminate a pregnancy,
negative attitudes about abortion, and negative
attitudes about a woman’s experience of abortion
may increase a woman’s risk of mental health
problems after abortion (2)
The last three points make sense and can all be said the same for pregnancies carried to term. But I notice that they are comparing abortion to childbirth frequently. In my opinion, this is another tactic to make abortion look noble and empowering; even though there should be nothing empowering about taking an innocent human life.
There are some issues with the literature about the mental health link. A review called “Abortion and mental health: quantitative synthesis and analysis of research published 1995–2009” reviewed this literature and found that abortion does in fact have negative mental health effects.” “After the application of methodologically based selection criteria and extraction rules to minimise bias, the sample comprised 22 studies, 36 measures of effect and 877 181 participants (163 831 experienced an abortion)”. (3) When this method was applied they found that women who had undergone abortions had an increased risk of mental health issues by 81%. This review explain some issues and why the other the conclusions of other literature regarding the mental health link to abortion were problematic. The review explained that “First, only a handful of studies have actually included unintended pregnancy carried to term as a control group”, the review states. In many studies, it is also not clarified what exactly “unintended” means. There is no in between ground with intended pregnancies and unintended ones, which there ought be because it’s not black a white."Second, many recently published studies with extensive controls for third variables were not reflected in the three recent reviews, with no explanation given as to why large segments of the peer-reviewed literature were missing", the review states. In my opinion, it seems that research regarding this topic is being purposefully twisted so that we can not tell whether or not abortion is linked to mental illness.Certain studies have been ignored in these reviews. For example a study labeled “Resolution of Unwanted Pregnancy During Adolescence Through Abortion Versus Childbirth: Individual and Family Predictors and Psychological Consequences” states that “After controlling for these variables, adolescents who aborted an unwanted pregnancy were more inclined than adolescents who delivered to seek psychological counseling and they reported more frequent problems sleeping and more frequent marijuana use.”(4) Another study labeled “Long-term physical and psychological health consequences of induced abortion: review of the evidence.” stated that “Moreover, induced abortion increased the risks for both a subsequent preterm delivery and mood disorders substantial enough to provoke attempts of self-harm.” (5) These two were just a few who were not reviewed in previous reviews.
“Third, in all three literature reviews the choice of studies lacked sufficient methodologically based selection criteria.”
“The fourth troubling issue is the fact that quantification of effects was not attempted by any of the three research teams.” the review said (3)
The review concluded the results by saying
"These results indicate that the level of increased risk associated with abortion varies from 34% to 230% depending on the nature of the outcome."
(5) Long-term physical and psychological health consequences of induced abortion: review of the evidence. - PubMed - NCBI
Monday, May 8, 2017
Is the fetus truly a parasite?
- a) A parasite is defined as an organism of one species living in or on an organism of another species (a heterospecific relationship) and deriving its nourishment from the host (is metabolically dependent on the host). (See Cheng, T.C., General Parasitology, p. 7, 1973.) b) A human embryo or fetus is an organism of one species (Homo sapiens) living in the uterine cavity of an organism of the same species (Homo sapiens) and deriving its nourishment from the mother (is metabolically dependent on the mother). This homospecific relationship is an obligatory dependent relationship, but not a parasitic relationship.
- a) A parasite is an invading organism -- coming to parasitize the host from an outside source.b) A human embryo or fetus is formed from a fertilized egg -- the egg coming from an inside source, being formed in the ovary of the mother from where it moves into the oviduct where it may be fertilized to form the zygote -- the first cell of the new human being.
- a) A parasite is generally harmful to some degree to the host that is harboring the parasite.b) A human embryo or fetus developing in the uterine cavity does not usually cause harm to the mother, although it may if proper nutrition and care is not maintained by the mother.
- a) A parasite makes direct contact with the host's tissues, often holding on by either mouth parts, hooks or suckers to the tissues involved (intestinal lining, lungs, connective tissue, etc.).b) A human embryo or fetus makes direct contact with the uterine lining of the mother for only a short period of time. It soon becomes isolated inside its own amniotic sac, and from that point on makes indirectcontact with the mother only by way of the umbilical cord and placenta.
- a) When a parasite invades host tissue, the host tissue will sometimes respond by forming a capsule (of connective tissue) to surround the parasite and cut it off from other surrounding tissue (examples would be Paragonimus westermani, lung fluke, or Oncocerca volvulus, a nematode worm causing cutaneous filariasis in the human).b) When the human embryo or fetus attaches to and invades the lining tissue of the mother's uterus, the lining tissue responds by surrounding the human embryo and does not cut it off from the mother, but rather establishes a means of close contact (the placenta) between the mother and the new human being.
- a) When a parasite invades a host, the host will usually respond by forming antibodies in response to the somatic antigens (molecules comprising the body of the parasite) or metabolic antigens (molecules secreted or excreted by the parasite) of the parasite. Parasitism usually involves an immunological response on the part of the host. (See Cheng, T.C., General Parasitology, p. 8.)b) New evidence, presented by Beer and Billingham in their article, "The Embryo as a Transplant" (Scientific American, April, 1974), indicates that the mother does react to the presence of the embryo by producing humoral antibodies, but they suggest that the trophoblast -- the jacket of cells surrounding the embryo -- blocks the action of these antibodies and therefore the embryo or fetus is not rejected. This reaction is unique to the embryo-mother relationship.
- a) A parasite is generally detrimental to the reproductive capacity of the invaded host. The host may be weakened, diseased or killed by the parasite, thus reducing or eliminating the host's capacity to reproduce.b) A human embryo or fetus is absolutely essential to the reproductive capacity of the involved mother (and species). The mother is usually not weakened, diseased or killed by the presence of the embryo or fetus, but rather is fully tolerant of this offspring which must begin his or her life in this intimate and highly specialized relationship with the mother.
- a) A parasite is an organism that, once it invades the definitive host, will usually remain with host for life (as long as it or the host survives).b) A human embryo or fetus has a temporary association with the mother, remaining only a number of months in the uterus.
Parasites steal nutrients from the host for the purpose of the growth, development, and reproduction of their own species at the cost of their host. I've yet to hear a single straight answer as to how a fetus, who's after presented with this list, classifies as a parasite given the fact that it's the same species, and with the proper nutrition, actually betters the health of the mother. A fetus provides stem cells to the mother while developing. These are important to repair the reproductive system after birth as well as repair other bodily systems that consist of specialized, unreproducible cells. So how exactly does a fetus compare with a parasite?
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