A Story of Destruction: the Testimony • AfterAbortion.org

David C. Reardon, Ph.D.

In 1988, Lorena came to the United States on a visa with high hopes for becoming married and raising a family here. When this 19-year-old girl met the handsome John Wayne Bobbitt, sharply dressed in a Marine uniform, she was more than ready to believe that he was the beginning of her dreams come true.

They dated for a period of approximately ten months. Their dates were always chaperoned, as was customary in both Lorena’s family and with the Castros, a Latin-American family with whom Lorena was living. Over the objections of the Castro family, Lorena and John were hastily married in a civil ceremony on June 18, 1989, shortly before Lorena’s visa was due to expire.

The Pattern of Jealousy

According to court testimony, the early months of their marriage were marked by displays of jealously and possessiveness, by both parties. For example, a month after the wedding, John’s family hosted a party at Niagara Falls. According to John’s aunt, Lorena was jealous of John’s attentions to a young woman at the gathering and took him aside for an angry scolding. The young woman, it turned out, was simply a close cousin.

Immediately after the family celebration, John’s brother, Todd, returned to Lorena and John’s apartment and, much to Lorena’s chagrin, stayed over three months in the newlyweds’ small apartment. The testimony furthermore implies that during this time John spent as much time going out to party with his brother as he spent with his wife. Eventually, Lorena asked Todd to leave. In the four following years, there were many similar long “stopovers,” often without prior notice, from other friends or relations of John’s, with similar results. Lorena clearly saw these long visits as burdensome and disruptive of their relationship.

John was even more intensely jealous. On a trip to Ocean City with Todd and a friend of Lorena’s, Terri, John suddenly cut the trip short when passing men whistled at the two young women. John dragged Lorena off the boardwalk and insisted that all four would immediately return to Manassas. On the trip home, John again became enraged over men in passing cars who were presumably looking at Lorena, and he accused her of inviting their attentions. According to Lorena and Terri, this escalated into a physical fight between John and Lorena. Todd and John’s testimony denied that there was any physical altercation.

While there was testimony regarding one or two other conflicts during the first year, nothing of great significance was reported. There were signs of trouble, but both John and Lorena seemed convinced that their marriage was working and could be improved.

The Trauma’s Root

Anxious to expand upon her dream of having “a dream house, family, [and] children,” Lorena deliberately became pregnant in the Spring of 1990. She did not tell John about her decision to discontinue taking birth control pills. She simply decided to surprise him, believing that a child was the greatest gift a woman could give her husband.

In her own family and culture, Lorena had witnessed many great examples of celebration when wives announced their pregnancies to their husbands. So she carefully prepared a special announcement for John. She bought a tiny baby’s bib, waited for a private moment together, and gently laid it upon his chest, offering him the gift of her child.

It was then that her dream of creating a happy home and family was irrevocably shattered. Rather than bringing them closer together, as she had hoped, the news of her pregnancy drove them apart. John cursed at her. He insisted they weren’t ready. They couldn’t afford a baby. She would have to have an abortion.

Lorena pleaded, but he would have nothing to do with it. When she told him she would have the baby anyway, he threatened to leave her. She spoke to her friend and employer, Jana Bisutti, seeking support for her desire to keep her baby. But according to John, Jana supported the abortion, telling Lorena “she had a couple of abortions and it wasn’t that bad.” Besides, another employee was already pregnant and Jana didn’t want two workers taking time off work. Lacking support from any quarter, and torn between her love for her child and her duty to her husband, Lorena gave in.

On June 15th, 1990, when she would otherwise have been busy planning to celebrate their first wedding anniversary, Lorena had an abortion. To ensure that the deed was done, John accompanied her to the clinic. When she asked him what it would be like, he told her they would stick needles into her arms. Because she was so terrified and distraught, a nurse had to move her away from John, whom Lorena testified was taunting and laughing at her. Despite this and other obvious warning signs, the clinic counselors and the abortionist did nothing to help Lorena, although it was clear that she did not freely want to have the abortion.

The loss of her child was a tremendous blow against Lorena’s self-esteem, her idealism, and her dream of having a family “just like my family” in Venezuela. Aborting against her conscience, she was morally devastated. “I couldn’t eat,” she testified. “I feel like nothing–like the life is over. I feel–I feel like I was falling apart.” She lost interest in activities she had previously enjoyed and experienced her first reported case of major depression.

John acted oblivious to Lorena’s feelings. According to his perspective, Lorena only felt bad “the rest of the day, and then the next day. By the time we went to bed, she was all right…. I hugged her and told her, you know, just to forget about it. It’s over you know.” He figured that was all there was to it. What more could be said? And so the abortion became something they never talked about again. But this buried pain would continue to manifest itself in other ways.

The Disintegration

One of the first ways in which the abortion affected the marriage was in their sex life. Lorena became sexually frigid, a common post-abortion problem. “I didn’t want to sleep with him. I didn’t want to see him.”

Apparently John did not recognize that this sexual withdrawal was a sign of a broken and bruised spirit which needed healing. Instead, he saw her refusals as willful spite. According to Lorena’s testimony it was at this time that the episodes of forced sex began. This included at least one case of anal intercourse, which was painful and humiliating for Lorena. Thereafter, she testified, he would use the threat of anal intercourse to intimidate her. (It is noteworthy that John may have been using this non-reproductive sex act as a tool to warn Lorena away from becoming pregnant again without his consent.)

A month after the abortion, John insisted on buying a house. Perhaps he saw this as a form of restitution for the abortion. But it quickly became apparent that not only could the house not replace Lorena’s baby, it was going to break her under a load of debt. Within six months after the abortion, John left the Marine Corps. The money he made from subsequent jobs he kept for himself. Lorena had to pay for the house and other joint expenses from her own income. When she could no longer do this, she began to steal. She stole manicuring supplies from her employer so she could work a seventh day each week out of her home. She stole $7200 in cash from her employer. She shoplifted clothing.

All this stealing, she explained, was intended to please her husband, to prove that she was trying to make things work out. John, however, was not impressed. Instead, he insisted that she return the supplies and admit her embezzlement, which she was then required to work off.

After the abortion, their fighting became more frequent, violent, and petty. While there was conflicting testimony describing the events of Thanksgiving Day of 1993, the following account is a reasonable reconstruction. John was watching football on television. Lorena wanted her visiting mother to see a parade, so she changed the channel without asking his permission. John then went to the roof to disconnect the antenna. Lorena locked him out. John kicked in the door. He went to the bedroom and did not join them for Thanksgiving dinner. With the television not working Lorena announced that she and her mother were going to go out to see a movie. To spite her, John took her keys and disabled her car’s engine. She followed him to get her keys, or to use his car, but he drove off and she was knocked to the ground. She called the Marine Corps and filed a complaint.

This was just one of many fights, often bruising and violent, which occurred with increasing frequency. Some witnesses claim seeing Lorena hit and scratch at John. Only one testified actually witnessing John’s violence toward her, perhaps because, as Lorena claimed, John was very good at restraining himself when other people were around. Several witnesses, however, did see extensive bruising on Lorena’s body on different occasions. These facts, combined with the fact that John chose to work as a barroom bouncer and had joined the Marines knowing he would be trained to kill and disable, clearly discredit his claim that he does not “believe in violence.”

During the following years there were many calls to 911. On one occasion, in February of 1991, she called 911 and John was arrested. He responded by swearing out a complaint against her. Both cases were dropped or dismissed.

By this time, there was a great rift between them. They would not spend time together in the evenings. Instead, John would play with his computer or watch TV late into the night, and then come to bed demanding sex. Eventually, John began taunting Lorena telling her about an extramarital affair.

With their marriage in tatters from all their fighting, her stealing, and his womanizing, John left her for six weeks in the spring of 1991 to live with his family in New York. After a brief reconciliation that summer, he went back to his family again in October. He returned to visit her for a few days in May of 1992.

During this separation, they frequently talked by phone. John’s family testified that Lorena badgered him with calls pleading for him to return, promising him that she would stop the stealing. Lorena claims she only called to demand his help with their financial obligations. Records from 911 dispatch show that she called to make one or more complaints against John even during this time when he was gone. In any event, after making mutual promises to reform their behaviors, they reconciled in September of 1992.

Short-Lived Hopes

It would appear from the testimony that the Bobbitts had a period of relative calm after this reunion. During this time, they stayed with friends, first at the Castros and then the Beltrans. The only fight of this period which was the subject of much testimony occurred on New Year’s Eve. Lorena worked late that night. When she returned, she expected to go out with John, as they had discussed. But John had already left to party with some friends. She was angry at being neglected, especially on New Years Eve when they were supposed to be beginning the rebuilding of their marriage. When John returned home late in the morning, he wanted to make love. Obviously, she wasn’t in the mood. A fight erupted that spilled into a public room. Accusations flew, but witnesses at the Beltrans were unable to confirm who was hitting whom.

In April of 1993, they moved into their own apartment, the one at which the cutting incident took place. For a time, Lorena had renewed hopes of finally being alone again to build their marriage and start their family. But only one month after starting their “new life” together, John announced that his friend Robbie would be coming to live with them for a while. John even had plans for building an extra partition in their one bedroom apartment–to give them some more privacy.

Lorena saw the writing on the wall. Once again she would be burdened with another long-term “house guest,” one with whom John would spend his nights partying. Plus, around the same time, John began working as a bouncer at a night club. This choice of jobs angered Lorena, who feared that he would be flirting with women–and would be the object of their flirtations. Neither of these concerns was unreasonable, considering both his past infidelities and his striking good looks.

Lorena threw down the gauntlet, threatening divorce. If Robbie moved in, she would move out. To thwart John’s construction of an extra wall, she warned the building’s superintendent who immediately forbad it.

In early June, she began paving the way for a divorce by attempting to tape record his abusive language. John discovered the tape. Lorena testified that this led to a fight which ended in his raping her and her scratching his face. Around this time, Lorena stated, John also threatened that if she ever left him he could still find her and have sex with her anytime, and in any way, that he wanted.

After this incident, if not before, Lorena began talking to friends and neighbors about John raping and beating her. Though she received numerous offers for shelter, she refused these opportunities to get away from him.

The Anniversary

On June 18th, their fourth wedding anniversary, and three days after the third anniversary of the abortion, Lorena went to visit Dr. Susan Inman, her family physician. She was hyperventilating and complained that she was filled with anxiety and experiencing cramping. She was having gastrointestinal problems. Her hands were shaking, and she couldn’t concentrate on her work. She was suffering from insomnia. (All of these are classic symptoms of an anniversary reaction associated with post-abortion PTSD.)

When Dr. Inman asked if she was under some source of stress, Lorena complained she was having problems with her husband. When asked if he was hitting her or hurting, she said no. She did however say that he was having sex with her without her permission. Dr. Inman suggested that Lorena should contact Protective Services if she needed help.

On that evening of their anniversary, they had sexual intercourse. As always, John testified it was consensual. He swore that he never forced himself upon her, at any time. On the other hand, Lorena says she told him “No” and swears that he raped her in the hall telling her, “Forced sex excites me.”

The next day, Saturday, Lorena went to work. Nothing of major consequence was reported as having occurred on this day.

The Houseguest Arrives

On Sunday morning, Father’s Day, they again had sexual intercourse. This time, Lorena says, it was with her consent. She, and her defense psychiatrist, however, state that she only reluctantly gave her consent because she feared being raped or abused if she refused.

During, or shortly after this, Robbie arrived at their apartment. After a brief greeting at the door, Lorena asked him to leave for a while so she could have privacy. She testified that she had not known that he would be arriving that day. Robbie left to make a phone call and then returned and went to the pool with John. A while later, Lorena went to the pool to ask John’s help in finding her keys.

John testified that Lorena wanted him to return to the apartment because Robbie had interrupted their lovemaking and she had not yet achieved an orgasm. He swore they made love a second time, and then he returned to the pool. Lorena denied this and stated that they only looked for her keys. Robbie dozed by the pool while John was gone. When he finally went up to the apartment, he testified, John and Lorena were both there and “were kind of like smirking.” Lorena again asked Robbie to leave, saying she needed privacy. He left for lunch and when he returned Lorena was moving boxes out of the apartment.

Lorena was taking the boxes to the apartment of Diane Hall, a neighbor. She ate dinner with Diane that evening and spoke of the rape on Friday. Diane offered to let her stay in her apartment. Lorena declined the offer. Lorena testified that she refused this and other offers of shelter because Robbie was staying at the apartment and John was always careful not to attack her when others were around.

At this point it is worth noting the conflicting feelings Lorena expressed in her testimony regarding Robbie’s presence. On one hand, Robbie’s presence made her feel safer. On the other hand, Lorena consistently testified that it was the issue of Robbie’s visit, not the abuse, which had finally prompted her to move out and seek a divorce. She apparently believed his presence was disruptive of their efforts to rebuild their marriage. She saw him as just the latest in the string of John’s relatives and friends who became long-term houseguests. Thus, it would appear that she both resented his presence, and the distraction he offered John from her, but she also felt safer from abuse while he was in the apartment.

On Monday, Lorena went to the Courthouse and filled out papers to obtain a Protective Order against John which would have required him to leave the apartment. The clerk asked her to wait while the order was typed, but she declined and left. She did not return that day, or the next, to complete the process.

On Monday and Tuesday she told additional acquaintances of the abuse she had been enduring and of her intention to leave John. Again, she refused their offers of shelter. During these two days, Robbie testified, John and Lorena were mostly ignoring each other. At some time during these two days, Lorena stole a $100 bill from Robbie’s wallet. She subsequently explained that she did so because John owed her money.

The Cutting Incident

On Tuesday night, John and Robbie went out drinking until three in the morning. When he returned, both Lorena and John recall, they exchanged a few words and then he joined her in bed and fell asleep for about an hour.

According to John, when he woke to adjust the covers he saw Lorena sleeping in her lingerie and he began caressing her. “I wanted to perform but I was too exhausted….I rolled over and I was on top of her. And then I remember that she put her knees up, and she put her arms around me, and then I just fell back off to sleep.” He subsequently claims waking up briefly on his back and she was fondling him, but again he fell back to sleep. The next thing he remembers is waking up with her at the side of the bed, two swift pulls on his groin, and then the cutting.

Lorena’s testimony is that when John first awoke he pulled off her underwear and forced himself upon her. She asked, “What are you doing?” and told him “I don’t want to have sex.” He ignored her and proceeded to rape her. After he was done, he rolled over and went to sleep. She got out of bed, put her underwear on, and went to the kitchen to settle down and get a glass of water. By the light of the refrigerator she saw the knife and began to have a flashback experience in which she remembered the abortion, the fear of “syringes to go through my bones and I was going to die,” the first time he raped her, the anal sex, and the “insults and bad words that he told me.”

The next thing Lorena is able to recall, in her testimony, is driving. She was approaching a stop sign and found her hands occupied and unable to manage the turn. It was then that she realized she had John’s severed penis in her hand. Horrified, she threw it out the window and continued driving to the beauty parlor where she worked. When she tried to go into the building, she discovered that she still had the bloody knife in her hand. She screamed and threw it into a trash can. After washing her hands, she drove to her employer’s house. From there the police were contacted and the location of the penis and knife were disclosed.

While the penis was being surgically reattached, Detective Peter Weintz had a taped interview with Lorena. Lorena told Detective Weintz what happened in greater detail than she was later able to remember. Psychiatric experts for both the defense and prosecution would appear to agree that her subsequent lack of memory was genuine. There was disagreement, however, as to whether or not the details Lorena told Detective Weintz were genuine memories or simply her attempt to reconstruct for herself what must have happened.

Did the trauma of the that evening’s events cause her memory to fade, or did it completely block her memory in the first place? Following are excerpts from that tape.

[After John raped me] he pushed me away like when he finished like he did it before. Sometimes he just push me away, make me feel really bad because that’s not fair, that’s not nice.

I went to the kitchen to drink water…. And I turned my back and I–the first think I saw was the knife. Then I took it and I was just angry. And I took it and I went to the bedroom and I told him–he shouldn’t do this to me. Why he did it. Then I said I asked him if he was satisfied with what he did. Then he said he doesn’t care about my feelings. He did say that and I ask him if he has orgasm inside me because it hurt me when he made me do that before. He always have orgasm and he doesn’t wait for me to have orgasm. He’s selfish. I don’t think it’s fair, so I pull back the sheets and then I did it.

Among the other bizarre, but perhaps very meaningful aspects of this case, is the fact that when fleeing the house that night, Lorena took Robbie’s Game Boy, a pocket video game, with her. She does not recall doing so, but it was in her possession and subsequently returned to Robbie.

The Psychiatric Testimony

Expert witnesses for both the prosecution and defense agreed that in the weeks before the cutting incident, Lorena was experiencing a period of major depression. All of the psychiatric experts were also in agreement that at the time they examined her she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They were also in unanimous agreement that the abortion had a devastating impact on Lorena. None, however, were willing to specify precisely what traumatic experience had precipitated this mental condition. Instead, they based their diagnosis of PTSD upon a general history of physical abuse.

Three of the four testifying experts believed that symptoms of PTSD were present at the time of the cutting incident. The fourth, Dr. Evan Nelson, a witness for the prosecution, argued that the PTSD symptoms were only evident after the cutting incident.

The psychiatrist who testified for the defense was Dr. Susan Feister. It should be noted that another expert working for the defense was a psychologist who is an expert in fields of trauma and post-abortion issues. (See “The Elliot Institute’s Role in Uncovering the Mystery.”) While this traumatologist assisted Dr. Feister in identifying additional symptoms which supported the diagnosis of PTSD, Dr. Feister was hostile to view that the coerced abortion was the primary trauma which lay at the root of Lorena’s PTSD.

Dr. Feister’s hostility to the view that abortion can be traumatic mirrors that of the many persons in the psychiatric professions. This antagonism is often arises from political views favoring unrestricted abortion. Some therapists fear that any admission that abortion traumatizes some women will be used to regulate abortion.

Another motivation for denial of abortion related trauma is more personal. Many therapists have a personal investment in the abortion decisions of others–clients, loved ones, or themselves. If such a therapist admits that abortion may cause psychological problems, he or she must then confront the fact that any abortions which they have advised or “blessed” may have ended up injuring their patients rather than helping them.

In any event, while it should be noted that Dr. Feister would probably disagree with my analysis of this case (see “Their Deepest Wound“), her testimony actually provides additional evidence in support of my thesis.

Dr. Feister testified that, at the time of the cutting, Lorena “suffered from major depressive disorder, she suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, and she suffered from anxiety disorder, that is panic disorder.” Lorena had a strong religious belief that abortion was a terrible sin. “She felt, in her words, that it was like killing the baby. She felt extremely guilty about having the abortion and she became quite depressed for several months after the time she had the abortion…. She felt very ashamed of it.”

In her overall diagnosis, Dr. Feister described Lorena as having strong feelings of worthlessness and “excessive guilt.” She also had “reoccurring thoughts of death, thinking about the possibility of suicide, but did not have any specific plan and did not wish to really harm herself or kill herself.” As an example of self-destructive behavior, Dr. Feister described one incident in which Lorena was driving recklessly down the highway while “reliving one of her rape experiences.” It was not until honking horns brought her to her senses that Lorena pulled off to the roadside to cry and compose herself.

Lorena also had a shortened sense of the future. “Lorena described very vividly that she would never have any children and felt that there really was no future for her at all.”

It was shortly after the abortion, Dr. Feister testified, that “the violence took a very ominous turn for the worst.” Their altercations had previously occured about once a month. At this time, however, she estimated the incidents of violence began to occur weekly, and eventually twice a week or more. The fighting also involved greater levels of violence. “It was not uncommon,” Feister testified, “for him after he had beat her to try to comfort her, promise that he would be better in the future, and then attempt to have sex with her and often forcibly have sex with her.”

This concludes my summary of the relevant testimony. In the accompanying article, “Their Deepest Wound” I will attempt to explain how the events and emotions described in these court transcripts can best be understood from the perspective of abortion’s impact on women, men, and family systems.

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