A Healing Model for Newly Aborted Women
Vicki Thorn
In the last few years, a radical shift has happened in the ministry of post-abortion healing. For many years, the average woman who came for help was five to ten years post-abortive and was between the ages of 25 and 35. Now contact is often made by women who are only months, days, or even hours past their abortion loss. They are often young, in their teens or early 20’s.
As the director of the National Office of Post-Abortion Reconciliation & Healing, I have spoken to thousands of women, and it is clear to me that women who have just had an abortion are in a very different place than women who are years past the experience.
The woman who has just had an abortion is first and foremost in a state of biochemical shock. The pregnancy has ended, most often in the first trimester, when her body is awash in the chemistry of pregnancy. The abrupt end of a pregnancy by abortion does not allow for the normal resolution of the chemistry of pregnancy.
Research done in the US and Switzerland found that at the end of a pregnancy (whether through miscarriage, procured abortion, Caesarean delivery or vaginal delivery) a cell transfer occurs from the child to the mother. These cells have been found in women 37 years later and they continue to be chemically active. No one has yet determined the purpose of the cells, but they lodge in the part of the brain where seemingly instinctual behavior, such as breathing and sex, arises.
Many women report that they feel hormonally unsettled until they reach the anticipated due date of their aborted pregnancy. Some report having specific body symptoms like a strange menstrual period, abdominal pain, or a discharge of fluid. It seems that the brain may still be hormonally charged until the due date, possibly because of these cells.
This hormonal disruption makes women feel very unsettled and emotionally volatile. It would seem that the chemistry of the pregnancy may not conclude until the time the baby would have been born. Women report feeling much better physically at this time. Once the due date has passed, there often is a growing awareness of more implications of the abortion decision.
The woman reacts as any mother would who had lost a pregnancy prenatally–with shock, numbness, depression, listlessness, and anxiety. It is normal during this period for the mother to feel like she is “going crazy.” She feels empty and yearns again to be pregnant. Sleep disorders, dreams of the baby, auditory hallucinations of a baby crying, decreased appetite, and suicidal feelings often occur. Scandinavian research indicated that women who had abortions were three times as likely to die of suicide in the year after their abortion compared to nonpregnant women, with an increase in deaths from homicide and accidents as well.
Often during these first months after abortion, the relationship with the father of the child is also failing, adding more stress and an additional source of grief. Many of these women had preexisting factors that signaled their proneness to complicated mourning or a prolonged grief reaction. Trauma research indicates that those with previous traumatic experiences are more stress-sensitive and predisposed to developing post-traumatic stress disorder in subsequent trauma. Many women who have an abortion have a previous history of sexual abuse. Suffice it to say that many injurious coping techniques can be established during this time.
It became clear to me that a different model of support was needed to help these women transition through these early months. To move them into the process of healing too quickly could result in what psychologist Henry Venter calls “pseudo-healing.” Because these women are extremely vulnerable during this time, they will do anything to make the pain disappear.
Because they look to us as the experts, they believe that whatever we tell them will work. When they move on to another stage of grieving where they are once again emotionally vulnerable and the pain returns, they may be confused by its return and may turn on themselves in self-judgement, assuming that there is something inherently wrong with them. This experience can inhibit the woman from seeking help later and may cause her to not trust those who could help her. “It didn’t work last time,” she concludes, and now she is stuck.
In helping a woman heal after an abortion, we need to remember that this is a mother who has lost a child in a traumatic and unnatural fashion. She is physically fragile from the abortion procedure and her body needs to heal. She is caught in the web of unanticipated mourning. She was totally unprepared for what she is feeling.
To rush the woman through the healing process without recognizing the time and stages involved in the grief process is not respectful of her inherent need to move through grief at her own pace. We must be cognizant that while she is exhibiting intense pain, she is likely to be emotionally numb and unable to truly enter into deep spiritual and psychological healing.
The protocol that I have proposed is one based on understanding the stages of the grieving process, as well as the physiological manifestations of profound grief. When a woman contacts us, our acceptance of wherever she is and our acknowledgment that her distress is not abnormal frees her. Here is someone who understands what she is going through.
It is crucial to provide her with accurate information about what is happening in her body, explaining the possible hormonal delay and the feelings that go with it. We need to give her information that will help her to heal physically. This includes the need to be eating regularly and including protein in her diet each day. Women often are not eating or binging on carbohydrates such as candy or soda, which can aggravate the suicidal potential by setting off a blood sugar imbalance. Inclusion of protein will help to balance her blood sugar. Sleep deprivation also aggravates depression and suicidal tendencies, so information on twenty-minute “power naps” may help control sleep deprivation. Exercise triggers naturally occurring endorphins that can make her feel better. She needs to be referred to a doctor for medical concerns.
By establishing a personal relationship with the woman and making ourselves available to her over time, we offer her the long-term support she needs to transition to the next phase of grieving. This is the start of reconnecting with people and learning to trust again. In maintaining supportive contact with her (this may be several times a week), we can monitor her progress, point out how she is getting better, and be vigilant to suicidal urges and other potentially dangerous coping mechanisms. When she has recovered physically and moved out of emotional numbness, she may then be ready to move on to a conventional post-abortion healing program.
The loss of a child through abortion is one of the most traumatic experiences a woman can go through. I believe we must be careful not to try to rush her through a process that she is not able to truly absorb. To meet her where she is and to be willing to walk beside her through her healing honors the depth of her pain, and affirms her preciousness in God’s eyes and ours. Our commitment to helping her affirms that her abortion was not a meaningless occurrence and that healing from abortion is not magical or quick.
Our respectful acknowledgment of the profound loss she has endured affirms her lived experience of it. We must be careful not to trivialize it. The healing journey is hers to take in step with God, who leads each person in the way they are to go.
We have an obligation as caregivers to help her achieve authentic healing.
Vicki Thorn is executive director of The National Office for Post-Abortion Reconciliation and Healing and holds a certificate in trauma counseling. She can be reached at noparh@yahoo.com. You can reach NOPARH at (800) 593-2273 or www.noparh.org.
