Help, Healing, Research, Education and Advocacy
By David C. Reardon, Ph.D. There is an important connection between violence in the womb and violence in the home. Certainly not every abortion leads to domestic violence, nor is every case of domestic violence rooted in the trauma of a prior abortion. But it is not a coincidence that the rates of abortion and […]
It was the trial of the decade. But the media frenzy over Lorena Bobbitt’s midnight mutilation of her husband John barely gave mention to a core piece of her testimony. She was a victim of forced abortion. Psychiatric experts for both the prosecution and defense agreed: her forced abortion contributed to post-traumatic stress disorder.
By David C. Reardon, Ph.D. On December 12, 1993, I read a report stating that John Bobbitt had pressured Lorena into undergoing an unwanted abortion. Given the substantial number of cases in our files where women and men reported the onset of domestic violence post-abortion, I did not find this news at all surprising. The […]
David C. Reardon, Ph.D. There are many reasons why the defense team for Lorena Bobbitt chose not to fully explore the known relationship between Lorena’s abortion and her attack on John. Most of the following explanations were conveyed to me by principals in the case. First, the job of the defense team was to gain […]
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 […]