Does This Not Raise Some Questions? Journalistic Cowardice in the Abortion Debate

Artist Hanged Herself after Aborting Her Twins

As a woman, I find the above article insulting and infuriating for the questions it does not bother to ask.

Go ahead and read it. Then start breaking it down.

The headline in itself is enough to jolt your nerves. I don't know about you, but I hear "hanged" and something in me thuds. Then you read "Aborting" and "Twins."

We move on to the first line: "An artist killed herself after aborting her twins when she was eight weeks pregnant, leaving a note saying: 'I should never have had an abortion. I see now I would have been a good mum.'"

Conclusions a child (if God forbid they were exposed to this) could draw: This woman thought she wouldn't be a good mom, so she got an abortion. Getting an abortion ends your chance to be a mom. But the woman changed her mind about her qualifications and actions, and because of her consuming guilt, she killed herself. That raises up natural questions about the nature of abortion, such as: How many women feel this way after abortion? Do all women who go through it really want to abort their babies? Is counseling enough for women faced with this decision? Keep those questions in mind.

Then we move on to the third paragraph, also taken from the suicide note: "I told everyone I didn't want to do it, even at the hospital. I was frightened, now it is too late. I died when my babies died. I want to be with my babies: they need me, no-one else does."

For lack of a better way to say it: This line says it all. Or rather, the last three lines do. Those babies were real. The mother's grief following recognition of her act and its consequences is real too. There is raw emotion in those lines. And you have the image of what followed the note to validate it.

But the rest of the article does little to acknowledge this. The woman and her grief are practically moved aside. Instead, it focuses all of its attention on the first line: "I told everyone I didn't want to do it, even at the hospital." Paragraph after paragraph follows from the institutions, discrediting the woman's claim. How does the hospital answer? That's not true - the hospital followed procedure. They gave her the amount of counseling given to everyone else.

To the reader: does not that raise some questions?

Her mother is the only one who identifies abortion itself as the problem, not the counseling or lack thereof; "I believe this [getting the abortion] is what led Emma to take her own life - she could not live with what she had done."

No one - no one else - in the article addresses the fact that logistics on English Abortion Counseling Policies are NOT the issue at hand: the issue at hand is that a woman decided to perform the action of an abortion on her twin babies and subsequently killed herself from the grief. The matter worth probing into not WHETHER she got adequate counseling, but that the supposedly adequate counseling was not enough. The emotional distress and guilt she experienced - because of the nature of what she did - were vaster than any counseling could support or mitigate. Does that not raise questions about what abortion does to women's psychological health?

All the hospital appears to be concerned with, according to its representative, is the following: "I am satisfied that everything was done to make sure that Emma consented to the operation."

The implied message of the hospital's statement, which mirrors that of abortion clinics across the globe, is as follows: It's the woman's choice, so she can live with it. She requests. She consents. The hospital complies and performs the "operation." Thousands of women consent to it every day. Notice how the hospital - nor the article - does not issue a a single statistic about whether women normally experience these feelings of guilt after the "operation." No, all they have to say is: the woman consents. The hospitals and clinics wash their hands. It's on the woman's - 'Unsupported, lives alone, ex-partner aware' - shoulders.

Another line also shows the pervading mentality; according to a hospital doctor, "She had a long history of anxiety and depression. Despite my best efforts, she was not willing to see a counselor after the termination."

Two questions: Then why did they give her abortion in the first place? And would counseling erase the action she already performed? No. This speaks to something greater, which the majority of persons quoted in this article refuse to acknowledge. Why? Because, as the last two lines reiterate:

"Recording a verdict of suicide, Dr Carlyon said: "It is clear that a termination can have a profound effect on a woman's life.
But I am reassured by the evidence of the doctors here."

This should make women across the world furious. That no one is probing into the deeper issues at the heart of this story shows a fear and complacency on the part of the media that is damaging and insulting to women's health. The facts are there, the questions are clear - why is no one demanding answers?