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—We love women! That's why we're fighting to ban abortion.
—You say that now, but will you still love me in nine months?
The National Institute of Mental health says postpartum depression affects 15% of women after giving birth. Now add to that the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD):
The incidence of childbirth-related PTSD hasn't been widely studied. But a new survey suggests the disorder could be more widespread than previously believed. Of more than 900 U.S. mothers surveyed, 9% screened positive for meeting all of the formal criteria for PTSD set out in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-IV, a handbook of mental-health conditions. And 18% of respondents had some signs of the disorder. The survey, which included an established PTSD screening tool, was conducted by Harris Interactive for Childbirth Connection, a nonprofit maternity-care organization in New York. Separate earlier studies outside the U.S. had estimated the prevalence of childbirth-related PTSD at between 1.5% and 5.9% [Rachel Zimmerman, "Birth Trauma: Stress Disorder Afflicts Moms," Wall Street Journal, 2008.08.05, p. D1].
The source of this information, the New Mothers Speak Out survey, finds that "African-American women, those without private health insurance and women with unplanned pregnancies were more likely to have PTSD symptoms."
So I understand that supporters of Initiated Measure 11 are worried about women's mental health. Are they willing then to stick around to help women who choose not to have abortions and then experience the mental health problems that can arise from giving birth? Will they devote any extra resources to helping those groups identified as being at higher risk of PTSD symptoms? Are they willing to support government action like the Melanie Blocker Stokes Mothers Act, which WSJ reports would authorize a study on the benefits of mental health screening for mothers-to-be? Or will we see a convergence of Leslee Unruh's "Big Pharma" spin lines with Amy Philo's campaign trying to portray this legislation to help mothers as part of a plot by the "Big Pharma Gestapo"? (Amy Philo's blog posts get some play on various pro-life feed aggregators; I can't help thinking the parallel language is no coincidence.)
Just seems like more evidence that the abortion banners will co-opt language about women's mental health when it serves their purposes, but they drop that language fast when it comes time to help real women with real babies and real problems.
Update 13:00 CDT: The New Mothers Speak Out survey "Quick Facts" sheet (PDF alert... and registration required) lists other details on how women could use some more support after givign birth:
- 63% of new mothers experience "some degree of depressive symptoms."
- Over a quarter of new moms experience at least one of 15 specific health problems after giving birth.
- Almost half of working women felt they couldn't stay home after giving birth as long as they wanted. Main reason for heading back to work sooner than their maternal instincts told them they should: financial pressures.
- "Mothers who were employed or on maternity leave indicated on average that 7 months of paid maternity leave would be ideal, in line with guaranteed benefits in many other affluent nations, yet just 1% who had been employed outside the home during pregnancy actually had 4 or more months of fully paid leave."
Or how about the mental health issues suffered by birth mothers who put children up for adoption? It's amazing to me that none of these other issues are ever addressed in the anti-abortion world.
ReplyDeleteJust where do people start to accept responsibility for their own decisions? If people want a baby, the need to plan for it, both financially and emotionally. It's not up to me to pay for a mother and/or father to take off months to stay home with their baby. I'm sorry, but Europeans have a lot of ideas that aren't necessarily the best ones for the good of a nation or family or anything else. They pay taxes thru the nose for the privilege of long breaks from work for vacations and maternity reasons, free health care, free drugs for the drug addicted, free college, etc etc, money from the gov't just because you are a citizen of that country. In this country we are more conditioned to a sense of self-responsibility, and I don't think the haves will be willing to spend over half of their paycheck on programs that benefit those who choose not to work or make poor choices or come here illegally etc. What happens when all the people willing to work quit? The pyramid falls.
ReplyDeleteSo mental health issues after an abortion are a huge problem, to the point that we actually need to ban abortion to protect women from themselves - even though the APA finds that no such link between abortion and mental health exists. But women suffering from PTSD and post-partum depression - mental problems that we know exist - need to take responsibility for their lives and get over it?
ReplyDeleteI am really not understanding the logic, here.
The reason my website is named uniteforlife is because we are uniting to stop unnecessary death caused by antidepressants and other psychotropic drugs. It just so happens that the push for drugging mothers while they are pregnant and putting them on highly addictive drugs that render birth control ineffective quite often actually causes UNWANTED spontaneous abortions, stillbirths, preterm births, and birth defects. Or do you believe that women who WANT their babies should be lied to about the medications they are taking, or forced by psychiatrists to take these drugs and then they become pregnant and their baby is born with a birth defect. Many babies die soon after birth or from SIDS when exposed via pregnancy or breastmilk exposure. You make yourself out to look like an ignorant or callous person when you don't grasp the implications whether intended or not intended of this legislation. If you care so much about women's rights then why are you not concerned about women being carted off to the hospital by police for mentioning they are depressed, locked away from their newborns, and given drugs with a black box warning? If you really cared about the mental health of women you would be concerned about women committing suicide, or women having babies who are born with defects or who die, which then causes women to feel extremely guilty and depressed. Your post makes you look like a total hypocrite. I encourage you to get informed.
ReplyDeleteIf you need references let me know - I would be happy to point you to the proper articles.
Oh, and by the way, the post you link to which references the Big Pharma Gestapo was written by my co-blogger, Jenny Hatch, who was actually FORCED TO TAKE DRUGS FOR MONTHS BY COURTS when she became psychotic. She was also raped in the hospital by orderlies and got herpes from it. In the case of your citation calling it my description of the bill makes you look even worse considering the title of the post you linked to was THANKING me not a post BY me, which should take you about two seconds to figure out if you were reading it.
Reading posts like this really makes me wonder about your motives since you seem to be so incredibly defensive.
Easy, Amy -- actually, I'm totally on board with the message that we don't need all the drugs Big Pharma tries to market to us, and we don't need the government doing the pharmaceutical companies any more favors. I question whether the Stokes bill would lead to forced drugging of mothers, but I'll leave that debate to you and Congress. Show me your position helps women and checks corporations, and I'm with you. But if all the bill does is promote the study of ways to help mothers with PTSD, well, I'll support it.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm really wondering (and you can easily clarify this for me) is how much crossover there is between your supporters on this issue and supporters of abortion bans. I found your blog cropping up on anti-abortion RSS feed aggregators, even though your site doesn't mention elective abortion. If it's just the mention of spontaneous abortion caused by the drugs, no problem. But I'm curious whether there is some other cognitive/agenda connection there.
Hopefully my motives are clearer for you now. I'm outnumbered by females in my house, and I love them both, so I'm as interested in protecting women's rights as you are. But here in South Dakota, I run into a lot of folks who cloak their anti-abortion crusade in "women's rights" talk that they don't follow up on when it comes to helping women and children after birth... and that probably does make me sound defensive. My wife and daughter warrant a lot of defense.
Europeons pay a lot of taxes for the advantages you were bashing, I would be willing to bet the benefits outweigh the costs. If you compared what you pay for taxes and added the cost of the things you have ot either pay for or lose wages over, when you have to take family leave, pay for health care, have a vacation etc.
ReplyDelete