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Are you hurting after an abortion?
Do you work in a health-related or pastoral role with people who may have had an
abortion?
Would you like to know more about the possible aftermath of abortion?
Welcome to the P.A.T.H.S. information site which offers insights into life after
abortion, the possible effects and impact on people and relationships.
Our particular desire is to offer "hope" for those hurting after
their abortion experiences and understanding for those in relationship with them,
as well as information for those in helping roles whose paths they may cross.
When a woman loses her unborn baby through abortion she can suffer deeply. The baby
who is being created inside her physically, and to whom she is attached at some
level emotionally, psychologically and spiritually has been taken from her.
Some women are obviously distressed at the time or soon after an abortion. Others
appear to be unaffected. But invariably something happens on the deeper levels of
a woman’s consciousness when she loses a baby through abortion, though often the
trauma may sink into the unconscious and not surface for months or years later.
Abortion can affect the way a woman views herself, her experience of womanhood,
maternity, her present and future relationships, her world view... Abortion affects
women differently but there is no denying abortion can and does hurt women - physically,
mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
Abortion is generally not acknowledged as a death-event, and because abortion grief
is not societally recognised and accepted many women feel isolated and alone with
their grief and anguish. It can help to talk it through with someone uninvolved,
who has special skills in caring and listening, and a knowledge of abortion-specific
effects and issues.
Fathers grieve too, and
family and friends can also be affected and may need help to work through issues.
With 18,510 abortions
in New Zealand for the year 2003 (cf 16,103 in 2000, 14,805 in 1996 and 11,173 in
1990), and approximately one third of these being repeat abortions (i.e. women who
have had one or more previous abortions) we are, we believe, facing a huge but as
yet largely hidden problem.
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Welcome and Introduction