“God may forgive you your sins but your nervous system won’t”…Albert Korzybski

Indigenous women for thousands of years went out into the fields, selected certain herbs that grew wild and consumed them with no side effects in a society that religiously and socially accepted the woman’s right to choose. Modern culture has had more adverse effects from the mechanical suction to the prescription drugs. Here is a case in point:

In real life experience, spiritual, emotional, physical, mental and environmental issues are muddled with other factors. A young 18 year old woman found herself pregnant, did not tell her parents, sought out a therapist, health practitioners and with her boyfriend accompanying her, had an abortion at an approved abortion clinic in New York. But subconsciously her nagging religious Christian upbringing affected her whole being. She began to have issues:

Physically: painful menstruation, migraines, fluid in the lungs (grief unexpressed), cramping, endometriosis (common among Hispanics, African Americans and Italian/Greek decent), constant colds and flu. When she tried to become pregnant after getting married, she suffered an entopic pregnancy (fetus growing in the fallopian tube) which ruptured and led to infertility issues. She could never become pregnant again after repeated attempts at fertility clinics. As a guinea pig for science, she endured multiple procedures, air blown into her remaining tube, laparoscopy, until her belly looked like a train track (severing the acupuncture ‘meridian lines’ from every direction). Was it the birth control pills or the abortion procedure that led to the endometriosis or her mental/emotional state or a combination of all of the above? After the ectopic rupture, she developed anemia, toxemia, liver issues and suffered from numerous illnesses (from guilt?) for most of her adult life. She was uninformed about the possible physiological side effects of abortion: Endometriosis, infertility, heavy and persistent bleeding, infection or sepsis, scarring of uterine lining, perforation of uterus, damage to other organs and death, breast and vaginal cancer.

Emotionally: She became ‘numb’ right after the abortion and was unable to ‘feel’ anything again. She said she felt like a robot going about life, one task to another. After years of therapy, the numbness turned into rage from hurt, guilt and anger at herself for being talked into it. She suffered from depression, rage and guilt most of her adult life. Her anger was venting in every direction except for directly confronting the ‘real issues’. Society, culture, job, bosses, family, etc. all became the targets for her repressed, explosive feelings. No one ever told her the emotional side effects of abortion: Mild regret, depression, guilt, anger, shame, loneliness, isolation, impaired self-confidence, insomnia, nightmares, relationship issues, suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, anxiety.

Spiritually; Subconsciously, her Christian upbringing taught her that she had killed a living being. Under the surface festering, she felt she needed to punish herself by never becoming pregnant or carrying a child to full term. The spiritual side effects of abortion in a predominately ‘Christian’ world: self-sabotage, ‘shooting self in the foot’ numbness, loss of spirit and passion for life, lack of motivation, unhappiness, unable to find joy and pleasure in life.

Mentally: She suffered from one breakdown and melt down after another. Her decision-making processes were jaded by her guilt, anger, rage against herself and boyfriend and fear of being found out. Her dreams were nightmares. She often thought of committing suicide.

The mental side effects of abortion are much like the emotional with additional symptoms: inability to concentrate, to focus on a task, stay connected, wandering, moving from relationship to relationship or job to job or location to location, inability to hold down a job, extremely judgmental of others, lack of intimacy, becoming an extreme intellectual to the exclusion of everything else, isolationism.