FOUR STEPS TO FREEDOM
An Interview with Dr. Rosa Stummer

You cannot just go out on the street, kill someone, and expect your psyche, your sense of self-esteem, and conscience to remain unaffected. Nor can a woman who has killed her child expect her future life and mental health to go untouched, since unconsciously she knows she has killed her child.

As a doctor you treat people suffering from post-abortion syndrome. What exactly is PAS?

Medical literature treats the syndrome as a complex of symptoms. It has been discovered that women who have undergone abortions manifest classic symptoms of a physical, psychosomatic, and psychic nature. At times I have the distinct impression that my patient is listing her symptoms straight from the textbook. That is how classic these symptoms are.

Among the most common physical symptoms, even before the doctor performs the abortion, are bleeding, infections, and uterine disorders. Abortions often result in menstrual disturbances. I see this very often in the women and young girls who visit me. Premature births and miscarriages are common as well. Often there is a long latency period. By this I mean there is a considerable lapse of time between the abortion and the appearance of symptoms such as a cancer. I see women coming down with cancer up to twenty years after having an abortion. In most cases these are breast cancers, but other cancers are common as well. These stem typically from a chronic sense of guilt. Repressed feelings of guilt weaken our immune system, thus increasing our chances of developing cancer. Toward the end of the third trimester the concentration of estrogens in the bloodstream rises to well above average levels in such a way as never occurs in the normal cycle, or during a miscarriage. Estrogen causes the breast cells to grow and divide, which in medical parlance is called proliferation. These cells are as yet undifferentiated and unspecialized, and we know that cells at this stage are prone to degeneration. In the normal course of things these glands begin differentiating in the thirty-second week. As a result, lactiferous ducts are formed, and these represent an excellent defense against breast cancer. When a woman has an abortion in the first trimester, the chances of her developing breast cancer are considerably higher, especially if there has already been cancer in the family, or if the woman is young and continues to use contraceptives such as the Pill.

As far as psychosomatic symptoms are concerned, sexual disorders are very common. In addition, there are functional disorders of the abdomen, generalized abdominal pain, migraines, insomnia, and nightmares. These are classic symptoms. They show up in just about every woman who has had an abortion.

As for psychic symptoms, there is a whole list of them. Often you will observe a great sense of guilt and sorrow, an emotional numbness, a feeling of emptiness, depression, anxiety attacks, loss of self-esteem, self-destructive tendencies, and substance abuse. Women sometimes contemplate suicide. Incidence of suicide jumps noticeably in the wake of an abortion. Marital and relationship problems arise. The woman often yearns for another pregnancy to replace the lost child. These are just a few of the symptoms. To these we could add mood swings, uncontrollable crying, hyperirritability (e.g. over the sound of the vacuum cleaner), etc. There are all kinds of symptoms. One should keep in mind, however, that not every woman showing them has had an abortion. But for women who have undergone abortions these are the most common symptoms.

Is it only women who consult you, or do other people suffer from the syndrome as well?

Abortion affects not just the woman and the child who dies as a result. What most people do not realize is that it affects all of society. It also affects the father, who might want to keep the child, or who knows nothing about the abortion, and later feels that there is someone missing. We are talking here about a sense of sadness, of joy deprived, of an undefined failure. Studies in North America have shown that the siblings of aborted children also suffer. After working with abused children, Canadian pediatrician Dr. Philip Ney, concluded that there is a strong link between abortion and child abuse. See it this way: a woman contemplating an abortion must cross a certain threshold of aggression. It is not easy to kill a child. Often one surmounts the problem by dehumanizing the child. You tell yourself the child is not yet a child, and then you cling to this lie. But an abortion attacks the woman’s very sense of womanhood and ability to mother. In later pregnancies she may have trouble recognizing her child’s needs, or react badly to them. It is as though there was a blockage between her and her child, who suffers as a result. Such a child is often anxious, clings to its mother, cannot enjoy life, and does not know why it should enjoy life. Intense stress caused all kinds of psychic damage among concentration camp survivors. It is similar with an aborted child’s siblings, who must grow in a womb pervaded by an atmosphere of fear, death, and danger. Strong fears tend to haunt such people later in life. In childhood they begin showing aggressive attitudes toward their parents, or to authority figures in general. They may also direct this aggression against themselves, in the form of suicidal tendencies. They are unable to enjoy life. An abortion “survivor’s” complex, ambivalent attitude toward its mother – who has usurped the right to dispose of her children – will make it difficult for the grown-up child to bond with a partner. Problems of trust arise. Statistical studies also show that these people are themselves disposed toward abortion. They are unable to love children because they were not loved, looked forward to, or welcomed by their parents. This in turn leads to a vicious cycle of abortions in the family. We know that families that have had abortions will abort children in future generations. If to this we add neglect and abuse of children, whole families can die out as a result. When we realize how many women have had abortions, and see how many children have suffered the loss of their siblings, we get an idea of the general climate of our society. We have a “culture of death” in which no one trusts anyone anymore. No stable relations between people. No trust in the family, either between parents, or between parents and children. This contributes to powerfully destructive tendencies in society.

What percentage of women who have had abortions suffer from the syndrome?

From my experience I would say that 70 percent of women who have undergone abortions suffer from post-abortion syndrome. The rest, who do not appear to suffer, might be said to be in denial. Sooner or later, however, the truth will catch up with them. You cannot just go out on the street, kill someone, and expect your psyche, your sense of self-esteem, and conscience to remain unaffected. Nor can a woman who has killed her child expect her future life and mental health to go untouched, since unconsciously she knows she has killed her child. When a woman becomes pregnant, the child makes its presence felt within four hours of fertilization. The body knows it is pregnant, and signals the state of imbalance to the woman.

How can these women be helped?

You can only help those who want to be helped. A woman must be ready to confront matters. She must reject the lie that this was not a child. She must be able to look at photographs of aborted children. Women are shocked to learn that within three weeks of conception the child has a beating heart, fingers and toes. Facing this for the first time is a great shock to the mother. However, she must accept it, and admit that what was aborted was a child. This is the decisive step: yes, it was a child; yes, I did this. It is also very important to confront the question of responsibility. We judge no one. Every one of us is at fault in life, without exception, even the Pope. The woman must admit her own fault. If we picture full responsibility as a cake, then it might well be that the woman’s fault in the killing of her child comprises nothing but a small slice of this cake. Nevertheless, she must admit to this small slice. Only then can she be healed. Only after she admits to doing something wrong can forgiveness occur. The process of forgiveness and reconciliation must include everyone concerned: God the Giver of life, the victim child, all those directly and indirectly involved in the abortion, and, finally, the woman herself. These four steps are essential.

What is the first step?

Here in Vienna we counsel women of all religious persuasions. I know from experience that God always hears our prayers. He never scorns a penitent heart. In praying with these women, we discover that many have not prayed in 20 years or more. There are those who do not know how to confess. In such cases we have to explain everything, even put words in their mouths. In our prayers – this is not classic psychotherapy, but normal prayer – we ask God for forgiveness, irrespective of the person’s denomination. If a woman is truly sorry, she will receive forgiveness. You can see this right away. You can feel it. She can sleep again, enjoy things. The process of healing begins. If the woman is Catholic, we send her to a priest, after explaining to her the importance of the Sacrament of Penance. We explain the spiritual consequences of abortion, how to regain a state of grace, how to talk with God, and how to make peace with Him. God is magnanimous. No sin is too great for Him to forgive.

The second step is…

…to make peace with the child. In this connection, a priest in Vienna composed a special prayer for us. It is really very deep. The prayer begins by asked for God’s protection. Patron saints can also be called on to intercede. Then it asks the woman to thank God for the gift of her life, for the life of her child, and for her vocation to motherhood. What is so beautiful about God is that we can make a mistake, such as reject our motherhood, and still repair the damage. We can say later: dear Lord, today I have resolved to accept my motherhood. Thank you for my child. I have accepted it. I am beginning to talk with it, and beg its forgiveness. We always ask God to reveal the child’s name to the mother. In most cases the woman already knows if it is a boy or a girl. She discovers the name, for we know from Scripture that even as babes in our mothers’ wombs the Lord has chosen each of us by name.

Then comes the third step…

When the woman is reconciled with the child, we ask her to beg forgiveness of all those who might have enjoyed the child, perhaps the father, an aunt, a future spouse. Then the woman must forgive those who contributed to her pain: those who deserted her, failed to help her, forced her to have the abortion, the doctor himself, and all those who were accessory to the abortion, e.g. the politicians who passed the pro-abortion laws, etc.

And after this?

Then we ask God for the grace of baptism. People will object that you cannot baptize a dead child. But this is not a sacramental christening, but a baptism of desire – the kind that early Christians administered to their dead ancestors. There is a desire to have the child baptized. We bring this desire before God, and ask for the grace of baptism. Of course these children never sinned; still, they must be cleansed of original sin by the waters of baptism. This is what we ask for in our prayer. Often we do this ceremonially. We light a small candle, a lovely baptismal candle, and make our confession of faith. It is a very beautiful rite. We close the ceremony by offering the child to Our Blessed Mother. We ask for her love, which the child’s mother is unable to give. We ask Our Lady to take the mother’s place, and St. Joseph to take the place of the father. We also beg forgiveness of the child’s guardian angel, and ask it to carry the child to its divine Father in heaven. Then comes an important step. We ask for an interior healing for the woman. We ask Jesus to place His hand upon her, and restore her whole person, especially her maternity and womanhood. We also beg Him to free her and her family from the spirit of death and all the negative feelings that have beset the family as a result of the abortion. Then, we ask the woman to bless her child and entrust it to God. We have a beautiful chapel, where the woman can go and pray in silence. Many women do this with all their heart and return home completely at peace with themselves. Reconciliation with the child completes the process of reconciliation with God, since the abortion had destroyed the mother’s relationship with her child. The sin is forgiven in confession, but the damaged relationship with the child must be rebuilt. We tell the woman that each time she receives Holy Communion, she finds herself as close as can be to her lost child. She ought to treat this day of her prayer as her child’s christening day. For many women this is a great consolation.

You say that the last step is forgiving oneself.

It is very important that the woman examine herself once more and understand what led her to resort to abortion in the first place. Often the woman discovers disfunctionality in her own childhood. She was not taken seriously, was unloved. Her needs were not respected or listened to. Her own life was not properly valued. We also ask Jesus to enter her memories, and heal them. If the woman does not have a settled sexual life, we ask her to entrust it to God so that he might heal her entirely, her whole life and person. Women who renew their faith in the process experience the greatest degree of healing. God forgives all. So we tell them that if God has forgiven them, they can also forgive themselves.

How did you begin treating people with post-abortion syndrome?

At 17 years of age I met a woman who had had an abortion. She was married and had three children. An extramarital affair left her pregnant, and she underwent an abortion. After the abortion she began suffering panic attacks which required psychiatric treatment. The fate of this woman moved me very much. During my medical studies I met more women who had had abortions. Again I saw how much they suffered. Finally, I met another woman. We became close friends, and confided in one another. Once she confessed to me that God could never forgive her because she had killed four of her unborn children. I tried to tell her that God would forgive every sin if we were sorry for it. But then, six months later, she died suddenly of cancer at the age of 48. It was a great shock to me that I could not help her make peace with God. In the meantime I completed my internship, but I could never forget that woman. One day I went to a church in Vienna and saw a sign for a prayer vigil dedicated to love’s triumph over death. That is just what my friend had needed, I thought.

You are a psychologist and psychotherapist, and yet everything you say has a strong religious context.

Only later did I come to understand that in resorting to an abortion a woman quite consciously cuts herself off from God, i.e. she has chosen to live in darkness. Many women are later unable to make peace with God unaided. After this spiritual death, even though they are alive physically, they require help and the prayers of others. I cannot imagine working with these women without the religious dimension. There are two things here: the loss of a child, i.e. its death, and guilt. Neither medicine nor psychotherapy can remove these things. Only God can. And since the underlying causes of the pathology are of a spiritual nature, effective therapy must also delve into the spiritual realm. It is the only way of helping the woman. That is why I do this: so that no one might die tormented with doubts, as my friend did.

Can a woman who does away with her child in other ways also suffer from post-abortion syndrome?

A good question. Yes, we cannot forget that besides surgical abortion, the Pill and the IUD (coil) also result in the death of a child. I am willing to bet that the use of abortifacients masquerading as contraceptives has doubled the disgraceful number of one million abortions performed in Austria over the last 25 years, i.e. since the passing of the abortion law. I reckon we are grieving the deaths of two million children.

How are the Pill and the coil abortion-inducing agents?

Doctors do not tell their patients this, but these devices prevent the embryo (the child) from attaching itself to the mother’s womb. Fertilization takes place in the oviduct area. Some 7 to 11 days are needed for the embryo to pass from the ovary to the uterus, and to attach itself to the wall. The Pill causes the mucous membrane of the uterus (which is normally very thick) to deteriorate, and become thin and flat. As a result, the embryo is denied a purchase on the uterine wall, and is sloughed away (i.e. aborted). Later the woman cannot be sure if she has had a child or not, or how many she has killed. Many women suffer psychic problems after extended use of the Pill or the coil. Depression mostly. Only the grace of God can be of help here. Women, who experience a conversion, usually come to regret the steps they have taken. The problem lies in their not being adequately informed by their doctors.

Yes, I agree. This lack of information regarding abortion seems to afflict not only society as a whole, but the medical milieu as well. Don’t these problems arise in medical school?

I know that these problems are not discussed in medical school. I think this is because the doctors who perform abortions feel guilty. I am talking about the collective guilt of the medical profession. It is very difficult to admit to this. In Austria, abortion was legalized 25 years ago. Countless women and families have suffered as a result. The medical profession is divided: some doctors acknowledge the moral aspect of the problem; others deny it. To avoid an open split, the profession maintains a policy of silence. Unfortunately, this can lead to considerable difficulty later on in diagnosing the woman’s condition, since a woman’s abortion history is rarely inquired into.

Thank you for your time.

Interviewer:
Grzegorz GornyVienna,
Austria, April 2003

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:: Four Steps to Freedom
:: Why Does Evil Seem So Attracitve?
:: RU-486 What it Really is

WHY DOES EVIL SEEM SO ATTRACTIVE?

1. Man's situation bfore the Fall

Everyone desires to be happy and achieve happiness in its perfection. The one terrible force capable of destroying human happiness is evil. Why then do people sin? Why do people committing a sin believe that in so doing they will achieve happiness or some good? What is it in the human mind that makes it so susceptible to the glamour of evil? Why does sin, which leads to death and self-destruction, seem to be such an attractive means of achieving happiness?

Let us seek the answer in Scripture. In the Book of Genesis God tells us that He created us in His own image and likeness. What does this mean? It means that God endowed us with reason and freedom, and thus enabled us, alone of all His creatures, to engage in a dialog of love with Him and others. For man, happiness means to love and to be loved. Eden is a symbol of this original state of happiness. Man lived in the certainty flowing from belief that God loved him and that everything necessary for human life and happiness came from God.

The happiness of Eden was happiness in the course of development. It was intended to be perfected in the divinization of man, i.e. when men became full partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). God called man into existence without his consent, but He destined him for perfect happiness, but only on the condition that man believed Him, and freely accepted His love.

From the biblical narrative we know that our first parents set great store by God’s command that “…of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (Gn. 2:17). The tree of knowledge of good and evil represents a truth, which God reveals to man.

What is this truth? What is the meaning of the prohibition that God places on the fruit of this tree? The truth is simply this: remember, man, that you are not God. By your own efforts you are unable to achieve perfect happiness. Your heart is filled with limitless desires and aspirations, but without Me, and left to your own devices, you are finite and mortal. Remember, then, that there are certain boundaries, which you may not cross. You may not transgress my commandments and decide for yourself what is good and what is evil, since my commandments flow from My love of you. They are simply signposts of reality, pointing out the one road of life by which I desire to lead you to perfect happiness, i.e. as partakers in My divine nature. Perfect freedom, love and life are yours to achieve provided that you are united with Me in love. If, on the other hand, you take and eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, i.e. if you chose to believe the lie that you can achieve happiness by your own efforts, and in spite of My love, then you will surely die, since in rejecting Me you reject love and life, and chose death and self-destruction. Thus sin constitutes man’s greatest tragedy.

2. The first attempt at falsifying the truth about God

Before their fall from grace men had God’s law written in their hearts, and did not see it as a yoke or burden. They naturally and spontaneously believed that God alone satisfied their desire for happiness. An attempt to call this truth into question originated not from within man, but from outside — in Satan, the “father of lies”, whom the biblical narrative represents in the form of the serpent. The serpent stands for the power of evil, an objectively existing spiritual presence. Rather than choose God, some of His angels (pure spiritual beings whom God created for the purpose of freely accepting and returning His love) chose themselves. They fell in love with themselves with a self-love that turned their love of God to hate. Self-love brought them to a state of horrific selfishness.

Pope Paul VI, in his general audience of 15 November 1972 taught that: “Evil is not just the absence of good, but a living being, a spirit, but deformed and depraved. It is a horrifying reality, a mystery arousing fear… The Demon is enemy number one, a tempter in the full sense of the word. We know well that this dismal, destructive, and disturbing being really exists and acts, laying sophistic traps for us, in order to destroy man’s moral equilibrium. He is a perfidious hypnotist, well practiced in the art of entering us (through our senses, imagination, desires) in order to cause all kinds of deviations”.

“Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, You shall not eat of any three of the garden?’” (Gn. 3:1). This apparently innocuous question put to our first parents contains the following insidious suggestion: it is not true that God loves you. He forbids you to eat of this one tree, and therefore He limits your freedom. Satan goes further. He denies the fact that disobedience to God will bring death in its wake: “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gn. 3: 4-5). In the language of the Bible “knowing good and evil” means having the power of God Himself. Conjuring up limitless prospects of divinity, the serpent suggests that man will know full happiness only when he has transgressed God’s command and eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In this way the Evil One succeeds in totally falsifying God’s image in man’s mind. Before the temptation, man believed and felt that Creator loved him, and that his greatest good consisted in total obedience and trust in God. And now suddenly he hears that God is not his beloved, but his greatest adversary, an absolute tyrant, since in forbidding him the fruit of this tree, He is barring man’s way to happiness, and will not allow man to become like Him.

Presented in such an alluring way, Satan’s temptation arouses suspicion and doubt in the minds of our first parents. Who is telling the truth: God or Satan? “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate…” (Gn. 3:6). This is how original sin was committed. It was a sin of pride and disbelief in the love of God. Man stopped believing in God, and believed Satan. He believed that Satan, and not God, was telling the truth. He did not believe that sin was man’s greatest misfortune, and that it led to death. He did not believe that in prohibiting the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God was guided by motives of the purest love: do not do this, for it will be your undoing. It can only lead to absurdity and death.

In giving credence to Satan’s words, man disbelieved that sin is something evil, that it leads to the dissolution of human happiness and life. It precisely this falsified image of God that underlies the conviction, so prevalent today, that evil is something attractive, that sin in itself is alluring and good, that it gives pleasure in life, and that it is a sin only because God forbids something that is ultimately good. This is the line of thinking of people enslaved by the father of lies. Thus the drug addict sees freedom in his “crack”, the alcoholic in his bottle. Likewise with those addicted to sex, money, the desire for power, and other forms of sin.

Our one recourse in the face of this horrifying reality is belief in the love of Christ. We must believe again that God is in love with us, that He will never stop loving us, and that He desires nothing but our good and happiness. We must therefore believe, as Mary did, “with a hope against all hope” that in every situation of our lives, Christ is with us and leading us by the simplest road to union with Him in love, and thus to perfect happiness. (To be continued.)

Fr. Mieczyslaw Piotrowski S.Chr.

Articles
:: Four Steps to Freedom
:: Why Does Evil Seem So Attracitve?
:: RU-486 What it Really is

RU-486: WHAT IT REALLY IS

1. RU-486 is an abortion pill. It does not prevent conception, but destroys conceived human life. The drug can kill a child into its sixty-third day of life. By this time the child has a beating heart, a functioning brain, detectable nervous impulses, a developing skeletal and muscular structure, and a face with clearly distinguishable eyes, ears, nose, and lips.

2. Health complications resulting from the RU-486 pill are common. At least four women have died from RU-486 in North America. Danco Laboratories, the drug’s North American manufacturer, has reported at least 400 adverse events since RU-486 was approved. Ninety-nine percent of women using the drug report unpleasant effects. Almost all experience pain to some degree (Spitz 1998). In 8% of cases hospitalization, surgery, and intravenous fluid replacement
are necessary (Spitz, 1998). Research in France indicates that two percent of cases require blood transfusions due to excessive blood loss. 44% of cases report vomiting, 36% diarrhea (El-Refaey, 1995), 32% headaches, 12% dizziness, 4% fever and infections, 2% anxiety and insomnia, and 2% anemia (Spitz, 1998). In a significant number of cases (up to 23% of women who use the pill 57 to 63 days after conception) the abortion fails, and the woman undergoes a surgical abortion (Larkin, 1998). The guilt-induced psychological pain resulting from taking the pill is not unlike the pain suffered by women who have had surgical abortions. However, since the woman administers the pill herself, she cannot share the weight of responsibility with a doctor. She must also deal with the child’s remains. Thus, RU-486 is far from “safe, fast, and easy” as its advocates and purveyors claim.

3. Since the abortion pill is often ineffective, it results in the birth of a number of severely disabled children. French research indicates a significant number of severely damaged children (Barnett, 1996). A certain percentage of women have second thoughts about aborting their child after commencing
with the pill (RU-486 must be taken over several days). As a result, the child runs the risk of suffering serious deformation.

4. RU-486 increases the incidence of abortion even in countries where surgical abortions are legal. The availability of the abortion pill actually dissuades women from systematic family planning, since if she becomes pregnant, she can always “take a pill”. In China alone, two million women take the pill annually (Wojtasinski, 1999).

5. Making this abortion pill available in Third World countries – as the UN Population Fund does in Afghanistan – is especially reprehensible. Lacking a suitably developed medical infrastructure, these countries are unable to deal with the serious health complications arising from the pill’s use. Women of the Third World tend to suffer from anemia, which increases the risk of complications. Such a situation existed during the conflict in Kosovo. Women in Pristina characterized the activity of the Fund as genocide (KAI, 2001).

6. The manufacturers of the RU-486 abortion pill in Europe are the direct descendants, of the producer of Zyklon B – the lethal gas used to exterminate millions in the death camps of the Third Reich. The French Group Roussel-Uclaf, which produces the pill, is an affiliate of the German chemical giant Hoechst A.G., whose original name was I.G. Farbenindustrie. It changed its tainted name after WWII (Clowes, 1997, p. 52). Now the heirs of I.G. Farben earn their money by killing millions of unborn children.

Katarzyna Urban

References: Barnett A., “Mifepristone clears US regulatory hurdle”, The Lancet, 27 July 1996; Clowes B., The Facts of Life, Virginia, 1997; El-Refaey et al. “Induction of abortion with mifepristone (RU-486) and oral or vaginal misoprostol”, The New England Journal of Medicine, 13 April 1995; Catholic Information Agency (KAI), “Afghani refugees plied with abortion pills…” 27 November 2001; Larkin M., “Mifepristone-Misoprostol effectively terminates pregnancy, reports US trial”, The Lancet, 9 May 1995; Spitz I., et al., “Early pregnancy termination with mifepristone and misoprostol in the United States”, The New England Journal of Medicine, 30 April 1998; Wojtasinski Z. “Pill replaces Calendar”, Rzeczpospolita, 10 July 1999.

Articles
:: Four Steps to Freedom
:: Why Does Evil Seem So Attracitve?
:: RU-486 What it Really is