It was August 1955, in a small town outside
Sydney, Australia. A 16-year-old girl walked into a house, 10 weeks
pregnant with a grown man’s baby. The man — a family friend — had
given the teenager an envelope stuffed with money and put her on a
train to go have an abortion.

Nearly 45 years later, Julie Kelly confronted her deeply buried
feelings about that abortion while passing through Seattle. A pamphlet
for retreats with a group called Project Rachel promised healing. Two
years later, in 2000, Kelly flew to Seattle from her home in Australia
to attend one of those weekend retreats, sponsored by the Roman
Catholic Church.  There, she and other women shared stories of their abortions.

In a recent e-mail from Australia, Kelly said Project Rachel
validated the grief, shame and regret she had been masking from herself
and her family for more than four decades.

Katherine Murphy had an abortion at 19. Unlike Kelly, the now
24-year-old Olympia resident said she didn’t have ambivalent feelings,
nor did she become depressed. She had supportive friends and knew that
her mother had three abortions and wouldn’t judge her for it. At seven
weeks pregnant, she went to a clinic with three girlfriends and her
boyfriend.

She said she is not surprised some women feel guilt and shame about having abortions.

A lot of the shame is imposed from the outside, she believes. And
because abortion is such an emotional and polarizing topic, it can be
difficult for some people to be supportive, even among friends.

What helped her was knowing that women she trusted and respected
also had chosen to have abortions. They talked about their experiences
and supported one another.

"I knew that I wanted to have an abortion and felt no shame," Murphy
said. "I am still confident that I made the best choice to abort. I
have never looked back with regret."

 The two experiences represent the debate raging since Roe v.
Wade legalized abortion in the United States in 1973, but with a twist.

Many anti-abortion activists insist there are proven, profound
emotional and psychological effects from having an abortion — a
so-called post-abortion syndrome. One outgrowth has been religiously
affiliated retreats such Project Rachel, aimed at helping to purge
guilt.

Others say the syndrome is non-existent and just a new way to push
the "pro-life" agenda, and that most women live productive,
psychologically and emotionally normal lives after an abortion.

Confessing guilt

Project Rachel is the Seattle chapter of Rachel’s Vineyard, a
national, non-profit organization. Many of the independently operated
chapters, including Seattle’s, are affiliated with the Catholic Church.
Others are non-denominational, according to Rachel’s Vineyard.

Rachel’s Vineyard leaders say they want to help reverse the damage abortions do to women.

The organization, which relies on funding from Priests for Life, a
$7 million anti-abortion group that is independent of the Catholic
Church, and Life and Gospel of Life Ministries, began after Theresa
Burke wrote a book in 1994 called "Rachel’s Vineyard: A Psychological
and Spiritual Journey for Post Abortion Healing," which talked about
the emotions women experienced while grieving the loss of their aborted
children.

A year later, the curriculum was expanded and adapted for weekend
retreats that have grown from 18 nationwide in 1999 to more than 500 a
year now, according to the Rachel’s Vineyard Web site. Retreats are
held in 47 states, including Washington, and 17 other countries.

Organizers insist women who have had abortions suffer severe psychological damage and need to be helped.

"When we suppress one of our emotions, it affects all of them. This
is the basis of post-abortion trauma: the denial of the baby and the
denial of our feelings. This causes symptoms of re-experience,
avoidance and impacted grieving," the Web site says.

During the weekend away, women — and sometimes men — share
abortion experiences, often for the first time. They can confess to a
pastor, if they want, and they mourn. They also name and write letters
to their unborn children, asking for forgiveness.

"For women who feel this is a horrendous experience, as a church we
are interested in healing them," said Rev. John Madigan, pastor of Holy
Rosary Church in West Seattle, which is involved with the Seattle
Project Rachel retreats.

During Kelly’s Project Rachel retreat in Seattle in 2000, she read
aloud her letter to the unborn child she named Anthony. Afterward, she
said she cried for him for the first time.

I’m so sorry that, when you were holding tight to life and
looking forward to being with me in the big world, I didn’t have the
courage to let you keep growing inside me, she wrote. Instead,
I went to that awful place and let the man rip you out so cruelly —
and throw you away — my baby — he threw you away — and I let him.

She said it wasn’t until she attended the retreat that she was able
to have pride in herself. She had spent her whole life pleasing others,
becoming a Catholic and devoting herself to church work, but still
considered herself a fraud because of the guilt she fostered inside.

"These were the tears I had bottled up for more than 40 years, and
the sobs came from the soles of my feet and racked my whole body," she
said. "My self-esteem was so damaged by the abortion that I allowed
myself to be abused in many ways."

‘Misuse of science’

"If people have moral or religious objections to abortion, that’s
fine, but I have objections to making up a syndrome to put backdoor
barriers to people getting medical care," said Nada Stotland, vice
president of the American Psychiatric Association. "It’s a misuse of
science co-opting a serious medical problem by using a similar name."

Stotland, who has testified in front of Congress saying the syndrome
doesn’t exist, said its name is so similar to post-traumatic stress
disorder, people are fooled into believing it is a real condition.

Feelings of guilt or regret after an abortion don’t constitute a
disease, she said, and don’t necessarily mean the decision was wrong.

Atonement may be helpful, but soliciting people who are emotional and making them feel worse is wrong, she said.

"There is no sufficient evidence (post-abortion syndrome) exists,
and it is not anywhere in the literature of psychology," Stotland said.
"The evidence is quite strong that the most accurate psychiatric
position you’ll be in after an abortion is the condition you’re in
before one."

Dr. Craig Kinsley, a professor of neuroscience at the University of
Richmond in Virginia, said talking about a post-abortion syndrome is
"putting a name on something that doesn’t exist."

He said he has spent more than a decade researching the effects of
pregnancy and motherhood on the female brain. During pregnancy, women’s
brains undergo significant hormonal changes, preparing them for
motherhood.

Once an abortion happens, those changes come crashing to a halt and
some women will be depressed, he said, but an actual condition that
needs fixing doesn’t occur. Having religious groups masked as therapy
sessions foster the guilt and having women atone for their decision
isn’t going to help them, he said.

"That self-crucifixion with this group is hitting her from all sides
with guilt and shame," Kinsley said. "The likelihood of it being
beneficial is very low."

Shauna Fitzgerald, counseling manager for Planned Parenthood of
Western Washington, said the great majority of women she encounters are
fine after an abortion and very few return for post-abortion counseling
available throughout Seattle.

Moving on

After her experience in Seattle, Kelly returned home and became
co-founder of Project Rachel in Australia. It has since been introduced
into nine dioceses across the country, and 27 retreats have been held.

She had been married for 32 years before telling her husband about
her abortion. She said Project Rachel gave her the strength to do that.
No matter if people question the need for the retreats; she said her
life wouldn’t be the same without them.

"Even something as heinous as abortion can finally produce something
good," said Kelly in a recent e-mail. "If I hadn’t lived a whole
lifetime of post-abortion grief, I would never have known how
destructive it is and that it simply doesn’t go away without help."

IS POST-ABORTION SYNDROME FOR REAL?

IT IS: Organizers of post-abortion ministries such as Project
Rachel say there is a post-abortion syndrome that can appear anywhere
from soon after an abortion to years, even decades later. Symptoms
include low self-esteem, grief, depression, guilt, shame and a sense of
alienation from family and friends. They also cite abortion-related
nightmares, flashbacks or even sounds of a baby crying, alcohol and
drug problems, to dull the sorrow.

IT IS NOT: Many psychiatrists and groups such as Planned
Parenthood say post-abortion syndrome is a made-up condition. They say
the sadness and guilt some women may feel after an abortion don’t stem
from a condition that needs treating, and using their guilt against
them is wrong.