Health : The Psychology of Abortion : From Both Sides of the Controversy, the Personal Stories of Two Who Made Tough Choices

Robin Schneider had an abortion when she was 17. Jill Lodato was 19 when she had the first of two abortions.

For Schneider, now 28, an abortion was a guilt-free act that allowed her to get on with life.

Lodato, now 26, however, found herself sliding into despondency after the second abortion, walling herself off from other people and even from herself.

Their sharply divergent views represent two sides of a controversy whose scientific basis is under question: What are the psychological consequences of abortion?

Last week, as part of the escalating furor over the issue, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop reported that “at this time, the available scientific evidence about the psychological (effects) of abortion simply cannot support either the preconceived beliefs of those pro-life or pro-choice.” Nevertheless, abortion foe Koop said he knows “lots of people who’ve had trouble with abortion.”

Koop’s personal response was indicative of the strong feelings surrounding abortion’s psychological impact. For many, it is an article of faith that an abortion can ignite long-term emotional responses that are always painful and sometimes crippling. That belief is so strong that groups such as Women Exploited by Abortion have been founded to console and counsel those who regret their abortions.

For others, the anguish is chimerical, an elaborate propaganda device concocted out of the desire to exploit women for political and social ends.

But to women like Lodato and Schneider, who are both unmarried, abortion is not an episodic news event. Their personal stories and their professional lives demonstrate the depths of conviction and commitment that drive the abortion controversy between peaks of publicity.

As executive director of the California Abortion Rights Action League’s southern branch, Schneider adamantly believes that the psychological consequences of abortion are positive. The principal post-abortion emotion is relief, she maintains.

Schneider, whose activism in women’s issues dates to a junior high school debate over girls playing Little League baseball, says there have been no aftershocks because of her abortion--”None at all and it’s been 10 years now.

“In some ways,” she added, “it was one of the first really responsible decisions I made. I think for many teen-agers and younger women that’s how it is. . . . Not that going through parenthood can’t be a responsible decision also. But I firmly believe that deciding to have an abortion can be an extremely responsible, moral decision.”

While she “didn’t consider even for a minute having the baby,” Schneider said that her abortion was not entirely free of feelings: “You have a lot of emotions. But the emotion, I think, is mostly around the issues of women and sexuality, especially teen-age women and sexuality and feeling like ‘Why didn’t I have it together enough to get birth control?’

“But I had no idea even then what birth control was, what were the methods. So it was more feelings around initiating sexual intercourse--not that I initiated it--and confusion about what is this new experience? What role is it going to play in my life?”

Schneider believes that “in some ways my case is kind of the typical case of an American teen-ager.”

“I had never had sex education in school,” she said. “My parents had never talked to me about sex or birth control.”

With her stepmother’s help, Schneider said she found a clinic and “had the abortion and that was it.”

In stark contrast, Lodato, who became pregnant a second time even though she took birth control pills, said that five years after her second abortion, she still has bouts of emotional pain.

“Right now, I feel that from about six months ago, I’ve completely forgiven myself for what I’ve done,” said Lodato, a full-time staffer at a Mission Viejo pregnancy counseling clinic that discourages abortion and sponsors support groups for women who have had abortions.

“I’ve forgiven those who were a part of it that I was angry with. I’ve definitely accepted God’s forgiveness but I’m still sorrowful and I still cry over it.”

Her first pregnancy seemingly was less disruptive than her second, she recalled.

“I knew that it was something that I just had to get rid of,” she said. “I come from a real success-oriented family, and I felt like I couldn’t do this to my family, or my friends, or my sorority, or me, or anything. I never thought anything bothered me except I lost a lot of weight really quick.”

Her second pregnancy was a different matter.

“At that point, I was determined to have the baby, but everyone in the world was telling me to have an abortion,” she said. “I knew that I was making the decision to abort because of the pressure from other people. . . . When I was driving home from the abortion clinic, I just knew that I not only ended a problem but I ended the life of the baby and it really, really killed me.”

She remembers the struggle to find support for bearing a child.

“I had my day of reckoning one evening before I had the second abortion,” she said. “I called my parents. I woke up just sweating and just realizing that I could not go through with the abortion and I wanted someone to reach out and say, ‘It’s OK, you don’t have to have the abortion.’ . . . No one in my world was telling me abortion might not be a good alternative.”

Guilt Whiplash Expected

This whiplash of guilt, isolation and regret is exactly what Koop had expected to find when he was sent by President Reagan on a mission to document abortion’s presumed mental hurts. The outgoing President’s advisers apparently were certain that overwhelming evidence to support their views would be found, said Koop, who acknowledged such findings would be used to reverse the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.

But Koop’s announcement that further study was needed came the same day that the Supreme Court said it would consider a Missouri case that might allow it to modify its 16-year-old ruling in Roe vs. Wade.

These two events--as well as large, widespread anti-abortion demonstrations in the last few days--mark a dramatic intensification of this country’s long-running and angry debate over abortion.

Schneider says Koop’s failure to find evidence supporting anti-abortion forces was welcomed by her and others fighting to maintain women’s rights to legal, safe abortions.

Couldn’t Find Evidence

“I think if he (Koop) could have proved it, he definitely would have written a report” that abortion is psychologically harmful, Schneider said. “He’s had an anti-abortion agenda since before he was put in that office. So in some ways we were very pleased because he couldn’t come up with the evidence and that he wasn’t willing to put his good name as a scientist on reports that had been based on false information.”

On the other hand, Lodato is equally convinced that, like her, many women suffer serious psychological problems because of abortion.

But she concedes that the psychological harm of abortion is “hard to document” because women often aren’t able to pinpoint the source of their depression or anger.

Women who seek counseling, she explained, “. . . don’t go and say, ‘Well, I know that I’m depressed and that I’m having problems with my marriage and I’m frustrated with my child or whatever’s going on because of an abortion I had five years ago, or 10 or 20.’ ”

Outsiders See Trouble

Rather, she said, the source of inner turmoil is more often identified by outsiders.

“Most of the women who get involved in our post-abortion support group did not call us just because they felt these feelings and called us,” Lodato said. “They heard me at a church group talking about our support group or they heard someone else. Once they’ve heard about it, they might think, ‘Well, maybe that’s what it is.’ ”

In her own case, it took a long time to uncover all the emotions related to her abortions, she said.

Lodato, who wants to eventually be a high school teacher, believes that her work at the pregnancy center is a higher calling, one she came to after finding comfort from Living Alternatives, the ministry that sponsors the center.

God’s Calling

“This might sound weird, but I really feel this is where God wants me to be right now,” she explained. “The day I really feel God wants me to go on to something else I will.” She added that the ministry supporting her clinic steers away from the political arena and avoids picketing and “writing letters to politicians.”

Lodato believes that the most important thing she can do is not to campaign publicly against abortion but to encourage youngsters to “wait until marriage, to say no to sex.”

Schneider is convinced that clinics such as the one where Lodato works are “bogus” operations.

“I think that most of the people who regret their abortion decision enough to be anti-choice are involved with a religious organization or other organizations whose main purpose is to make women feel ashamed and guilty about having an abortion, or contemplating getting one,” she said. “If you surround yourself with people who think abortion is evil, it’s pretty easy to feel guilty.”

Had Plans for Her Life

Schneider, who was a senior in high school with plans for college when she had the abortion, said: “I was lucky in that I had something to look forward to . . . and I wanted to change the world and I was not going to change the world as a single mother.”

Yet abortion has been divisive within her own family, said Schneider, who was raised Catholic.

“My grandmother is still a devout Catholic and she doesn’t want to discuss this issue, she doesn’t want to ask me, ‘How’s work, Robin?’ In fact, the last time I was in a Catholic church . . . they started talking about going down to Washington to march against abortion and I walked out of the church. I was not going to sit there and take this kind of anti-choice propaganda. It was pretty clear that it was a statement, I think, and my grandmother was not pleased.”