Messengers2.com - My Life's Hard Lessons and Joyful discoveries.

My Life's Hard Lessons and Joyful Discoveries Philip Ney, MD January 24, 2006 Amidst threats and disappointments, I have learned valuable lessons from 32 years of being visibly pro-life, and I dearly wish to pass them on. These are: In life there is nothing better than a terrible enemy to sharpen you and a magnificent friend to sustain and encourage you. Especially because God desires that you become His friends and He prefers to converse with those who are simply mature. God is more interested in the process than He is in the product. I can take into eternity only who I am and nothing of what I have achieved. Any success I achieved through Christ who strengthened me was a means to the end that I become like Him. Getting to know God is far more rewarding than all the popular or academic accolades I could ever have had. In my failures, despairs and alienation I got to know Him who is and knows all. If I honour God, He will honour me. I did not always and not always well. He honoured me well in this life but I’m looking forward to the real stuff yet to come. If He wants me to achieve prestigious positions, I can do this without denying Him one iota. Though I have been a persistent irritant to my colleagues by being an outspoken prolifer, I have “arrived”. I thank the Lord that in spite of my inconsistencies and unpopularity I have been full professor in three medical schools, chairman of academic and hospital departments, etc. So, young person, don't ever excuse yourself for not speaking out now. Don't say, "I will when I arrive (e.g. graduate, get on the academic ladder, achieve professorship, etc.) Speak up for life NOW! Otherwise you will forget what you were supposed to say and lose the strength of your convictions. I must minimize the inconsistency between what I believe and how I behave. I believe that though unborn, he/she is a baby, a real person and a neighbour whom I must love as much as myself. Acting on this conviction helps me stay strong and vigorous. I must not rationalize my inconsistencies but face them courageously, asking God's help and forgiveness. When pro-lifers watch the film, Silent Scream, they should fall on their knees and humbly ask God to forgive them for doing so little and to give them courage to put their convictions into practice. If they don't, their hearts will become hardened. That hardening is a large component of the dehumanizing process that allows abortion. From now on, whenever God enables me to give a convincing lecture, no one is going to leave that auditorium without doing something about his or her convictions. Even if all they do is sign a petition addressed to the prime minister or president ask them to investigate why their taxes are spent on hurting women in the name of “therapeutic abortions” because there is no evidence they are helpful, just harmful. If those people act on their conviction, they must begin explaining to themselves why they have done so. This begins a process of convincing themselves to be always actively, assertively pro-life. This is very different from those who, on leaving the auditorium or the church, begin rationalizing why they don't act. Those people eventually have a water-tight conviction they are doing their best and besides which, “God hasn’t called me.” God-fearing people who rationalize their inactivity and inconsistencies are destroying themselves and their species. From my perspective, the following are some the most important discoveries I have been led by the Lord to make so far: 1. Tragic Triangles In my research and treatment of abused and neglected children, I learned that child mistreatment tragedies occur as a triangle, composed of: Perpetrator, Victim and Observer. Abortions result from tragic triangles with many contributors sharing the responsibility. In abortion, the tragic triangle consists of the abortionist colluding with the mother and/or father as the Perpetrators, the unborn baby as Victim and a motley crew of Observers who are neighbours, friends, family, pastors and priests who probably know and could have made the difference between life and death. Sadly, in an attempt to maintain their self believed innocence, Observers will always say: "I didn't see, I didn't hear, and besides there was nothing I could do” or "I have other priorities." Throughout history it has been the Observers (including UN observers) who have allowed wars, child abuse and abortions. In God's sight they will be held to have a greater responsibility. Because they are not as trapped in the continuing crisis as are the Victim and Perpetrator, Observers have a more objective view and a greater freedom to act. Like a chemical reaction requiring 5 gm of one agent, 3 mg of another, and finally 2 drops of something else ... resulting in an explosion, so, too, abortions "explode" when someone's two drops contribution (two words) tip the balance towards death. 2. Why Women Choose Abortion We collected data from women and men from a number of countries and then we analyzed 53 factors that could influence a woman's decision to abort. The following are statistically significant (P<0.01) and are in rank order of importance according to a stepwise regression analysis: (a) The mother having been emotionally neglected as a child. Without childhood affection a woman is vulnerable to offers of “love” only to find when she becomes pregnant, he has no real interest in her. (b) The mother's mother had an abortion. Abortion is a transgenerational tragedy in which a woman subconsciously re-enacts the conflicts regarding unborn babies her mother could not resolve. (c) Lack of partner support (LOPS). It turns out that men are important after all, especially when his wife becomes pregnant. His instincts responding to her change of attitude and appearance would normally make him supportive and protective. She counts on him so that when the opposite occurs, she is devastated and angry enough to “kill his baby.” (d) Being an abortion survivor. If your value depends on being wanted, it is easy to believe the fetus “has no status” because “no one wants it”. (e) The outcome of her first pregnancy. The joy of a baby makes most parents want to re-experience this joy and challenge. Killing a baby dehumanizes both parents and so killing again becomes relatively easy. (f) Having been sexually abused. Sex has become shameful. The result of sex, the baby becomes an object, which can be treated with distain. (g) Living in a country where abortion is common. It isn’t as simple as “Everybody is doing it and it doesn’t seem to bother them”. A permissive law for any human behaviour makes that behaviour easier and therefore more frequent. Many people naively believe, “if it is legal the law and doctors do it in hospital, it must be okay.” These factors are far more important than those scientists and politicians usually considered to be most relevant: number of children, education, socioeconomic status, etc. The good thing about this is that these are issues pro-lifers can influence. For example, pro-lifers can encourage the infant's father to support the mother. This will help her decide against an abortion more effectively than anything else they could say or do as a pregnancy counsellor. It is wise to always include in pregnancy counseling and defer to when possible, the father of the child. 3. Child Abuse and Abortion About 35 years ago, a mother told me that although she had a beautiful child, a wonderful home, a supportive husband and a good pregnancy and delivery, she could not touch her baby. Because I had been doing research into the causes of child abuse, including poor bonding, I had to find out whether there were any etiological factors generally not considered. I asked her about all her previous pregnancies and she told me of the abortion that preceded this childbirth. Because none of the usual factors seemed to apply, I had to conclude the only thing it could be was some connection between the abortion and her trouble bonding to this child. My scientific paper on the positive correlation between child abuse and abortion was published in 1979. What furor it raised! The editor and I received nasty letters for over a year because some readers believed he should never has published my article, and me for suggesting abortion could contribute to child mistreatment. After all everyone “knew” (they never said how) that if there was freely available abortion, there would be no unwanted children and therefore little, if any child abuse and neglect. It seemed to them it was impossible that wanted children would be more frequently mistreated. But that has been shown to be the case. They were published as Letters to the Editor (see: Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 1979-80). Since then I've repeatedly investigated the abuse-abortion connection. I am now convinced that connection is statistically significant, important and reciprocal. Women who have aborted a child, particularly their first child, are less able to bond and therefore they are statistically more likely to abuse or neglect subsequent children. This does not mean that every woman who has an abortion mistreats her children. Many aborted women lean over backwards to not abuse their children. Some are afraid to use any form of discipline because they don't trust their anger control and therefore the children are spoiled. Women who were abused and neglected as children are statistically more likely to have abortions. This correlation has a number of possible explanations that I have described in scientific papers. I have written and had published several articles about the effects of abortion. 3,4,5,6,7 Unhappily, most editors of scientific journals are so allergic to the word abortion, when they see it, they sneeze and reject the article as “not relevant to our readership” or “It failed to address [some esoteric] factor”. So don't look in medical journals for my published scientific material using the word abortion. I have learned that in order to get scientific data and their accompanying explanations published, I must use a variety of abortion euphemisms, such as pregnancy loss. You will find my scientific data on abortion and related subjects by searching for pregnancy loss on “Pub Med” or on our website: www.messengers2.com. If pro-lifers understood the difficulty of getting anything on “abortion” published, they might be more persistent in digging for the information. Our best study took three and a half years to get into a reputable journal. To avoid the machinations of official journals, I am more likely to publish my findings on own website and let the world decide on its value. 4. Possible Reasons for Transgenerational Tragedy. Through clinical observation and research I have learned that child abuse and neglect - some more than others - is transgenerational. So is abortion. Frequently, it is a subconscious re-enactment of unresolved conflicts engendered in childhood. Some people don't realize that we're dealing with human ecology, which is more sensitive than that of the spotted owl. Humans seem to be so arrogant they don't bother to measure abortion's impact on the forces that determine our survival. 5. Instinctual Restraint to Aggression Toward The Young We found that women who had abortions compared to those who did not, are more likely to respond with aggression rather than nurture to their infant's cry. 8 You remember being awakened in the middle of the night by your distressed baby. The Lord has designed us so that this high-pitched sound makes us angry at first. That anger awakens us faster than anything. Having had a hard day, we are rudely awakened from a deep and peaceful sleep by this terrible piercing sound. In hot anger we stumble toward the crib, knocking our head, stumbling on toys, fumbling for the light switch, and our irritation grows into a rage. But once at the crib, we look upon the helpless little child and very quickly - at least in most people, our aggression dissolves into a desire to tenderly care and nurture. Humans, like other species, have a strong instinctual restraint to any aggression toward their own species, particularly their own young. That restraint is weakened when a person participates in killing another person either in war or by abortion. If anyone has directly or indirectly killed a person, especially a child, in this life they are never the same. From now on their aggression, whatever the cause, is not muted and tamed by their Instinctual automatic Instinctual Restraint to Personal Aggression (IRPA). They must exert conscious control and try never to get too angry. Now the initial angry irritation caused by the infant’s cry is also the end response. The anger doesn't convert into affection and care. It's not surprising that rates of infanticides are increasing parallel to rates of abortions. Since every human is likely to emit a helpless cry at some time, "I'm sick”, or “I'm injured” or “old and lonely” or “depressed and trapped” ... please help me," very few people are safe from the effects resulting from a muted or damaged IRPA. This fact and our data which show that children whose siblings were aborted are less likely to have children when they grow up, means that we are on the brink of a major ecological disaster. The declining fertility rate everywhere is solid evidence supporting this hypothesis. Jesus predicted that unless He came back, there would be no humans left. 9 Do we need nuclear warfare or AIDS to wipe us out? No, all we need is people who dehumanize each other and tamper with their God-given Instinctual Restraints to Personal Aggression and we'll destroy ourselves with abortion and infanticide. Although for the last 20 years demographers have predicted "population depletion", the UN until recently cried "population explosion." Why did the UN ignore the facts? Because it served the political purposes of those who promoted "free access to abortion". 6. Lack of Partner Support (LOPS) Studies reveal that parents of premature infants don't bond well when they anticipate their child might die. Fathers of unborn children know the mother has the legal right to destroy their baby without his awareness or consent. Those fathers anticipating the “termination” of their child will have difficulty bonding to him of her. Studies of premature babies has shown that when there is a greater chance the infant will die, parents restrain themselves from bonding because they anticipate greater grief. When fathers are unattached to their preborn babies, they don't support the mother. Without the father's support, the mother is more likely to have an abortion. 10 Because the mother is more likely to have an abortion, the father is less likely to be involved in the pregnancy. And so the vicious cycle set in motion by the courts develops and it continues from one generation to the next. From a biological perspective, having children to pass on his genes is the most important activity of a male. His mind senses this and drives him to find a mate and have a family. Modern men know they cannot legally restrain their partner from aborting their child. This undercuts their masculine instinctual protective behaviour. Now that men are unable to protect their unborn child, they are less protective of dependent or young life. It is not surprising that men wander away from their family responsibilities. They also feel angry enough to kill. I wonder why police who investigate death threats against abortionists don't regularly consider this possibility. I once had a law student in my office with a loaded "piece" that he intended to use on his girlfriend after she aborted their baby. [After we discussed his pain and anger, he chose not to murder her by stayed angry for quite a while. Up against women's awesome power to decide who lives and who dies, men feel impotent. That sense of impotence translates into sexual impotence. Small wonder the increasing use of Viagra. In the sexual arena, male rage and impotence combine to form rape. It is not surprising that wherever there is freely available abortion there are high rates of family violence and rape. 7. Pair Bonding Male seminal plasma contains a rich mixture of male and female hormones, thyroid stimulating hormone and prostaglandins. After ejaculation during sexual intercourse, these hormones are taken up in the vagina by an active transport mechanism. The woman absorbs and benefits from the man’s hormones, and he is calmed by absorbing her vaginal secretions through his penis. As scripture says of man and woman, "they become one flesh". This is bio-chemically true. God literally makes them become one flesh through hormones this exchange of hormones. And “Whom God joins, let no man part”. Why? Because it cannot be done. They are mated [married by God] for life. They take on each other’s hormone profile and may begin to look and think similarly. This bio-chemical bonding is one of eight studied bonding mechanisms that create a lifelong union between a man and a woman in a marriage that God performs. 11 Pro-lifers would be well advised to understand the vital significance of lifelong bonding through sex rather than talking about it as pre-marital intercourse. Actually there is no such thing as premarital intercourse. They become automatically bonded for life by psychobiological mechanisms God created. Of course they should also commit and covenant with each other but God’s covenant with both of them through intercourse is more powerful and unbreakable. The bible can be interpreted to read, “What God has joined together, 12 no man can take apart” and they shouldn’t try. A person can only strive not to break their promise to all they have made a commitment of love and fidelity, not just the last one. Intercourse is not only essential for marriage, it is vital for harmony and health. 8. Bad For Women's Health Many studies show that abortion is definitively bad for a woman's health. Data from our study headed by Dr. David Reardon reveal a relative risk of approximately 1.3 for breast cancer, 2.54 for suicide, 2.8 for a psychiatric admission, 2.18 for AIDS, 2.97 of heart attack or stroke, 1.86 for a miscarriage to women who abort compared to women who deliver their babies. 13 The pro-abortion view that abortion is safer than full term pregnancy is both flawed logic and is unsupported by research. We have good evidence 10 that the outcome of a woman’s the first pregnancy is the best predictor of subsequent pregnancies. This is why it is so important to encourage teenage mothers to deliver their first baby, even if the circumstances aren't right. Against every other professional, I recommended against aborting the baby of a twelve year old mother, the daughter of my patient. Shortly after the abortion she became psychotic and remained that way for a long time. We found 14 that all ungrieved pregnancy losses have a deleterious impact on a woman's health, but abortion is significantly the worst. Abortions frequently result in pathological grief, which often leads to depression, which interferes with the immune system, resulting in more infections, and cancers of all types particularly breast cancer. Data from the same study show that if all the abortions were subtracted, teenagers are as capable of having healthy, happy pregnancies as any other age group. Research on health hazards is now sufficiently convincing to judges that convictions are mounting against hospitals and abortionists who fail to warn women of the increasing chances of dying or getting sick from an abortion. These suits are having a noticeable salutary effect. With that threat hanging over them, fewer physicians will become abortionists. Consequently some US states have to legislate mandatory abortion training for young OB/GYN residents. 9. Society of Centurions (SOC) Many medical students - some Christians - in their eagerness to learn, are seduced by the obstetric resident or professor who says, "Come and see this, you might find it interesting and helpful." The student is too stupid or too curious to not run away or protest on behalf of the baby. Far too many physicians have passively watched as a pre-born child is cruelly destroyed. Unless they repent and thoroughly change their ways, they will spend the rest of their lives rationalizing why they watched a killing rather than acting to protect an innocent person’s life. Unless they deal with this awful compromise, they don't have the strength of conviction to protest on behalf of the unborn baby or to really debate with their colleagues. the stupidity of abortion. This is also true of any Christian physician who has referred even one woman for an abortion. I have never done nor seen an abortion nor referred a patient for an abortion. Still, I am far from guiltless. I have researched, lectured, written for 32 years and treated victims of abortion for 43 years. But I know I could have done more. This is why I apologize to women and to men for my contribution to their abortion. Do you? It is time for pro-lifers to stop idolizing ex-abortionists. Following his conversion, the apostle Paul needed a desert experience to process how and why he had persecuted the church. Similarly, ex-abortionists need time to come to grips with the devastating problems associated with their progressive dehumanization. Their stories are compelling. They should be honoured for their courage of course. But to immediately make them into heroes does them no good. Would you give Hitler a first-class hotel to have him lecture on how he stopped killing the Jews? A necessary part of the ex-abortionist's struggle is to compensate those he/she injured. This can mean apologizing and offering to compensate, e.g. money for their counselling, thousands of women. At the persistent plea for help of an exabortionist, we formed the exclusive Society of Centurions. After a week long residential discussion with the some of the members, ex-abortionists, are much more ready for reconciliation with ex-patients. When Zacchaeus promised to pay back those he had cheated, the Lord was happy to dine with him. 10. PAS is Not a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Some pro-life researchers claim that Post Abortion Syndrome (PAS) is a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but the signs and symptoms don't fit. PTSD results from a traumatic event in which a person was principally the victim. In PAS, as in suicide, the subject is principally the perpetrator. I suspect the reason for the tendency to classify abortion injured people as suffering from PTSD is that most pro-lifers tend to describe only the symptoms of PAS rather than the deep underlying conflicts. These conflicts include: Many forms of guilt, including a biological guilt, that is feeling guilty' for doing something destructive to oneself and one's species. Biologically based guilt is there regardless of the person’s morality or theology. The most complicated kind of grief. There are at least eight reasons why grief following an abortion never really gets started and usually doesn’t end. Rage at being abandoned. Women are most vulnerable to lack of support when they are pregnant. A man may best understand this by imagining that just when a climber is negotiating a hair-raising pitch above a very long drop off a mountain, the person who is belaying him decides to go for coffee. In his rage, he swears never to climb with that person again. Fear. Women recognize that they cannot trust their instinctual restraint to aggression any more. Consequently they become inconsistent and permissive in their parenting. Despair. Knowing that their simple attitude toward life is forever lost, women and men realize they cannot regain their innocence and humanity. Distrust. Having been abandoned by those they depend on in a crisis, women abandon the baby that depends on them for its very existence. Those women have to conclude there is no one they can trust, and no one should trust them, especially their children. Broken relationships. When we analyzed data from a busy Post Abortion Recovery help line, we found 80% of relationships broke up after the abortion. The reasons are complex but include distrust, despair and projection of anger. Difficulty bonding. Abortion requires but interferes with grief. Unresolved grief often results in depression, and post-partum depression interferes with parent-infant bonding. Vicarious pain. It is intense and seems to come from every part of her body. 11. Vicarious Pain Syndrome (VPS) Although well anaesthetized, many women feel intense pain during and after an abortion. It probably isn’t their pain. A patient told me of a persistent and tearing pain in her every muscle and joint. I realized that the onset of her pain coincided with her abortion. After investigation, I had to conclude 15 that her pain, like the pain of many women suffering with fibromyalgia and other stress-related pains, isn't her pain at all. It is the vicariously experienced pain of her child being torn apart within her during an abortion. That pain was transmitted across the placental barrier by hormones generated from tearing flesh. The pain now resides in her head and feels like it comes from her body. Like other forms of severe trauma, the pain will not easily be forgotten. The existence of the child she once held within her will also not be forgotten, partly because of the child's pain and partly because the child's DNA is indelibly inscribed in the mother's brain and immune system. 16 11. Post Abortion Survivor Syndrome (PASS) Many years ago a family physician referred a seven-year-old to me for consultation. I saw the little girl with her mother who told me that this child, her only daughter, couldn't sleep because of a recurrent nightmare. Consequently t he child was tired, irritable, and unable to eat, concentrate or get along with others. The little girl told me that in her nightmare she and three siblings made a tunnel in a bank of sand and crawled inside. The tunnel collapsed and the little girl's siblings were buried alive. She was very frightened it might also happen to her and she was experiencing deep sense of loss. With a God-given inspiration, I asked the mother to tell me about all her pregnancies. Like most women, she answered, "I have one child." I asked her to tell me about ALL her pregnancies. She revealed she had three miscarriages that her little girl could not have known about. Obviously the child did know and was very disturbed that her three siblings had died. Our data show that children whose siblings are killed, particularly by abortion, are deeply afflicted. 17, 18 Their constellation of signs and symptoms, I call the Post Abortion Survivor Syndrome (PASS). The following is a list in rank order of decreasing frequency as printed out by the computer following a stepwise regression analysis of our data collected from clinical and non-clinical populations. Existential guilt is the most prominent and persistent symptom: "I feel I don't deserve to be alive". Other closely correlated symptoms are (1) a sense of impending doom (existential anxiety) (2) feelings that they have not well used their talents and opportunities (ontological guilt) (3) a deep distrust of parents and parental figures (4) a sense that their lives have no intrinsic value and therefore they must continue to be wanted (popular) in order to stay alive They also feel if the value of their lives is relative to how much they are wanted, the lives of others is also relative according to how much they are wanted and to their “quality of life”. (5) Pseudo-secrets that are most burdensome and interfere with intellectual development and expression of questions, needs and hurts (6) unexpected, unexpressed rage toward all authority because nobody protected them when they were most vulnerable, (7) little desire to have children because they feel both threatened by children and feel jealous of any that don’t have aborted siblings. (8) very little concern for their aging parents, (9) Risk-taking (drugs) and death-defying (drunk in fast cars) behaviour, and (10) Fascination with magic and the occult which they hope will give them the power to resist those forces over life and death once held by their parents over them. This syndrome can explain many conditions that psychiatrists and psychologists colleagues have difficulty understanding and treating. It may also explain the mounting expectation of war. Abortion survivors have little regard for human life, their own or the enemy. The thrill of evading death brings a sense of existence and meaning they did not find in their family. 13. Being Welcomed, Not “Wanted” For so long, promoters of free abortion have touted the notion "the first right of every child is to be wanted." Coming from the pen of Planned Parenthood's Margaret Sanger, that phrase is probably the most pernicious, destructive philosophy modern humanity has ever encountered. It literally means: If you are not wanted you have no right to be. Now life or death depends upon wantedness. Your life can only have relative value so you had better work hard to stay wanted. Since your life has only relative value, you will constantly assess and compare your value relative to others. When wantedness diminishes with their aging and quality of life, others will wonder if they have a right to be. Now they are unwanted and can be terminated by eugenics or euthanasia with very little disturbance from private or public conscience. Wantedness has replaced love as the predominant ethic. There is an entirely different but ancient ethic. Jesus said when you welcome a child His name, you welcome Him and you welcome His Father. 19 I add that you also welcome the resources of the universe. No one needs to die due to a lack of resources. Welcome is a totally different perspective from wantedness. A person who is "welcome" has every right to be and to become whoever they are designed to be, because Jesus welcomed them with life and with the help of their parents will give them all the ingredients necessary to build that amazing person God shows them in their blueprint. We have the privilege of passing on His welcome. How I wish every pro- lifer would understand the significance of this. Yet, many God-fearing people think "every child a wanted child" is a good idea. If you can’t convince them the that the idea “the first right of every child is to be wanted” is perniciously evil, try saying to them, “Every Jew a wanted Jew”, or “The first right of every Jew is to be wanted” I’ll be surprised if you don’t get a good rap on the hand. It's time pro-lifers patted the heads of little children and the tummies of expectant mothers (with their permission) and said, "Welcome, little one, I'm glad you exist. I welcome you to life in this world in the name of Jesus. I also welcome you in my name…………" 14. Treatment Recognizing the profound damage abortion causes women, men and children, you would think that pro-lifers would be extremely careful when they treat people with any form of Post Abortion Syndrome. They should be even more qualified and cautious when they realize that most of those post abortion women, men and children have also been neglected and abuse. Alas, this is not the case. There are many quacks providing superficial treatment. Too many poorly trained Christian counsellors advertise quick weekend damage repair with rituals, singing and candles. Some more thorough practitioners are not sufficiently professional. They fail to keep careful records, conduct follow-ups, analyze results, or train people properly. My appeal to the most prominent post abortion counsellors to get together and establish standards largely fell on deafened ears. I hear many argue, “We rely on Christ to heal.” So do I but that’s no excuse to do a poor and unprofessional job. When we teach and practice Hope Alive group psychotherapy, we work hard to do a thorough job and pray, “Lord you are the healer and we want you to get the credit.” Many years ago I was complemented for my postoperative hairline scars. I was careful to bring the edges of the wound together (I thank God for the skill) but Christ made it heal. I had a hand in the miracle my Lord graciously performed. [I praise the Lord for the privilege of being a physician for 46 years.] Even now science knows little about wound healing. Tell me, if you needed major heart surgery, would you choose a Christian surgeon who prayed over his patients but was technically sloppy or a technically superior surgeon who was a Buddhist? 15. Hope Alive The scientifically rigorous Christ-centered Hope Alive approach to group psychotherapy is significantly different. For the last 10 years with God’s leading, I developed, used, researched and taught Hope Alive group psychotherapy to treat people deeply damaged by child abuse and neglect and abortion. Since abuse and abortion so frequently go together, one must treat both. It takes 15 or more sessions to properly deal with the dehumanizing effects of childhood mistreatment that led to an abortion, and 15 plus sessions to treat the results of PAS and PASS conflicts. The results are good and have been presented in scientific meetings. 20 So why don't more pro-lifers sit up, take notice, and use Hope Alive? Could it be pride or professional jealousy? I hope not. There are probably one billion post abortion and abuse deeply damaged people and 200 million new patients arriving every year. This should keep all would be post abortion counsellors going flat out for many years to come. Some have stolen Hope Alive in whole or in part to use for their own gratification. Do I mind? No if people are being healed but yes a great deal when they pat themselves on the back and do more harm than good. They were taught and seem to disregard two basic tenets: Hope Alive is one operation, each part like surgery is necessary for a complete operation and God will not share His glory or praise with any other. God loaned Hope Alive to me. I want Him to get all the credit. I am just God’s servant doing what is required of me. 21 I thank the Lord that we have now successfully trained people in 27 countries and invitations to train in other countries keep coming up. Of course there are problems. One of them is petty theft. The intellectual property isn't petty, but the thief is. Stealing components of the Hope Alive treatment program and adding them to other religious, humanistic or treatment programs, or pretending the discoveries and treatments are their own while belittling the author, is painful. Because Hope Alive is on loan by God loaned to me, when they steal, they steal from Him. I thank the Lord that everything I am or have comes from Him. Hope Alive is based in the Psychology of Created Humanity. It is so fundamentally Christian that without Bible readings, prayers, hymns or religious ritual, many participants spontaneously come to know Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. The Future The pro-life movement is suffering because of apathy, ignorance, cowardice, compromise and inconsistency. Pro-lifers could stop abortions right now were it not for these. Instead, many play pro-life parlour games; they react to the moves of their opponents but never really attempt to win. To really act to win they believe would make the opposition uncomfortable and they might get nasty. Many churches while preaching the gospel, inadvertently promote a progressive discrepancy between belief and behaviour by allowing people to listen without insisting they also change and do something to prevent the killing of millions of preborn babies made in God’s image. The situation must change otherwise humanity is doomed. 22 There is hope. Two factors are bringing change which should embolden prolife Christians. Increasingly clear scientific evidence of the effects of abortion, are making more successful suits against aborting physicians, hospitals and nurses. They are liable for lack of informed consent and damage and assault. An exponential decline in fertility soon resulting in unstoppable population implosion. You cannot run a free market economy with a declining population. Governments are beginning to react with tentative attempts to tighten abortion laws out of economic necessity. So what should you do? These four things: 1) Get your beliefs and behaviour together. 2) Deal with your compromises. 3) Realize where you are part of the problem. 4) Make a bold move. Show me a person who can do these four things and I will show them many practical avenues of serving Christ by being pro-life. This is a desperate all-out conflict. If it doesn't require you to change your lifestyle, buy a smaller house or drive an older car, stop playing golf, you're not for real. One way or another, it has been possible to have published much of my research and conclusions, but there is much more data in boxes filled with questionnaires and filing cabinets full of rejected manuscripts. Oh that I might have a few committed grad students whom I could teach research methodology and they could help me collate, analyze and get published some extraordinary data. And they would have plenty left for their thesis. Truth is never well appreciated in its time, but that is no excuse not to keep trying to discover and disseminate our best approximations to the truth. With the increasing emphasis on scientific information, why won't pro-lifers fund research? I have had only one small grant from a Christian organization. Almost all funding for my research and work comes from my private practice. It is exhausting to be both fund-raiser and principle investigator. But like the apostle Paul, I thank the Lord that I have not been dependent on others. All I have learned is not mine but loaned to me by my Lord. My prayer is, Thank you, Lord, for everything. Help me think clearly, speak wisely and act courageously to honour You always, and to know you better in a closer walk with you. By the looks of the best indicators on the horizon, we are in for a terrible storm. We could still win but I don’t suppose we will. Yet we can go down fighting with good manners, for there is never an excuse for bad manners or lack of love. We can fight a losing battle victoriously and pray, come Lord Jesus come soon. God bless all those who read this with an honest mind and heart that will impel them to use for God’s glory what they have learned. Philip Ney MD REFERENCES Hosea 6:6 Ney PG et al. Factors that determine pregnancy outcome. Presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Academy of Child Psychiatry. Banff, Alberta. November 2002 Reardon DC, Ney PG et al. Psychiatric admissions of low-income women following abortion and childbirth. CMAJ. 2003 May 13; 168(10):1253-6. Reardon DC, Ney PG. Abortion and subsequent substance abuse. Am J Drug Alcohol Abuse. 2000 Feb; 26(1):61-75. Ney PG. Unlike any other procedure. CMAJ. 1997 Nov 1; 157(9):1197-8. Ney PG. Some real issues surrounding abortion, or, the current practice of abortion is unscientific. J Clin Ethics. 1993 Summer; 4(2):179-80. Ney PG. The indications for abortion. N Z Med J. 1989 Jan 25; 102(860):23-4. Ney PG. Child mistreatment: possible reasons for its transgenerational transmission. Can J Psychiatry. 1989 Aug; 34(6):594-601. Matthew 24:22 Ney PG. Factors that determine pregnancy outcome. Presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Academy of Child Psychiatry. Banff, Alberta. November 2002. Genesis 2:24 Matthew 19:6 Reardon DC, Ney PG et al. Deaths associated with pregnancy outcome: a record linkage study of low income women. South Med J. 2002 Aug; 95(8):834-41 Ney PG, Fung T, et al.The effects of pregnancy loss on women's health. Soc Sci Med. 1994 May; 38(9):1193-200. Ney PG. Vicariously experienced pain during abortion. October 2001. http://www.messengers2.com/articles/science/vicariously_experience.htm Italian researcher? Ney, PG, Peeters MA. Abortion Survivors (2nd Edition), Victoria: Pioneer Publishing, 1996. Ney PG. Deeply Damaged (3 rd Edition), Victoria: Pioneer Publishing, 1997. Mark 9:37, Luke 9:48. Ney PG. Effectiveness of a new technique of group psychotherapy. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Group Psychotherapy association, May 2000. Luke 17:9-10 ? .