WHY MOMMY!

A SMART PERSON'S BASIC GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING RESEARCH PERTAINING TO ABORTION

Philip Ney MD 17/10/11

Everyone's 2 year old scenario

"Go to bed"
Why mommy?
Cause its you bedtime"
Why is it my bedtime, mommy?
Cause you're little.
Why am I little mommy?"
Stop asking me stupid questions. You drive me crazy with your whys.

Hold it right there lady. There is nothing stupid about your little boy's question why. Why is the most important question in science. I really hope you always encourage his asking why.

What is research?
Just that. Re search.
One must search. On finding something potentially interesting, one must re search. Why research? I) To make sure what you noticed the first time is still there.
ii) To convince yourself that the explanations you gave to yourself about this thing you discovered are the right explanations and not just something you believe should be there. Iii) To convince others what you observed is real.
iv) To convince others your explanation is probably to right one.

Why search?
i) It comes naturally. It is as easy and natural as breathing. God built into everyone from an early age the capacity to observe, hypothesize, experiment and check conclusions with some authority who should be able to understand. A child persistently asking why is checking his/her conclusion with the parent or teacher. Teenagers do the same. That is why, in exasperation to their response about borrowing the car, you hear them say, "It figures"
ii) Young people need to know in order to survive and develop. In order to know, they must observe and make sense of what they perceive. Too often, formal educators and parents kill a child's curiosity and then have to use threats of failing and bribes of wealth and success to induce learning.

iii) To find God. God wants every human to find Him. To ensure that people really do want to seek and know and choose to befriend Him, God doesn't always make it easy. He hides behind His light and glory but is delighted when someone discovers Him. If He were too readily seen, people would choose Him to easily and the choice for friendship would be unbalanced.

iv) To know God
Surely it is one of the most awesome aspects of God that He wants us to
Him as a friend. "To really know God, we would have to know what He knows. With our
small brains? Surely that is impossible", you will say. Well we have an eternity of eternities to ask Him questions and discuss His reasoning. And paradoxically He does make it relatively easy in the realms of natural science. Isn't it remarkable that some of the most important equations are so simple. E=mc2 a=1/2 gt2, ……………………..

v) To satisfy one's curiosity
To learn something new gives eager minds a warm full feeling, much like a good meal. To repeat that sensation, you want to learn and eat more. This is especially true if you discover it on your own.

vi) Less time in drudgery and more in praise.
God wants us to know and enjoy Him. Of course He wants our worship, primarily because focusing on Him keeps us from becoming self-centered and insane. Many discoveries result in improved technologies, which can mean more time for humans to discover the intricacies of Creation and in doing so find God.

vii) Stimulate mind, body and spirit to grow.
Discovering is not only fulfilling, it is enlarging to the mind and spirit. God wants interesting friends and so He encourages us in our attempts to observe and explain. In this way we have a wider range of topics to discuss with God. In science, each experiment uncovers more questions than answers. So with God, each discovery of some aspect of our great infinite Being/ Friend only seems to lead to more areas of unresolved partial explanations.

viii) Develop blueprint.
Some children seem to be born with more interest in tones and others more textures. Given a reasonable environment and encouragement, the child is able to lead the parent or educator in the direction of discovering and developing his blueprint. In this way children become increasingly individual; just the way God intended.

ix) Less suffering and more joy. Longer life.
God takes no pleasure in anyone's pain or perplexion. He wants us to know ourselves intimately so we can more readily find remedies for our ailments. With greater health and internal harmony, we can better see the wonder of God and become better friends.

x) Improve seeking
Those who discover, become better able to discover more. God automatically encourages us to persist when trying to observe and explain by showing us more or by creating an even more complex component of the puzzle.

xi) Colonize Space
God wants an infinite variety of friends. This requires an infinite space in which to accommodate them. Humans could and should have been colonizing space, thousands of years ago. That would have happened if it were not for the great deceiver, getting in the way by his subtle techniques of perverting and diverting truth our humble explanations.

xi) Truth testing; false gods and false remedies.
Truth seeking would not be nearly so challenging if God's enemy did not provide such alluring alternatives. The evil one is called the father of lies, the great deceiver, the promoter of pleasure thru which humans discover nothing except the same old sensations. God has used truth testing by a variety of means to ensure that those humans who really want to know Him, will persist in the face of truth distorting impediments. Humans who through their selfish pursuit of power, pride and pleasure promote the killing of their preborn babies with abortion, use false information and feeble research to make murder seem rational. The persistent pursuit of phony facts inevitably leads to false gods, man made images of themselves or their imaginations. Prolife people should thank God for the scientific method, which can aid in sifting true from false observations and conclusions.

Statistics and Research
Far too many people confuse science with statistics as if they were one and the same. Statistics is useful in determining: if an observation could have occurred by chance,
If an observed difference is real or significant. Thus it is use to determine if a small observed difference in the frequencies of mental illness in women following child birth or abortion is important enough to bother with. Statistics are unnecessary when the observed difference is large. If the rate of psychosis were twice as high in post abortion women compared to post-partum women, it would be foolish to use any statistic.
Current popular statistics are often fads. In the course of 45 years doing research I have seen them come and go. Is there one method so much better than others, that it should be used exclusively, I don't think so? At least I don't know anyone who would say which one.
One of the major drawbacks of using statistics is that individuality is lost. The nice looking mean or median seldom represents any of its individual components.
Another deficit of statistics is that the larger the sample the easier it is to find that a very small difference is "significant". Another is the common assumption that if it is statistically significant it is important when it is trivial or meaningless. Non-scientists are impressed with large samples but if the effect is large, as it usually is with respect to abortion, then a representative sample of 100 is adequate.
Finding a representative sample is easier said than done. If the sample is not representative, the study is meaningless and should not be published but if it favors the politically correct mindset, it is likely to see the light of day in some journal.

Essential Scientific Method
As implied at the beginning, the scientific method is only a refinement of what people, particularly children do quite naturally, namely
i) Observe, thru senses or instruments "Wow"
ii) Check their observation by repeating them or having someone else verify them. "Look mommy. Do you see that thing sticking our of its (beetle) wing?"
iii) Explain their observations by: --predicting how and when it will occur again
and showing how the bits fit togethe
-- making a mathematical model that fits most if not all the observations into as simple equation as possible.
-- making it happen again under controlled conditions then varying those conditions. "It happened when I touched its nose like it was trying to defend itself"
iv) Convince others of their observation with a careful description of what and how they observed and checked their observations. "Hey dad, come and see what I found. It's a beetle with a spear in its wing. I can make it try to spear me if I touch it's nose with this icicle."

SOME PROBLEMS WITH MEDICAL RESEARCH

1. Bias of the observer and experimenter

Everyone lives by certain assumptions about the world, humans, God, themselves. So everyone is biased toward finding things as they assume they are. Otherwise they would have to change their beliefs and subsequently their behaviors. People don't like to change. It is part of the huge problem of entropy and motion.
Everyone is biased. The atheists claim those who believe in God are biased. Of course they are correct but the theists are no more biased than the atheist. There is good logic to support the contention the atheists and pro-abortionists are more biased. They have more to lose in the long run by being wrong about what they believe and they sense but deny this.
In good science, the researcher attempts to control for the effect of his/her bias but never denies it is still there. However it is possible that an honest, self aware observer can detect reality without control or contrast groups.
The honest observer is less likely to fear what he/she may find. The implication of discovery is that it will make you change your thinking and behaviour. Thus the honest observer is more adaptable, has more insight and has greater faith in the faithfulness of God.
The so-called Double Blind Method is an attempt to control for the experimenters bias in assessing the efficacy of a new medication. It doesn't work because it can't work. You cannot keep the subject from guessing whether or not they are on a placebo or an active chemical because they sense in their body and mind effects that they attribute, quite accurately to the medication. Yet the whole medication industry depends on this false method. ( )

2. Problems with Measurement

a) Uncertainty. Heisenburg has established the principal that there are some things we will never know because as soon as we observe them, they change. This is particularly true for research with humans. As soon as we ask them a question, we change their thinking on the subject. This is an insurmountable problem in doing research on sensitive subjects like abortion. Whether it is asked by an interviewer or a computer, as soon as the subject is questioned about his/her reaction since the abortion, there is a major change in thinking so that we can never really know how they would have responded if we had not asked the question.
b) Complexity. Thinking is the highest and most complex function of humans. To fathom all the ambivalences and nuances of thinking is impossible. So no one can claim to know what people are really thinking about killing a preborn child.
c) Continuum. There is almost nothing in nature, the measurement thereof that is not spread on a continuum. Measurement that reduces that event or object to a discontinuity is creating an unforgivable distortion. Almost all research regarding abortion does this almost all the time. Eg. Do you believe women have a right to an abortion, yes or no? A question like that irritates people because they hate to be pigeonholed. Our studies have asked a similar question and found that if the question can be responded to on an analogue scale, there is a tri-model distribution of responses. There are many people somewhere in between "yes all the time" and "no, never"
Recent studies on the effect of abortion on mental health use discontinuity measures, especially if using the DSM, which is entirely composed of discontinuous measures. They should be invalidated and never published on that count alone. Any clinician knows that a person's state of depression is somewhere between dead and gleeful. Not only that, it fluctuates widely according to the time, day, month and year. Any measure that states only that the person is either depressed or not is trite.

Lacking repeated measures. Because people are so complex, so ambivalent and so widely fluctuating, any measure of one point in their time is bound to be inaccurate for a long period. Everyone knows that the subject should be measured at different times of the day, selected on a random basis with the 20 plus measures being all used, together and separately. A graph of daily, weekly or monthly trends would be very useful but no one has the time or inclination to make 20 measures of mental health in a day. It is very likely that those who are interviewed in the am on Monday respond very differently than those measured on Saturday evening. Unless of course the impact of the interview itself is so powerful it will over-ride these differences.

3.Confounding variables.
Because humans are so complex, it is highly likely that there are factors influencing what the reseacher is measuring that he/she has not even suspected that is making the real difference. In the area of abortion this is especially true. We found that being a person whose parents aborted one or more siblings has a pronounced effect on a person's attitude toward abortion but apart from our own studies, there are none that measure or control for this factor. Having the Post Abortion Survivor Syndrome (PASS) is much more common (probably 50 to 60%) in most western countries. Thus what some studies ascribe to education etc. has much more to do with the fact that PASS people tend to distrust authorities especially those who are collecting information. Because they have learned to live with pseudo-secrets, it means little to them about deceiving people.

4. Over-lapping Conditions
In medical research in general and in studies of psychiatric conditions in particular, the subject/patient often has more than one problem. Depression and anxiety states often go together. Character or personality difficulties occur with them both. In addition the subject may be an alcoholic. Trends in psychiatric diagnosis emphasize "co-morbid conditions" but even so, it avoids the other conditions that can occur simultaneously.

5. Pre conditions.
Physicians are taught never to overlook the pre-morbid condition of the patient. Before contracting pneumonia, their patient may have been anemic. Before becoming highly anxious, the subject in a mental health study may have been affected by a difficult delivery with little medical or spousal support. In recent research on abortion, the pre-morbid history of previous mental health treatment may be included in the equation, but there is no allowance for partner support. In one of our studies the amount and quality of partner support was found to be more important in determining a woman's choice for or against abortion than almost every other factor but it is not evaluated or controlled for in most studies.

6. Too many variables.
Only those who attempt to study the impact of abortion or other complex matters know how difficult it is to control for all the possible confounding variables. Then there the choice (heavily influenced by the primary researchers bias) of which variable to choose to consider and which to overlook. Suffice to say that there is no possible way to control for them all. Thus the conclusions are always highly dubious. The only way to deal with this is to keep honestly trying to find and consider them all in a wide series of studies. We have used the step-wise regression statistical technique to help sort out which of 35 variables is most closely associated with a woman's choice for abortion. There were some real surprises. Age, education, employment, number of children didn't come near being significant.

7. Impossible to measure thought.
There have been many attempts to measure thought by correlating brain function as seen on the PET or projective test or word association or intelligence or behaviour, but still no one claims to measure though directly. In one of our studies of children in a classroom we used a keyboard to code and count the presence of up to 35 behaviours every 20 seconds with high inter-rater reliability. These behaviour counts seemed to closely correlated with such thoughts as "I'm going to bug her" There was significant temporal contiquity, (happens at the same time) but even so we had to infer what behaviours went with what thoughts or attitudes. There are no studies I know of that counted post-partum or post abortion behaviours. Thus studies have relied heavily on what people have said they are thinking and this no logical basis for this assumption.

8. Biochemistry or Thought First.
Is your chemistry a result of the environment and your thinking or is your thought a function of your chemistry. Because this dilemma cannot be easily resolved, most medical scientists don't bother trying. They assume chemistry makes thought and so proceed to change behaviour and thought with neurochemistry. It is generally palliative. Physicians forget that the body and mind have a God given propensity to heal. The mind can heal given a chance to understand itself with good psychotherapy.

9. Existential Conflicts.
Even in good psychotherapy, there is a tendency to avoid existential conflicts such as what is the meaning of my life and the question children often ask themselves, "why do I exist" These questions are critical to harmony or homeostasis of mind and body. The reason I suspect they are not addressed is because the therapist can't or won't address his/her own existential issues. They won't even consider them because they realize then they must answer questions about God. Rather than struggle with "Does God exist?" and "If He exists, what does He want with me?" they assume in their manner of living that there is no God, even while hoping that if God exists, He will be kind to them when they die.

10. Confusing cause and effect
Some experiences of thought can occur concurrently with behaviour and some follow. People assume they think and then they act. Most consider what they did after their decision. The decision was made in haste and from the predominant emotion of the time. That emotion probably had 20 to 30 influences contributing to it, most of which eg. Early parenting the subject was not aware of and even if she was aware had no way of controlling. I described 35 factors, predominantly unresolved psychological conflicts that influence a woman's decision regarding abortion. To make a free choice to abort or not she would need expert help and at least 6 months to become sufficiently aware of these conflicts. Thus it can be reasoned, very few women make free and clear decisions to abort their babies. It isn't hard to name the contributors and to estimate the percentage of contribution to an abortion. When we do that in Hope Alive group counseling, affected women and men name 15 to 20 contributors to their abortion. Considering all of these, they usually end up assigning to themselves, 20 to 25 % of the total contribution. Once they have completed this exercise, they usually feel greatly relieved and now have a sense of guilt more in proportion to their contribution.

11. Correlations or associations don't mean caus
Almost everyone now realizes that because two events occur in close proximity or time, it doesn't mean one causes the other. However, if the close association occurs repeatedly, one would suspect there is a cause and effect relationship. There is a close association between cloud and rain. Common observation indicates that from 30 to 90 % of the time, (depending on where you live) rain follows the appearance of cloud. There are many studies now that show the association between abortion and pathological grief, so a cause and effect connection is highly likely but it can never be statistically proven. It remains to the clinician using the research data and interviews to draw the likely conclusion that abortion, for a variety of reasons, results in the necessity to grieve. If the subject will not or cannot grieve, pathological grief often develops. If pathological grief results from abortion and it is ignored or treated with antidepressants, it is likely to become depression. This depression becomes hard to treat mainly because the clinician, because of pro-abortion bias, does not recognize abortion as the most likely cause.

12. Can't prove 6th sense.
A good and honest clinician not only uses their usual senses to perceive and internally rate the extent of a depression, they also use their sixth sense. Some people's 6th sense is very acute and reliable. However they find it hard to obtain inter-rater reliability checks. Moreover, if it cannot be objectively measured and reported, it will not be accepted as scientific. And what is not "scientific" will not be accepted in reputable, politically correct journals.

13. Observation and deduction that are not statistically verified.
There may be some extremely sensitive and accurate observations, but if they cannot be verified, they are scoffed at. Those who honestly listened to post abortion women, men and children, have a great fund of very good material, but it has never been adequately categorized and analyzed. This is a great shame, because almost all research begins with good, usually casual observation.

12.Biased publications.
Although my publication rate is quite high, I know the sense of immense frustration at being rejected again. Over time it is not hard to detect the bias of many editors. At this time, the majority of medical journal editors are convince that a woman has a right to have an abortion if and when she chooses. They will repeatedly deny that their bias affects their judgment. I am pretty sure that it is because when I did studies on child abuse and neglect, I always was published and that right quickly. Now I submit research for publication that I consider much more important and well done, and it is a real time consuming struggle to find a peer reviewed journal that will accept it. And that is not because I don't know how to write and do good research. I have taught research methodology at a graduate level, been on the editorial board of a national psychiatric journal and still do reviews of articles for a number of reputable journals. Sadly because the research is not published, people assume it does not exist. There is some comfort in knowing that studies of journal acceptance show that there is a clear bias toward publishing research showing a positive effect of medication as apposed to research that shows that articles that show a medication has no benefit.

PRACTICAL PROBLEMS WITH RESEARCH ON THE EFFECTS OF ABORTION.

1. Burden of proof.
Throughout the history of modern medicine, whenever any new medication or surgical technique was introduced, the innovator had to assume the burden of proof and demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that this new drug or procedure was good for patients. With the world wide acceptance of evidence based medicine this means that the new procedure
i) have clearly specified indications, a specific disease or symptoms which it will be good for.
ii) show what are the scientifically demonstrated benefits to patients. Too often drug companies persuade physicians it is a wonderful new drug because it has statistically significant greater improvement than the placebo. They do this on the basis of a "randomly assigned double blind trial". Double blinding is impossible and the results should be rejected
iii) List the adverse side effects, when they occur and what can be done to curtail them. Before any procedure is approved the researcher must be able to convince his colleagues or some committee that side effects are less than the benefits.
Until these criteria are met, the new drug or procedure is considered to be experimental and it's use confined to very stringent controls. Because the practice of so-called therapeutic (that term is now dropped) abortions was introduced for political reason, none of the above was expected of abortionists and their supporters. To cover their lack of science, pro-abortionists developed and effectively used a rhetoric that they sold to women then to politicians and judges, to justify what they do. In effect they did not bother with finding out if abortions were good for women. They persuaded the public that women had a right to have done to them whatever they chose, good or bad. The net result is that unsuspecting women are being used as the guinea pigs in a vast uncontrolled experiment, without their awareness and consent.

2. No animal studies.
Are you shocked? You should be. Any other procedure requires extensive animal studies to determine if there are short and long term benefits, short and long terms hazards and harms. It is amazing that the abortionists got away with not doing this. So much is wrong with the practice of "induced abortions" that it should be considered an aberration and not part of medicine at all.

3. Pregnancy is not a disease.
For nearly all of human history, a pregnancy was a welcome event. Women who were barren felt ashamed. There may be pathological complications during pregnancy, lack of finances, marital turmoil etc that need remediation, but pregnancy itself is a normal process. It is a natural biorhythm with a predictable end and joyful outcome. Because pregnancy is not a pathological condition, terminating a pregnancy without the need to do so, is or should be, a criminal assault. That women are persuaded it is good for them, is a major contributor to that assault and the originators of those persuasive arguments, would normally also be charged.

4.Normal Reaction to Abnormal Event or vv.
Almost all good and honest studies of abortion have found significantly higher rates of depression, anxiety, drug abuse, sleep disorders etc. But they do not address the problem of whether they are measuring abnormal conditions or normal reactions to a very abnormal event. In fact paying someone to kill your healthy baby has got to be the most abnormal event in human experience. Because induced abortions have become so common, ordinary people no longer react with the astonishment and horror it deserves. This is a fair indication of how: doing, having, paying for with taxes, knowing and not intervening etc. abortions have dehumanized almost the entire population of the planet.
If a young couple's only infant was run over by a car and killed there would be extensive expressions of sorrow, anger, fear, avoidance of that road, poor sleep, grief and marital turmoil that everyone would consider normal and necessary. If the mother had neglected to put the brake on the buggy and it rolled into the path of busy traffic, there would be even more tumultuous normal emotion expressed as the young couple worked through their conflicts. The more sensitive they are the more pronounced their affect. If the mother picked up the baby's body, dumped it in the garbage can and went about her housework as if nothing happened, neighbours and friends would assume there was something very wrong with her. So why do the researchers put such emphasis on the pathology of heightened emotions and conflicts following an abortion that they must put a diagnosis on it.
Clinicians and diagnostic tests do not often even attempt to distinguish between prolonged grief and depression. In grief most people cannot see a bright future, lose their appetite, sleep poorly, find it hard to get up, avoid friends etc all symptoms which would usually be diagnosed as depression. Grieving people, especially if that grief is complicated by conflicts arising from the fact the parent contributed to the lose, often feel intense turmoil, withdraw from social contact, start smoking again, drink excessively, argue and fight with their spouse, become fearful etc. The problem is that if that grief doesn't quickly resolve because it is complicated, the person sees her family physician who prescribes an antidepressant, which prevents her from feeling the intensity of emotions that make it possible to detach from the dead person. She usually doesn't have an opportunity to examine all the conflicts arising from her ambivalence toward the dead person. So her grief becomes increasingly complicated and prolonged. Eventually it becomes a depression.
Was she particularly prone to depression? I think not. Her "pathology" is only that she is more sensitive, intelligent, more aware of the implications of killing her baby. Thus she is more normal than those who don't respond so extensively. In fact those that are so dehumanized, so callous that the abortion has no more significant than a tooth extraction which are the more abnormal or sick.
As more people are affected by abortion and become more dehumanized, I expect the rates of depression etc following abortion will decrease. To test this hypothesis, I need rates of post abortion depression in some country which has just legalized abortion with which I can compare rates in Canada and the US. I predict they will be higher. I also predict this phenomena will be blamed on prolifers "for making these poor women feel unnecessarily guilty".
The current research is measuring the wrong outcomes and obtaining false data, clouding the real harmful effects of abortion.

4. No evidence of Benefit.
Those that perform, promote or just condone the current practice of induced abortion have not assumed their obligation to show its benefit and harmlessness. In fact they haven't even tried. Major's ( ) oft quoted study of improvement post abortion because of "relief" is the epitome of what research is not.( ) There are so many methodological flaws, that under normal medical journal conditions, it would not have been published. However being the darling of the pro-abortionists and saying what they want to hear, it was not only published but also used extensively in papers and speeches around the world.
So far there is no evidence of any medical, psychological or social benefit arising from the practice induced abortion. If I am wrong about this, I would like to hear the evidence and if there is reliable scientific data showing improvements, I will stand to be corrected.

5. Post abortion and post-partum states are not comparable.
Recent studies on the effects of abortion compare the woman's mental health after an abortion with that of women after childbirth. Anyone with children will laugh. After an abortion most toughened women pick up and carry on with their usual life. Sometimes to help deny feeling of sorrow or grief, they work longer, play harder and socialize with greater intensity. Asked how they feel in the midst of this, they would reply with, "fine, just great It I had a kid now, I would be missing it all".
Whereas a woman with an infant, especially if she is caught in a bad moment will often say, "Boo Hoo. This kid is driving me crazy. She won't eat, sleep, burp or smile for me. My husband just quit his job. Our finances are a mess and nobody at the church cares a damn. Given the chance to choose again, I would abort this silly little sweet heart. Did you just see that, she actually smiled for me" But the interviewer wouldn't hear that last part.
The rule about research states that when comparing outcomes, the conditions must be as similar as possible, except for states that would be affected by the experimental variable. In this case almost everything is different that has nothing to do with abortion. Thus they cannot be used for a legitimate comparison.

6. Wantedness. Recent research requires that comparison be made between women who wanted the pregnancy and those who did not. This is an example of a variable that should never be used in research. It is not definable, measurable or stable. It could only be used by someone who knows nothing about women and pregnancy. Ask an honest woman whether or not she wants, wanted or will want her pregnancy. If you ask her in the morning when she is experiencing early pregnancy nausea she would say, You've got to be kidding" Later in the day the same woman will say, "maybe, it depends on whether or not that lazy husband of mine fixes the dishwasher and takes my 2 year old for a walk. In the evening when "that lazy husband" comes home with flowers and a kiss for his wife, she will say, "Of course. We didn't plan it but now my husband got a raise, it will be just fine and my little boy should have a sister"
This is also an example of how a dichotomous measure (Mark the space with an x. Was your pregnancy wanted? Yes ___ No___) distorts reality. It should be measured, if measured at all, on a Visual Analogue Scale. Eg. Wanted pregnancy?
Entirely, all the time. ==============/===================== Never, not at all
Make a mark across this line that approximate your feeling
When we did this in one study we found that the amount of wantedness when measured at different stages of the pregnancy formed a J shaped curve. Wantedness started reasonably high before the pregnancy, dipped markedly in the first trimester then climbed steadily to its highest point after the child is born.
That finding alone should invalidate all the research using wantedness as a variable. It clearly indicates that abortionists push their product (a dead infant) when the woman is most likely to not want a pregnancy. If women were supported more adequately, time and hormones will result in her wanting the pregnancy.
Whether or not the pregnancy is wanted depends on how you define the question. It varies daily, changes during the pregnancy and is distorted if measured as yes or no or even yes no maybe. In other words it is a useless variable. All those studies, which used it to categorize 2groups of women, are invalid. Yet this flimsy, phony factor is used to decide on which study will or will not be used in a meta analysis. Something is drastically wrong. Besides wantedness is not the salient factor. Whether or not the child is welcome is. There is a vast difference between wanted and welcome that becomes apparent with a little thought.

7. Intendedness.
Whether or not the woman intended to become pregnant, is also used a categorizing variable. It has all the drawbacks of wantedness and more. Eg. "Hey man, I feel like I should fire you. Did you or did you not intend to come to work yesterday?" The honest Joe replies with. "Well boss, you see its like this. The day before I really intended to come to work because although I don't enjoy what I do, I need the money. I had a beer before I went to bed and said to myself, 'Aw what the heck, the boss can keep his lousy job but I will decide which way in the morning. Then my wife forgot to wake me up in time. I got up in a rush fully intending to be here but I couldn't start my car. So I said to myself, 'The good Lord is trying to tell me something' and went back to bed. That night my wife went up me one side and down the other when she got home. So I said to myself. 'Joe you are going to lose both your job and your wife. You better get back there whether you like it or not' So here I am boss." The boss being good natured and appreciated honesty so kept him
Intendedness fluctuates more widely and rapidly than wantedness. It is an expression of the very human characteristic, ambivalence. Most people are ambivalent about almost everything, almost all the time. Did she intend to get pregnant? She wasn't even thinking of anything at the time except good lovemaking and "how handsome he is" and "I hope he proposes tonight". In retrospect she tries to remember what she was thinking at the time but can't be sure which time or night it was and doesn't know when she became pregnant.
Intendedness is a useless variable and should not be used in serious research.

8. Duration of Pregnancy.
Many researchers who wish to make abortion scientifically justifiable, claim that abortion has a lower mortality rate than a full pregnancy. The argument makes no sense. If asked which is safer to drive route 10 from Seattle to New York or route 20 from Chicago to New York. You would reply, "You can't compare the two because the driving time is very different. An accident is more likely to occur on the longer drive on the basis of chance alone." Quite so. The average duration of a pregnancy leading to childbirth is about 3 x longer than one that ends in an abortion. That comparison is meaningless and should not be used in scientific discussion.

9. Attitude toward abortion.
As already mentioned, when a representative sample is asked to indicate their attitude to women having abortion, although about 1/3 mark the visual analogue scale at anytime for any reason and about 1/3rd indicate never at any time, 1/3rd are spread between these two opposites. We found in one study that one of the significant factors that determine a woman's choice to have an abortion was this preexisting attitude. It is understandable that women who firmly believe abortion is a woman's right to choose, are more likely to report a good result than those who are against abortion. Yet even this factor fluctuates widely. A woman who has just attended a Woman's Issues lecture is more likely to favour abortion than when she just read a pamphlet with a picture showing the bodies of aborted babies.
Thus any researcher needs to measure attitude toward abortion as a confounding variable with a VAS repeatedly on different days and at different times of the day to obtain a reasonably accurate estimate of the woman's real feelings on the matter. I know of no research that has done this. Our studies ( ) have come closest.
10. Denial
As with any traumatic event, there are some people who can deny any effect. At least they can deny any untoward reaction as long as they stay healthy and well occupied. That is why those women who would like to support "the cause" of abortion tend to use busyness with work, school, play or entertainment to distract their otherwise morbid thoughts following an abortion. They can keep this up as long as health and money hold out, and then there is a sudden collapse into depression etc that no one attributes to the abortion because it was so long ago. We have found that women will phone a post abortion help-line requesting help 40 years after the abortion. A good clinician who routinely asks a patient about the whole pregnancy history is able to help the patient make the connection between a remote abortion and her present symptoms. The only study I know to measure this effect ( ) found that psychiatric hospitalization rate following an abortion declined in the first 3 years following an abortion then climbed. This could be evidence that the impact of abortion doesn't fade with time. There are very few studies that do repeated measures other than that or Furgusson ( ) who collected data regarding abortion as part of their long term child development study. As those who do long term measures during routine follow-up when studying the effectiveness of some new form of radiation for cancer, so those who do studies on abortion need to do follow-up measures, at 3mo, 6 mo, 1yr etc intervals to obtain a true measure of the harmful or beneficial effects of abortion.

11. Prior mental state
In order to find out whether abortion causes mental illness or just precipitates the reoccurrence of previous mental illness, researchers have used previous occasions of psychiatric treatment or hospitalizations to control for this variable. As a fairly experienced psychiatrist, 45 years of practice, running psychiatric units, teaching etc. I can attest to the fact that hospitalizations may not indicate how sick a person is or the occasion for that hospitalization may be more related to family pressures, being drunk, manipulative suicide threats etc than it is to severity of illness. Many tough people are able to keep on functioning when they are very depressed; especially people who are trying hard to support their families.
The idea that women need to be carefully evaluated prior to an abortion in order to weed out and specially warn those who are most vulnerable hangs on the premise that for some women abortion is not harmful. On the basis of treating thousands of women for many kinds of apparently unrelated conditions, some apparently coping very well much of the time, I cannot comprehend how abortion is innocuous for anyone. That is why our study ( ) of women attending their family physician for a whole variety of medical, surgical and psychiatric problems is methodologically one of the best. It was able to detect women who were suffering and by their own admission needing treatment for the effects of pregnancy losses, mostly abortion, who were seeking treatment for coughs, colds etc. that improved when their abortion conflicts were properly resolved. So we concluded that an abortion might damage many aspects of health, not just psychological. With this others agree, ( ) even though their research is not widely quoted.

12. Insensitive measures.
Those who do psychotherapy or counseling with women who have had abortions, react to most recent research with, "But they are missing the real damage abortion does to women." The real damages from abortion are to: self respect, peaceful sleep, bonding to and interaction with small children etc. The problem is partly that some of these are hard to define and to quantify. But some are not. In one study we measured that amount of breast feeding and found abortion significantly reduced the prevalence of breast feeding. It is not impossible to quantify bonding by using well defined behaviours observed every 20 seconds and recorded electronically. You may ask if it is possible and it will show the more important nuances of harm, why isn't being done. Very simply, there are too few qualified researchers who are bold enough to inquire into these factors and the few there are have too little time and money.

13. Subjective definitions
As mentioned, mental health is notoriously difficult to measure accurately in spite to the plethora of diagnostic aids. There is considerable research, ours ( ) and others,( ) which shows that those who have an abortion are statistically more likely to abuse and neglect their children. But how do you define child abuse? This problem has made it difficult for hundreds or researchers. Our solution was to give examples for subjects filling in a self-report questionnaire then provide a VAS on which to indicate their estimate between two extremes.

14. Subjective interviews, biased interviewers.
Some recent research uses paid interviewers to assess the mental state of the subjects. The trouble is that the information they collect is heavily influence by the interviewers political &/or philosophical beliefs about abortion. I have not read any study that even attempts to control for this variable. I have direct experience of how this affected some research was attempting. When looking at the discrepancies between the assessment of one interviewer and another, I notice wide variation that could not have been the result of the subjects who on most parameters were similar. The data was so bad I decided against using it in a publication. When I remonstrate with the principle investigator my warning was and still is not being taken seriously but that individual continues to write and get published large amounts of research. If any reader of this wishes to know whom, I feel obligated to inform them.

15. Overlooked contributing factors
There are far too many variables in abortion related research to have them all controlled for. That is why an astute clinician can suggest which of them is likely to be most relevant. Sadly, many major researchers have little or no clinical contact with post abortion women and they don't often consult with those who do. From my experience, (and I don't know of anyone who has more,) I would suggest sleep, dreams, appetite, body image etc are much more sensitive indicators of mental health than are formal psychiatric diagnoses. In addition to a wide range of outcome variables that should be used, there are many contributing factors that must be measured and controlled for in the design and analysis. We found that whether or not the subject's mother had an abortion was one of the most closely associated factors to a woman's choice to abort. That clearly established influence has never been measured in any research than ours that I know of. If the research overlooks the most salient factors affecting the decision to abort and the post-partum and post abortion state, it is of little value.

16. Overlooked untoward effects.
In addition to lack of measuring sleep etc. there are many more sensitive outcome
variable that should and could be measured such as: # sexual partners after, change in sexual orientation, marital violence, age at which put youngest child into day care, # of job changes, alcohol consumption etc. These can be well defined and I believe they would be well answered on a self report questionnaire. The studious avoidance of these variables makes on wonder if the researcher really wants the truth to be known.

17. Diagnoses.
Many studies use DSM IVR and V diagnoses as valid measures of post abortion mental health. However there is growing controversy over the validity of these psychiatric diagnoses. They are not empirically derived from direct observation of behaviour. The number of psychiatric conditions keeps growing with no end in sight. It becomes apparent that most people on earth will soon have one if not more diagnosis when there are no etiological factors to account for the increase. Many tried and reasonably true diagnoses have been redefined so they no longer make any sense. Manic Depressive Psychosis can now be "Rapid Cycling MD even if that cycle happens numerous times in a day. Since MD is accepted as a genetically determined biochemical disorder, somebody will need to explain how someone's biochemicals can change that rapidly. Some diagnoses now are determined by vote, politically correct votes winning eg.sexual disorientations. The diagnoses I have found when reviewing the charts at a major training center are determined by the predilections of the psychiatrists then they were by the patient's symptoms.

18, Dichotonous scales to measure continuous variables.
Almost every observable phenomenon is continuous and should be measured as such. A dichotomous measure distorts the factor so much the measure is meaningless. Eg. Measuring the answers to the question, "Do you agree that abortion should be provided for any woman at any time she so chooses? Yes____ No____" not only annoys the subject so much many won't answer, it provides no opportunity for people who are somewhere in between the 2 extremes to honestly answer. Our experience with visual analogue questions show that most of the authentic answers are somewhere in between and that questions are more rapidly and more accurately responded to because subjects feel better about being honest. Especially in areas of research regarding emotions and attitudes, the questions should all be visual analogue. Research using dichotonous measures should be ignored.

19. Biased and incomplete samples.
It is permissible to do research on small, non-representative samples but then the conclusions are valid for that group only. A large, even very large sample is not any more applicable to the larger population if it is only on or mostly on a certain subset of the whole. Some authors have had papers published (Major B) that appear to be representative but they make no attempt to determine if there are significant differences in their sample compared to the whole population. Eg. Women who attend a certain clinic for their abortion may come from a "poorer end of town" Our study on the effects of various pregnancy outcomes on women's health could be safely generalized to the whole Canadian population because with universal health care coverage, every educational and socio-economic lever will attend the average family physician. Even so we checked our demographic variables to make sure they were typical of the average Canadian woman according to Statistics Canada. (They were). In scanning for good research, this is the easiest item to read and easily determine if the article is not worth reading.

20. Complexity.
The mind must be the most complex system in the human. Anyone who has the august temerity to assert they understand what you are thinking, is not worth listening to. To begin with, almost everyone is ambivalent about nearly everything well nigh all the time. Thoughts and feeling dart about in ones head. They are easily influenced by subtle influences such as the expression on another person's face, which they may misread in seconds. When asked, "What are you thinking now?" almost everyone will look at you blankly. Most will give you a benign response, "Oh nothing in particular" whereas what they could say is, "A dozen different thoughts flashed through my mind as soon as you asked the question. Most of them I cannot remember but I could give you a small selection and let you choose the one you want. Humans are well known for their ability to say one thing and mean quite another. They can be performing one task and thinking about something totally different. Humans forget most thoughts and behaviours but occasionally "remember for a seconds" something vitally important. If anyone believes and writes as if it is true that they have measured the true responses in response to abortion, the reader of this must conclude the author missed at least 95% of what was really going on in a post abortion person's behaviour and thinking.

21. Distortion by observing.
The physicists and the existentialists agree that as soon as you attempt to measure a particle or assess a person, the very act of measuring or interviewing changes the person. Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle affirms there are forces and matters we can never really know. The existentialist will assert, we will never truly perceive a person and how they have reacted. Eventually a person is alone and unknowable. The disturbing thoughts of a person abortion woman as she tosses about in the night may be full of recriminations she cannot remember, let alone express them to the research assistant next morning. Yet these thoughts are accurately indicative of how the abortion had affected this woman.

22. Event sampling
On any given day, the traffic outside your home could be very busy or devoid of cars. If you picked a morning to sample the density of traffic, you could report you live on one of the busiest streets in town or in order to sell your house you could honestly say there is hardly any movement if you counted cars in the middle of the afternoon. Studies that attempt use telephone surveys to ascertain the post pregnancy condition of women who have a new baby when she is struggling to make a good supper for her famished, hard working husband with the baby crying and the mother in law phoning to complain about her arthritis and the place full of smoke from the iron that just burned a hole in her best blouse, are liable to determine that at least this woman is more suicidal than the post abortion woman who has just returned to her place after having a few drinks with her new boyfriend. Do any studies attempt to sample randomly determined times of the day to find how she really feels about having chosen to keep her baby. None that I know. Yet data this badly distorted is used in scientific research to bolster predetermined positions, usually those of the "pro-choicers"

23. Delayed response.
For any traumatic event, different humans have immediate, middle or long-term reactions. Following an abortion, most women with good health and good defenses are able to keep on with their work or studies. Does this mean they are unaffected? If they are then involved in a minor traffic accident or get a poor mark, there is a strong emotional reaction. This reaction is usually attributed to the last event, especially if the woman is politically prochoice and not to the abortion. The researcher probably knows better but doesn't have time in the interview to ascertain what event caused which reaction or is careless about compensating for her bias, so all the tears and suicidal threats were falsely deemed to be caused by some minor trauma. We found women who sought post-abortion help for their persistent depression, 40 years after the abortion. They were quite clear that the abortion is what had been troubling them all along but "I put on a brave face and kept going right up to the time my husband died". There are no long-term prospective studies on the effects of abortion but that must be done.

24. Interviewer bias.
Interviewers are not machines. They come with their own histories, penchants and biases. There is literally no way for anyone to keep these out of a data collecting interview. This is why we prefer to use a self administered research questionnaire. Studies that use data collected by government clerks are relatively free of bias but they have no way of determining just how much bias these data collecting agents have. I was at one time piggybacking my study onto another by a very careful, much published and often quoted researcher. I saw in the data being collected for me by his assistants, there were wide variations in the frequencies. Later in chatting with some of them, I realized why. I alerted him to the problem and never seriously used the data that was collected. It is possible that a computer could be programmed to be unbiased but even the wording of the question will sway the response of the subject. The amount of influence of the interviewer is enough to create an inter-observer reliability rating of less than 50 %. Most researchers do not perform inter-rater reliability checks repeatedly. With ratings that are 50% different, none of that data should be used.

25. Self selected subjects and follow-up
Volunteers are considered to be helpful and even noble in their efforts to further science. In the highly charged debated regarding the hazards of abortion, the volunteers are very suspect and generally not used. However those who report for follow-up are also self-selecting. It isn't hard to imagine a research subject who had a baby and who is supposed to report for a follow-up interview saying to herself, "I'm supposed to report today for follow-up but my husband has been called out of town and my baby has a bad cold etc. They are just going to fill in my report for me." Or more significantly a post abortion woman saying, "I guess I should go in but they talked me into having this abortion, I don't feel very cooperative". The 4 year follow-up of one study, highly touted by prochoice people, had a 37% of the original sample who were approached to be part of the study, show up. Any editor worth his profession should never have published this study because it is essentially worthless.

26. Editorial Bias.
Major reputable journals have been found to publish drug studies with positive results much more frequently than those with negative results. They are careful to distance themselves from influence by the powerful pharmaceutical companies and insist authors declare any possible source of influence, but they could or would not account for these differences. I have a reasonably high rate of journal acceptance for research except in the area of abortion when I'm repeatedly turned down. Along with the very few other prolife researchers. I have found it will take 3 to 4 years to have published carefully done research. The problems lie in the "prochoice" bias (hotly denied) of journal editors. I can assert this with some confidence having been on the editorial board of a national scientific journal. The public perception is that " there can be very little scientifically wrong with abortion because there is so little written from the other side"

27. Granting Bias
There is much greater bias found in boards, which decide on whether or not a proposed research project receives foundation or government grants. There seems to be great arrogance regarding research on abortion. It seems to be assumed that: "the abortion question is closed" or that "it is accepted that abortion is a woman's right" or " the accepted medical practice is that abortion isn't any more harmful than a tooth extraction" etc. None of theses statements are true. Abortion crept into medical practice because it was socially and/or politically expedient. No practice allowed in this way should avoid all the rigorous tests of medical research. Abortion is a medical aberration that needs to quickly corrected if medicine is to regain the respect and confidence it once had. I submitted a good study on the needs of a young child to be held with a practical technique. I was asked to revise and resubmit 4 times only to be finally informed, "actually we are not interested in the question you are addressing"

28. Favorite statistic.
The best use of statistics, I believe, is determining if a small effect could be significant or did it occur by chance. Statistics usually points to a correlation i.e., there is something going on here whereby these 2 variables keep showing up together, eg. abortion and suicide. Is it a chance association or are they causally related? One would not have to show a close association between abortion and depression with other possible contributors being controlled for, many times, before you became they were cause and effect related. However statistics are fads. There is always another innovation that could be used. To show one is up-to-date, research like to use almost the latest when in fact it demonstrates nothing out of the ordinary.

29. Post Abortion Survivor Syndrome.
Of all findings resulting from various research projects of which I was the principal investigator, the data and conclusions regarding post abortion survivors is the most startling and most useful. Since it affects about 1//2 the population of the world and since these effects are so deeply damaging and resistant to treatment and since it determines attitudes and behaviours that have an impact on politics and economics, you would expect people couldn't learn enough about it. On the contrary, it is almost universally, studiously ignored. Much as I scratch my head, I cannot explain this except to write, people never were rational, especially about immanent lethal threats. Any deep thinking about abortion survivors would paralyze the rational mind. Yet in spite of its cool reception, I must keep delving into this distressing phenomena.

30. Dishonesty
The readers of this short paper may not think that scientists are capable but they can be as deceitful and downright liars as well as anybody. What holds them back is the fear of being detected and then forever having a reputation that would preclude a university appointment or research grant. In spite of these inhibiting factors, scientists are ready to insert inflated or wrong numbers to prove a point. Albert Einstein did just that. He introduced a wrong term in one of his equations because he knew if he did not he would have to conclude there was a creation designer. To his great credit, he later admitted his errors and began speaking of the "Ancient One" which seems to be as close as he got to addressing God directly. When the stakes are so high, it is easy to understand (not condone) that those who do research with an avowed intention to uphold abortion as a woman's right are very tempted to fudge the facts.

31. Common Sense (a priori)
How often have you heard something like this. "Did you hear what happened? It is so awful I can't believe it. She was such a sweet child and helpful adolescent. Now she killed her own child. She must have been out or her mind. Yes she must have lost her marbles altogether. I suspect she was made to do it or she was on drugs. And she was the loving, faithful daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Y….. They must be besides themselves with shock and grief" Killing one's own child has only occurred under the most terrible conditions of starvation and degradation. It is still so unnatural it must be temporary insanity. This is what this old physician, professor, researcher believes. Aborting ones innocent, helpless infant for no reason and for no good and when there are many alternatives is nuts, crazy, psychotic. And who is trying their utmost to stop the mother and father? Doesn't anyone understand that when you break the species preserving instincts, the whole human species is about to die.

32. Combination and Permutations.
If all of these possible errors where to effect some research in some way in a different order, the permutations would be in the billions. Suffice to say there is no precise piece of research yet available and probably never will be. However the rule in medicine is clear " It is unethical to engage in or to aid and abet in treatment which has no acceptable scientific basis, may be dangerous, may deceive the patient by giving false hope, or which may cause the patient to delay in seeking proper care until his or her condition is irreversible." (College of Physicians and Surgeons, BC. Policy manual U-1) Thus the burden of responsibility lies with anyone who introduces some "Unproven Treatment" to convince physicians and patients that the new treatment is necessary, good for the patient and family, without serious side effects and can be done in good faith. This has never happened with respect to abortion mainly because those who do induced abortion did not feel it was necessary as long as they had public and government support. Sad to say, very few physicians spoke up with, "What is going on here? We had to jump thru all the hoops when we wanted to use a new drug. Why do these abortionist get away with murder?"
.

WHAT COULD BE DONE
Having knocked holes in almost every known research on abortion, you might ask is there any point to going beyond clinical observations. Yes there are benefits, especially as another semi-solid piece of evidence that abortion is a very serious matter. Besides, the press like to think they understand research and the politicians use it in speeches.
There are no studies that are perfect or precise so that there will always be people able to pick hole in any research that shows there are very serious consequences to induced abortion. What is much more obvious and not debatable is that there are no known benefits from induced abortion. What prolifers must insist is that those who do the abortions and those who support them, show what they are doing is good for women. So far they proudly assert they don't need to because it is a woman's right. It is a ruse. They must be held accountable just as anyone who gets paid for providing a service or fixing something must convincingly demonstrate they are doing a good job and really helping people. In medicine and in ever other professional field the rule is that whoever makes any claim to help people and charges for it, must first prove they have something to offer. Amoung mechanics the same rules apply. "If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it" and "You said you were helping me, now prove it buddy" Only in the area of abortion have there rules been ignored, Yet in the practice of medicine the rules have been made to apply more stringently. It takes about 7 years of development and drug trials before the federal government allows the drug to be marketed.
There is enough clinical evidence of harm from abortion seen in practice and reported in journals that the licensing bodies should have insisted the practice be withdrawn until further research shows its necessity and benefit. If 2 cases of serious harm or fatalities were linked to a drug, that medication would have been withdrawn from the market immediately. By not doing this the colleges of physicians and surgeons have been do remiss in their duties, that the government should have fired the directors and ordered an investigation. In effect the whole medical profession, with a few exceptions, has colluded to make the practice of induced abortion a vast uncontrolled experiment with numberless women as the guinea pigs. Not only that, the government by using taxes to pay for an unproven remedy has made the whole population major contributors to this huge crime.

1. Animal studies first.
This rule applies to any unproven surgical remedy. The advantages are:
a) The "treatment" abortion can be assigned randomly to rats when it is not possible to tell humans, you will be aborted, like it or not and you will be allowed to continue your pregnancy.
b) The animal can be terminated at different times post abortion and examined for physical and physiological effects of abortion.
c) The abortions can be done in different ways and at different stages of the animal's pregnancy.
d) Psychological effects can be determined by counting the rates of fighting amoung aborted compared to not aborted groups of rats, etc
e) Bonding ability can be determined by running T-mazes with food in one direction and infant rats in the other.
f) Parenting capability can be objectively measured by counting the minutes of time spent with the infant, how much they are breast fed, how much weight they gain etc.
g) It is far less expensive and emotionally draining on the experimenter's assistants. ( I proposed this type of experiment and had the willing agreement of a God loving veterinarian. We were ready to proceed but no church or prolife group would provide $5000 dollars.)
2,Shut it down until….The practice of abortion must be stopped by: cutting off all tax payers contribution, providing access and financial support to all those injured to sue their abortionists, lifting the license to practice of any physician who induces an abortion without all the requirements of evidence based medicine applying, until such time as abortion is shown to be indicated, beneficial etc. This is the most reasonable medical, governmental and legal approach.
3. For all those women who have already received an abortion, do longitudinal studies with objective hard measures such as: longevity, medical costs, suicide, murders committed, child abuse and neglect, requests for doctor assisted death, number of surgical procedures, marriage survival, number of grandchildren, etc. made at regular intervals
4. Similar measures for the fathers and siblings of aborted babies.
5. Additional more sensitive measures of; rage, fear of own rage, dream quality, eating disorders, promiscuity, (number of sexual partners) aberrant sexual encounters and spiritual and existential questions.
6. Carefully studying the effects of PASS over time. The number of abortions their children have, and the incidence of genetic anomalies. Behavioural sampling in natural environments of school etc to determine the number of antisocial behaviours in children with aborted sibs,
7. Compare societies with high and low rates of abortion to determine social cohesion, crime rates, etc.
Always making sure that the major initiative and funding comes from those who do or support induced abortion.

CONCLUSIONS
God loving people should never fear the truth or reasonable attempts to uncover it. Whenever there is any evidence of the beneficial result of abortion, scrutinize it very carefully. The likelihood of being able to justify induced abortion on the basis of good medical research is about 1 in 10,000. It is sufficiently low that God loving persons should not fear. Yes there will be many false findings, but they are not difficult to detect and there will be good research by God loving scientists who show quite the opposite. If that happens, who will be believed, those who doubt the positive findings
Even if there were positive results from induced abortions, that could not happen for a long time. In the meantime, society will have a chance to regain its sanity and humanity. The present situation is sufficiently desperate that I fear it cannot be reversed. We have a small window of opportunity to struggle to make fact, reason and sanity heard. We only lack the intelligence and courage of our forefathers.
"Why mommy?"
"Why what little one?"
"Why did that nice lady kill her baby"?
" Yes why indeed. It doesn't make sense. I wish I could answer that very good question my child. With God's help, we must try"