HOW WOMEN FEEL ABOUT ABORTIONS

by Nancy Felipe Russo
Social scientists have known for years that the availability of legal abortion is not associated with long-term psychological distress in women who use it. An eight-year longitudinal study involving nearly 5,300 young women published in1992 found that the best predictor of well-being in women over the course of the study was their well-being at the start of the study, not their income level, job status, level of education or martial status or -- quite specifically -- whether they had had an abortion. Now a new follow-up study, published in the current edition of the American Psychological Association's (APA) journal Professional Psychology: Research and Practice finds that the same conclusion still applies regardless of religious or racial differences.
The study, by psychologists Nancy Felipe Russo, Ph.D., of Arizona State University and Amy J. Dabul, Ph.D., of Phoenix College, is further analysis of data gathered from a national sample of 5,295 women aged 14 to 24 (in 1979) who were interviewed annually from 1979 to 1987. The women's well-being was assessed using a reliable and valid measure of self-esteem in 1980 and again in 1987. This time, in addition to looking at variables such as income, employment and education, the researchers looked at race and religious beliefs and practices to see if they had any effect on women's well-being after having had an abortion.
They found that, overall, White women and Black women did not differ statistically on measures of self-esteem. Approximately the same proportion of Black women and White women reported having had an abortion (14.6% and 14.9% respectively), but Black women had more abortions than White women and Black women who had abortions were more likely than White women to be mothers (86% vs 57%). Nonetheless, having had an abortion (or more than one) had no relation with self-esteem in either group: "For both Black women and White women, prior self-esteem was the biggest predictor of subsequent self-esteem," the authors note. The same held true when they compared Black and White women who reported a religious affiliation and high or low church attendance with those who were not religious.
Since the type of religion to which women who had an abortion belonged also did not make a difference in their post-abortion well-being, the researchers focused specifically on Catholic versus non-Catholic women, given that the Catholic Church "has a consistent antiabortion position that is vigorously promoted."
Their findings in this analysis were more complex: nonCatholic women who had high church attendance and one abortion had the highest self-esteem; non-Catholic women who had low church attendance and repeat abortions had the lowest self-esteem. But at the same time, high-church-attendance non-Catholic women with one abortion had significantly higher self-esteem than did low-churchattendance Catholic women with no abortions. "Although highly religious Catholic women were slightly more likely to exhibit postabortion psychological distress than other women," the researchers say, "this fact is explained by lower pre-existing well-being."
Given these findings, the researchers ask: "Do highly distressed women who have had an abortion exist?" And, they answer: "Yes. But their distress is likely to be rooted in events and conditions that existed before they became pregnant. Legal abortion per se does not increase a woman's risk of negative wellbeing."

The Teen Oral Sex and Self-Esteem Connection: by Jennifer Sarpong

The Problem Jessica Weiner, author of A Very Hungry Girl, was called in to work with a group of 13-year-old girls who had given oral sex to boys on a school bus at a private school. She says casual oral sex is part of a larger problem.
"This is what peer pressure looks like," says Jessica. "Girls today are all in people-pleasing mode because they are completely disconnected from their bodies. At age 11 or 12 or younger they're going through puberty so their hormones and natural curiosity are there too,I don't want to shame us and blame us out of feeling positive about sex and sexuality but when you're caught on the back of the school bus giving oral sex...it's about not having any sense of self which is dangerous. It sets them up for other poor choices, for eating disorders and other addictions. It sets the pattern that they're not worthy."
Not having the sense of self is a major reason why teen oral sex is so prevalent today. Most girls who engage in oral sex are not just “promiscuous” or what people call “sluts” or just “horny”. Instead, they have relationship dependency.
(You can read more about this at www.help-my-self-esteem.com/relationship-dependency.html)
Relationship Dependency- is when a person looks to another person with the goal of fulfilling a void inside themselves no matter how shallow the means are. Relationship dependency is also deeply tied to self-esteem. Indulging in it sets up a person for other negative choices and behaviors such as addictions and eating disorders.
True intimacy just like any other thing worth having, takes time, and involves investment, and causes us to risk being emotionally vulnerable. After the superficial erotic image has faded, after all the stories are told, after all the sexual fantasies have been explored, then emptiness and the need for acceptance come right back again.
The girls of Sex and the City always ended up in the same places, in the same bars and restaurants, moping around and telling their same sad stories about failed relationships because the relationships were based on sex rather than what should be a solid foundation.
Data shows that most people in extramarital affairs or recreational sex with multiple partners feel they “need change” and deserve to be understood and appreciated. So they use that need to justify “playing around.” In reality these people are afraid to make deep changes in their lives that would offer them more permanent support. Think about it for a minute. How many genuinely deep fulfilling relationships are made in the “Hookup” Culture?”
Isn’t It Safer to Have Oral Sex?
A huge number of teens think oral sex is has basically no risk. “I mean, you can’t get pregnant right?” “Of course it’s fine, it’s not ‘real sex.’ They also think oral sex is disease free, but that is absolutely incorrect. Truth is, all sex acts, including oral sex put you at risk of getting an STI (sexually transmitted infection) ie HIV the virus that causes AIDS. Chlamydia, herpes, gonorrhea and the human papilloma virus (HPV) are other common STIs that can be passed through oral sex. Even if both partners think their status is “clean”, there are many STIs that do not show symptoms.