Classical Values :: Bad grief?

October 25, 2005

Bad grief?

Not long ago, I expressed skepticism about giving high school students at two different schools the day off from school because of a fatal automobile accident which claimed the lives of three teenagers. I speculated that some of the kids would just enjoy having the day off, and that some might not have even liked the people whose deaths they were supposed to be grieving.

But whether we're grieving sufficiently or not, the grief industry is not about to go away. It's a growth industry in which grievance counselors seem to be cranked out at a faster than the grief to be grieved.

As George F. Will quipped, even lost books are now considered a proper subject of grief:

after a flood damaged books at the Boston Public Library, counselors arrived to help librarians cope with their grief...

Even Time magazine, in a piece generally sympathetic to the grief industry, noted the excesses, and conceded the possibility that "there may be benefits to the discredited practice of keeping a stiff upper lip."

National Review's Rich Lowry thinks enforced grieving does more harm than good:

there is a risk in forcing therapy on the bereaved, who might be perfectly capable of handling their loss on their own (some people, of course, will not).

A 2000 study by University of Memphis researchers found that nearly 40 percent of those “receiving grief therapy actually fared worse than a matched group not receiving treatment.” A 2003 report by the Center for the Advancement of Health found that grief counseling and therapy “may not always be effective, and in some cases may be harmful.”

As I wondered about the value of sending kids home to grieve classmates regardless of whether they were their friends or even knew them, I stumbled onto what appears to be a grieving inconsistency. That because of political considerations, not all grieving is treated the same way. There's even an argument that some things should not be grieved.

Women who have had an abortion, for example, sometimes experience grief, and those who do have had a difficult time obtaining counseling for that grief, because "pro-choice" ideologues are unsympathetic (they feel that acknowledging post-abortion problems helps the anti-abortion cause and is therefore bad) while "pro-life" partisans believe counseling should focus on repentance and conversion, and that grieving must be atonement based.

This has led to the formation of a relatively new organization -- called "Exhale":

Despite the fact that abortion has been legal in the United States for nearly 30 years, post-abortion counseling remains rare--often lost in the roar of the debate over whether abortions are moral and whether they should remain legal. With most of the attention of pro-choice activists absorbed in preserving the option and anti-abortion groups focused in preventing abortions from occurring, little attention has been paid to the emotional aftercare that may be required, Baker says.

"When I got my abortion, I was really mad at the feminists," Baker says. "'You gave me this choice--great! But then I'm on my own afterwards? What's up with that?'"

(More here.)

More intriguingly, another organization claims to have identified something called "Post Abortion Stress Syndrome." I'm not a shrink, but the symptoms listed certainly strike me as at least as sufficient to qualify the condition for grief counseling as would the loss of library books. Yet acknowledging the existence of this condition (called "PASS") is bitterly opposed by conventional feminist theory (which holds there is no such thing):

Post-abortion stress syndrome" — PASS or PAS — sounds scientific, but don't be fooled — it's a made-up term. Not recognized as an official syndrome or diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, or any other mainstream authority, it is a bogus affliction invented by the religious right. Those who claim its existence define it loosely as a raft of emotional problems that they say women suffer after having an abortion — nightmares, feelings of guilt, even suicidal tendencies — and compare it to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Does that mean women who feel guilt or who feel the need to grieve after an abortion are victims of the religious right?

I'm not a woman, but I know I felt a lot of grief before, during, and after the death of my dog Puff last summer, even though he wasn't a person and was never growing inside of me. I still grieve him, and I don't really think it's up to anyone else to tell me whether my grief is legitimate or not. I had him put down by a veterinarian, and whether it's rational or not, I found it troubling. To be brutally frank, what I did was to kill him. A mercy killing of my best friend. (Fortunately -- largely because Puff was a dog -- neither the right nor the left will tell me that I'm the victim of the other.)

But the WaPo's Marc Fisher considers pets expendable, and claims not to understand the feelings of pet owners in New Orleans:

I cannot fathom why all these folks who stayed behind to take care of their pets would risk their lives for an animal that they could easily replace at any pet store.

I'd have risked my life for my dog, and he'd have risked his life for me. My feelings aren't for Marc Fisher to fathom.

Nor do I like the idea of people telling me what grief is good and what grief is bad, as it's none of their damned business. It's no more legitimate to invade my life with unsolicited grief counselors to tell me when I should grieve than it is to tell me when I should not grieve.

I'm sure many feminists feel the same way about fetuses that Marc Fisher does about dogs. But that gives them no right to dictate how or whether people should grieve.

Without getting into the debate over "post abortion stress syndrome," it does strike me that the grievance counseling movement -- and the burgeoning movement to call everything an illness -- would certainly seem to invite the grieving of all losses.

I mean, isn't grieving lost fetuses as legitimate as grieving lost dogs?

Or lost books?

(I'd be tempted to say "good grief!" -- but the words seem to be taking on a political charge....)

posted by Eric on 10.25.05 at 01:53 PM

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Comments

2 things:

1) a freshman was shot in my highschool in my senior year, 4 days before homecoming. It happened when he and an older brother were playing with the gun. I didn't know the kid (or his brother) but they didn't sound like the people I would particularly like anyway. Yet somehow it affected me.. there was a sense of loss at the school that permeated everything for weeks. Early that morning, my psychology teacher said that 'he was the smartest brat I've ever taught' (in a complimentary way) and kept indicating that he sat right here...

A vigil was held for several hours on the second day, during which classes were cancelled and students were given the option of leaving classes. Highschool students are unused to the idea of death. Very few have had a close relative die, and many people took it hard.

Highschool is not about the classes (really, do you remember anything you learned in High school?), it's about figuring out how to learn. Learning about how to deal with grief is an important life lesson, and it takes a few hours(or a day) so be it.

2) There should be post-abortion counseling. Everyone I know (2 people) who has had an abortion had an extreme emotional reaction. As did the one girl who gave her boy to an older cousin for adoption. An abortion is really just a forced miscarriage, and again, extreme emotional reactions are also part of miscarriages.

It's unfortunate that these things have not been focused on. An abortion clinic should not only insist on post-operational therapy, they should require it. Often people freak out about the word 'therapy' though, so maybe something like a 'health-checkup' that attempts to delve into some emotional issues.

alchemist · October 25, 2005 06:44 PM

Back in G. K. Chesterton's day, the same "progressive" elements argued that we should not mourn the dead. Now, their pendulum has swung the other way. As you say, their compassion is very selective.

This Mark Fisher sounds like a cold fish indeed. I admire your love for your dogs.

As to abortion, this confirms what i have been saying for quite some time now. In many cases, the "pro-choice" label is a lie. They are pro-abortion. They not only want to keep it legal, they do everything they can to actively promote it. "Safe, legal, and rare" is only for the TV cameras during election years. What they want is for abortion to be as common as dirt. And then on to infanticide and compulsory euthanasia.... Ties in with their view that sex is "no big deal". Life is "no big deal" for them also. No wonder they roll their eyes and turn away when you mention that Stalin and Mao murdered over 100,000,000 human beings. They'd rather scare you with bogeys of "McCarthyism" and "the Religious Right".

Steven Malcolm Anderson the Lesbian-worshipping man's-man-admiring myth-based egoist · October 25, 2005 08:29 PM

A pro-life group at my college provided free post-abortion counseling, and the founding members (friends of mine) said that in their view, blame is the LAST thing a woman needs at that point. You won't have heard of them because they were very small (and possibly have dissolved in the interim), but some groups do understand the whole distinction between the sinner and the sin (love the first and hate the second... and pointing out that the second is wrong to the first isn't precisely loving.)

B. Durbin · October 26, 2005 01:03 AM

"I mean, isn't grieving lost fetuses as legitimate as grieving lost dogs?

Or lost books?"

Well, one would think so...fetus meaning 'little one' and who would not grieve over the death of a little one?

I am post abortive - thirty five and a half years ago, at eighteen, I had an abortion. I fell into many of the same symptoms that PASS identifies. It is no coincidence, I think, that other post abortive women have told me they have done the same self destructive behaviors. Now, lest one be a cynic - I did not KNOW that there were symptoms and that many women fell into the symptoms that I did until about six years ago. I did not know I was supposed to behave in a certain way...

I did know that I was supposed to keep my abortion a secret - never to speak about it and never to divulge it to those who did not know. Grieve? Hell no - one should NOT do that, after all, one had been "relieved" of a 'clump of cells'.

We are a strange society, I tell you...a strange one that tells us that it is perfectly fine to grieve books - non living things - and to grieve pet pets - living, but not human - and not grieve human beings...albeit the smallest of us.

Topsy turvey ---

Lee Anne · October 26, 2005 02:05 PM

Oh please...what's next, "Everyone who calls himself pro-choice is just like the people in Red China who practice forced abortion and infantacide?" How many "pro-choice" activists REALLY fit your feverish description? Can you show some poll numbers? Name some names?

Most "pro-choice" activists also favor decent sex-ed and wider availability of contraception. Why? So people can AVOID unwanted pregnancies, and thus make abortion rarer. Your delerious ranting is on a par with the Terri Schiavo hysteria.

Raging Bee · October 26, 2005 02:31 PM

The thing is, most of the people I know who are pro-choice are the same people over over-grieve about say... miscarriages. How weird is that?

(And before you go flaming me, yes, I've had a miscarriage. It sucked, but not to the extent I've seen acted out in the miscarriage grief-a-thons I've been witness to.)

silvermine · October 26, 2005 07:09 PM

Silvermine - I too suffered a miscarriage - as well as an abortion. The miscarriage was an act of God. The abortion was an act of man. There is a HUGE difference. You may or may not have had grief over the loss of your child. That is your business. But, please do not deny me the right to grieve in the way that I feel comfortable in grieving.

Raging Bee---please, what is decent sex-ed? Is it showing people how NOT to get pregnant(through contraception which can cause heart attack, stroke, and even death - the pill?...read the fine print) and then when they do, how to have an abortion? OR is it teaching people that they are valuable and worth being married and having a life within the marriage with two commited partners? Spacing their children with actual love* instead of barriers and chemicals?

I go for the second definition any day of the week...I also say that a person who is pro-choice is open to abortion and by definition is pro-abortion which is pro-death.

*you really ought to check out Natural Family Planning - it ain't your mama's rhythm method!

Lee Anne · October 26, 2005 08:06 PM