Amanda Marcotte, at RH Reality Check, explores the relationship between abortion and domestic violence. She writes:
Once pregnant, women in abusive relationships are quite likely to be more motivated than average to terminate a pregnancy. Domestic abuse often escalates during pregnancy, probably because abusers feel an even stronger need to control their victims. They may also feel like they can get away with more abuse, because the child makes it that much harder for a woman to escape. In fact, homicide, usually at the hands of a male partner, is one of hte leading causes of death for pregnant women. I’m not at all surprised that many women sense this danger, and this influences the decision to terminate.
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“And that leads me to the one silver lining in this research, which is that it seems many of the women getting abortions are not just trying to survive within abusive relationships, but are also taking steps to get out.”
That point stood out as I read this.
Same here.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. In those situations at least the woman suspects the danger ahead and doesn’t convince herself that things will change once the baby arrives. (What an awful counselor in the film mentioned in the link!)
And how lonely those women must feel. My heart goes out to them.
Has anyone determined how many of the woman were living with the father of the child they were carrying or was it the child of a previous relationship.
Here in OK there are a high number of children killed by the boyfriend who is not the the father of the child. Apparently patterning after the animal kingdom where many males kill the offspring of the mate if he did not father them.
I guess my question is does the violence escalate only in those cases in which the perpetraitor is not the father of the child?
I don’t know the answer to that question. I know of those situations. They’re beyond heartbreaking.