Though no long term studies have yet been done, the descriptions women give of their encounters with their aborted children raise great concern. Women who have undergone RU486/PG abortions talk about seeing tiny fists, eyes, or seeing their aborted babies laying in the toilet bowl or swirling in the shower drain. Counselors at abortion clinics indicate it is common for women to express a desire to bury the baby, to perform some sort of ceremony to deal with their strong feelings. These are hardly the reactions of women who consider this a blob of tissue.

Whereas those who undergo surgical abortion only imagine what their unborn children look like and go through, women who have abortions with RU486 have vivid memories of their encounters with their children. And while giving the woman more control over her abortion may assuage the abortionist's guilt, it definitely increases a woman's sense of responsibility for the abortion.

While a sense of relief is what many woman having surgical or chemical abortions feel immediately after the abortion, we know from experience that the symptoms of post abortion trauma often do not show up until years later. When women who have had RU486 abortions begin to deal with their experience, they will have more vivid memories and a greater sense of responsibility to deal with than those who underwent surgical abortions.

Printed with permission from National Right to Life (www.nrlc.org ).