{"id":1073,"date":"2018-01-09T13:00:30","date_gmt":"2018-01-09T17:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/consistent-life.org\/blog\/?p=1073"},"modified":"2018-01-09T13:00:30","modified_gmt":"2018-01-09T17:00:30","slug":"healing-perpetrators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/consistent-life.org\/blog\/index.php\/2018\/01\/09\/healing-perpetrators\/","title":{"rendered":"Healing for the Perpetrators: The Psychological Damage from Different Types of Killing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sarah Terzo<\/p><\/div>\n

by Sarah Terzo<\/p>\n

Violence harms not only its victims but in some cases also harms its perpetrators. Consistent Life Network Vice President Rachel MacNair has written extensively<\/a> on how those who kill (in war, in abortion clinics, in execution chambers) are psychologically damaged by their actions, a situation she calls \u201cPerpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress (PITS)<\/a>.\u201d Recent accounts by a woman involved in abortions and men who killed people with drone strikes offer further\u2014and noticeably similar\u2014examples of the psychological harm caused by killing.<\/p>\n

The pro-life group Live Action ran an article about a former Planned Parenthood worker who left the abortion industry. The woman, identified only as Gail, gave a heartbreaking account<\/a> of what she witnessed at Planned Parenthood.<\/p>\n

After describing how the fetal remains from abortions were put in little dishes to be examined, she says:<\/p>\n

I would look at that dish, and the little arms and legs\u2026and I always wondered who they would have grown up to be. I would pray for them, and try not to vomit because it smelled bad and was so gross. Then, all the abortion products of the day went into a biohazard bag all clumped together, and into a deep freezer. It would be collected, and I think sent off to be incinerated.<\/p>\n

Gail was traumatized by the tiny body parts she saw. But she was also troubled by the fact that other workers at the clinic did not seem to share her feelings of horror\u2014specifically her concerns about when the unborn babies could feel pain:\u00a0\u201cOne doctor said, \u2018I don\u2019t know why its [sic] a big deal. It\u2019s good money!\u2019\u00a0Another doctor would pump her breast milk for her newborn baby in between killing other peoples\u2019 babies. I never knew how she could do that!\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, one day, she had had enough: \u201cOnce, I saw tiny fully developed hands in the little pyrex dish. Tiny, tiny hands perfectly formed\u2026that was one of the last straws for me\u2026I gave up my whole belief system for money. I was paid $70,000 and they offered more when I quit!\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite Planned Parenthood offering her more money, Gail left the clinic. Later, she described the emotional toll assisting in abortions took on her:<\/p>\n

I used to be really happy, loved life, saw beauty everywhere before I started working there. Then, I started working at Planned Parenthood, and I was always sad, always tired, and really depressed.\u00a0\u2026How I felt coming home each day from the abortion center was like a soldier who had come back from war. The emptiness. That\u2019s how I felt. Empty. I don\u2019t believe we were created to see so much death.<\/p>\n

Gail compared herself to a soldier on the battlefield. And, indeed, there are some striking similarities between her story and one of a drone operator who left the military.<\/p>\n

Former drone operator Brandon Bryant describes<\/a> the horror of his first kill:<\/p>\n

So we\u2019re looking at this thing, these people, and it was like almost instantaneous that someone was like, \u201cConfirmed weapons. Here\u2019s the nine line. You\u2019re cleared. You\u2019re cleared hot.\u201d And we fire the missile. And the safety observer is counting down. He counts down to zero, and he says, \u201cSplash!\u201d<\/p>\n

And I watched this man bleed out. The missile had taken off one of his legs right above the knee. And I watched him bleed out of his femoral artery. And he\u2019s rolling on the ground, and I can\u2014I imagined his last moments.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know what to feel. I just knew that I had ended something that I had no right to end\u2026.It was like my image of myself was cracking and breaking apart.<\/p>\n

And the safety observer laughs, and he slaps me on the back, and he says, \u201cYou should have seen how you jumped when I said, ‘Splash.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Bryant too saw the graphic aftermath of violence against a human being. He saw the violence and knew that he was one of the perpetrators. Bryant recalls the terrible damage the missile inflicted on his target, with part of the man\u2019s leg blown away. This description echoes Gail\u2019s words about dismembered body parts. Both the killings Bryant carried out and the abortions Gail participated in were bloody and gruesome. \u00a0Neither Gail nor Bryant could deny the fact that they had killed (or helped kill) human beings.<\/p>\n

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Another parallel between the two accounts is the presence of other perpetrators who seemed immune to the horror. In Gail\u2019s case, it was the two doctors, one of whom casually pumped breast milk for her own child in between killing other people\u2019s children. For Bryant, it was another member of the military who turned the drone strike into a joke. Both these people were so hardened by the violence they were inflicting on others that they horrified Gail and Bryant. The abortionists and the safety observer may have repressed their consciences to the point where they no longer had normal human feelings. Gail and Bryant had not yet reached that stage. To Bryant and Gail, the killing hadn\u2019t yet become normalized. When they saw the hard-heartedness of the people they worked with, they glimpsed what would happen to them if they continued killing.<\/p>\n

Seeing the carnage inflicted on their victims led to terrible feelings of guilt and trauma in Gail and Bryant, and this prompted them to quit. Perhaps seeing the complete lack of remorse and human feeling in their colleagues was another factor in their decision to leave.<\/p>\n

The emotional trauma of another drone operator provides another parallel with Gail\u2019s experience. Former drone operator Stephen Lewis, who quit after one kill, says<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It makes any kind of relationship difficult. I can\u2019t\u2014I can\u2019t communicate properly with my friends. I have to preface it with \u201cI\u2019m sorry, guys. I can\u2019t hang out with you tonight. There\u2019s too much going on right now.\u201d It\u2019s, in effect, killed every single relationship that I\u2019ve had afterwards.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Lewis does not appear to find the Department of Veterans Affairs to be a source of help for his psychological distress:<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been to the VA, but it seems useless. It seems useless for me. It\u2019s been six months. They\u2019ve said, \u201cHey, you need an\u00a0MRI.\u201d It\u2019s been six months without an\u00a0MRI. It\u2019s \u201cHey, you need medication to manage this pain.\u201d It\u2019s been six months without medication to manage pain. If they\u2019re not going to take care of you, then why should you even go?<\/p>\n

One can only hope that Lewis is able to find help for his emotional trauma.<\/p>\n

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Abby Johnson<\/p><\/div>\n

There is a place former abortion workers can go for support after they leave the industry. Former Planned Parenthood manager Abby Johnson set up the organization And Then There Were None<\/a> which holds healing retreats for abortion workers who have left the industry. They are able to find healing and a sense of camaraderie that would otherwise be elusive. One former clinic worker, Shelley Guillory, RN, describes<\/a> why And Then There Were None is so important to her:<\/p>\n

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A lot of people tend to look at us as bad guys. We\u2019re not bad guys. We\u2019re human. We\u2019re doing a job. For a lot of us to come out of the industry, we\u2019re embarrassed. We don\u2019t feel comfortable or safe speaking to anybody. It puts us in a very, very dark place. For a lot of us, we go into deep depressions. You\u2019d be very surprised [at] the suicide rate that is very prevalent among abortion workers once they come out because sometimes you feel alienated. But with [And Then There Were None], we don\u2019t have that feeling. We are loved even when we don\u2019t love ourselves.<\/p>\n

Former Planned Parenthood manager Sue Thayer also says:<\/p>\n

I would say my favorite thing about [being involved with And Then There Were None] really, is just being able to be with other people who have had similar experiences and you can say anything, really, and they\u2019re not shocked. Whereas some of the stuff that we did, or said to clients, if we say that out in public, you know, people either wouldn\u2019t believe it or really think you\u2019re a horrible person. But when all of us are together, it\u2019s like \u201cyup, we all did that.\u201d So that\u2019s really the only place that I\u2019ve ever been that you can really be open about our experiences.<\/p>\n

Those of us who value life and seek to relieve human suffering need to advocate for the victims of violence, but we also must promote healing for the perpetrators who change their minds. Compassion for all who are hurt by violence, whether guilty or innocent, is part of the Consistent Life Ethic.<\/p>\n

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For more blog posts from Sarah Terzo, see:<\/p>\n

Abortion Doctor Says: We are the Executioners<\/a><\/p>\n

The Vital Need for Diversity<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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See\u00a0the <\/span>list of all our blog posts<\/span><\/a>, put in categories.<\/span><\/p>\n

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by Sarah Terzo Violence harms not only its victims but in some cases also harms its perpetrators. Consistent Life Network Vice President Rachel MacNair has written extensively on how those who kill (in war, in abortion clinics, in execution chambers) are psychologically damaged by their actions, a situation she calls \u201cPerpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress (PITS).\u201d Recent… <\/p>\n