Unless you miscarry because of hitting yourself in the stomach with a sledgehammer, the miscarriage is probably not your fault, or under your control in any way.

Abortion is a choice. Humans will tend to feel more guilt or 'emotional trauma' over things they choose, as opposed to things they have no control over.

The social attitudes toward abortion will have a profound affect on the feelings of many who have one. I doubt that the 'study' allowed for that fact.

Why is it that men who don't want to become fathers - because of the time, effort, irritations, restrictions and so on, or simply because they don't care that much for children, are viewed much more acceptingly than women who feel that way? Society tends to be understanding, even jokingly so, about the guy who doesn't want to parent - but when it's a woman, there is something wrong with her. She's lazy or selfish or just piteously unaware of the joys of motherhood.

I know a number of women who have had abortions, and none felt much of anything but relief, and natural regret for a difficult situation. A friend who didn't abort and gave up her child for adoption is haunted by it to this day.

One final question - will the women who want to have less trauma be able to opt for a miscarriage instead of an abortion? If not, what's the POINT of the comparison, aside from its dubious validity/value as a 'study'? That women should stay pregnant because they might have BAD FEELINGS otherwise? Where's the study about the BAD FEELINGS of unwanted motherhood, or the BAD FEELINGS of unwanted kids?

What a load of crap.

Cary, that was an insightful piece of writing - all except the staring out to sea part...that only works for highly-intelligent, open-spirited people - which this guy doesn't sound like.

DUMP THE JERK. It will only get worse. He's obviously vastly insecure, cruel, and a product of an old-fashioned sexist upbringing, probably religiously-based. (the 'purity' angle is the tipoff, there) It would take him a long time to change these things - if ever. And I don't mean a few months - I mean YEARS.

A relationship in this much trouble after only 9 months is never going to succeed, all suggestions about couples counseling aside. Why would anyone want to be in a relationship where counseling is needed after only 9 months? DUMP HIM.

The fact that you are still letting this guy pull your strings is unsettling - perhaps you should get counseling for yourself - to see why you feel such a deep need to placate the unreasonable and put up with the untenable.

My rule is: Never tell about your sexual past, beyond a few inescapable generalities about prominent relationships. As long as you are responsible about insuring you are disease free, or that if you have an STD, you tell them upfront - your sexual past is not anyone's business. Just because you like someone, or love them, does not entitle you to the complete diary of their intimate life Before You.

People often ask for information that upsets them when they get it.

Bad idea. Dont' ask if the answer might bother you, folks. By telling you that he gets ill over your confessions he is setting you up to feel guilty, to constantly be on the defensive, and to assuage his itty bitty feelings. The guy is an asshole, and a child. DUMP HIM.

Since females have the offspring, it would make sense that nature would give them a set of genes that cause a visual and emotional attraction to 'faces' - or/also 'baby' things that need nurturing - like puppies, kittens, baby velociraptors.

After all, if you have the baby, but no instinct to want to look at it, or take care of it, how would humanity have survived the stone age? We would all have ignored our offspring after birth - which is seen in some animals and fish. Things born able to sustain themselves don't need care - but human and many other babies do. So, nature sets us up to want to care for the baby, to be attracted to it.

This is not to say all women have maternal instinct, or that no men have paternal instincts - I'm a female with no interest in babies or nurturing, for example. I enjoyed lots of toys, not just dolls...chemistry sets, legos, remote-control cars, etc.

However, it makes scientific sense that biology would operate in a way that perpetuates the species in this instance, as in many others - and since females have the babies, it follows that some kind of behavioral hard-wiring, partly based on the visual, would accompany that fact. Nothing sexist about it...any more than we can call females bearing the babies 'sexist'. It just IS.

Hel-lo, I was born and reared in Kansas - still, unfortunately, live in Kansas - and I have always accepted evolution as the correct standard. I must admit that Kansas is looking very bad lately - I long for the days when mentioning Kansas just brought jokes about Dorothy and Toto - not about ignorant nutjobs redefining science and wielding religion like a club.

And, so what if we have a bit of genetic hard-wiring? It makes sense scientifically, as I stated in my other post. Since when is any biology more important than human intelligence and spirit? Why should survival/species perpetuation biology matter at all? Biology gives us myopia and cancer just as surely as it gives everything else - should we just go with biology's whims and not treat disease?

Let us construct our lives and society based on potential; not limits or judgements based on what we should live like because of what sex we are, or genes we have. That sort of thinking keeps humanity from evolving into something finer - keeps us all animals, and doomed to

be much less than we could be.