News

By Thaddeus M. Baklinski

SYNDEY, Australia, August 11, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Danielle Stewart, who fatally stabbed her husband Chaim Kimel with an ornamental knife during a heated argument, was today found guilty of manslaughter.

Stewart, who had originally been charged with murder, was  convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter, after the court heard testimony from her psychiatrist, Dr. Rosalind Foy, who said Stewart suffered from  “borderline personality disorder”, similar to post-traumatic stress disorder, which has symptoms including violence and self-harm and which left her with a “poor sense of self.” The psychiatrist testified that Stewart had been sexually and physically abused as a child.

While Stewart and Kimel had a lengthy and turbulent history together, Dr. Foy also testified that Stewart had initially sought her help because she was “depressed and suicidal” after aborting a child she had conceived during an affair she’d had while separated from her husband. Her husband had pressured her into having the abortion against her wishes.

“Chaim said: `Have the termination if you want to stay with me`,” Dr. Foy read from her notes during the trial according to LiveNews.

Stewart was “deeply disturbed in an angry fashion” and had a “high level of anxiety”, Dr. Foy told the court.

While it is unclear to what extent Stewart’s abortion exacerbated her already existent mental problems and the already rocky relationship she had with her husband, research conducted by the Elliott Institute has found a significant increase in mental illness, often resulting in violence and self-destructive behaviour, in women with a previous history of abortion.

David C. Reardon, Ph.D, in an article titled Abortion and Domestic Violence published in the Elliott Institute’s Post Abortion Review, explained the important connection between violence in the womb and violence in the home.

“Certainly not every abortion leads to domestic violence, nor is every case of domestic violence rooted in the trauma of a prior abortion. But it is not a coincidence that the rates of abortion and domestic violence have risen together during the last twenty-five years. The evidence supporting a correlation between abortion and violence between women and men, at least for some couples, is so compelling that it is beyond dispute.”

“Perhaps the two key elements related to post-abortion violence are (1) increased levels of irritability, anger, and rage, and (2) increased tendencies toward risk-taking, self-destructive, and suicidal behaviors,” Dr. Reardon wrote.

In an Elliot Institute study of 260 women, 53 percent stated that after their abortion “I started losing my temper more easily,” and 48 percent stated “I became more violent when angered.”

Dr. Reardon said that “self-hatred, hatred of the male, and hatred of men in general, were all significantly correlated to each other,” and that “this constellation of problems, an increased tendency toward violence, emotional detachment, and self-destructive behaviors, would appear to be exasperated by the study group’s dramatically increased rate of drug and alcohol abuse subsequent to abortion.”

In an eerie correlation with Mr. Kimel’s death, the research revealed, “Cycles of violence such as this are common. Studies of domestic abuse have found that women are substantially more likely to initiate violence then men, as confirmed even by the women studied. Because of their greater strength, however, the hitting done by men causes more damage. But researchers have also found that to offset this advantage of strength, women are more likely to resort to the use of household weapons, such as boiling water or knives.”

To read Dr. Reardon’s article please see: https://www.afterabortion.org/PAR/V4/n23/DOM_VIOL.htm

For further information on research into the psychological effects of abortion please read the related LifeSiteNews.com articles:

Study Shows Abortion Takes Toll on Adolescent Mental Health
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/aug/06081805.html

New Research Supports Abortion-Mental Health Risk Claims
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jan/06010507.html

Abortion Has a Damaging Psychological Effect says Psychiatrist
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/mar/05032905.html

Rape and Incest Victims Don’t Want Abortion, Say It Doesn’t Help Women
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/sep/06090702.html

Colorado Activist Connects Abortion, Criminal Behaviour
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/1999/april/990422a.html