A review of the psychoanalytic literature on abortion.

Abstract

Journal of The American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 29(2), 231–244, 2001 © 2001 The American Academy of Psychoanalysis I cannot neglect this opportunity of expressing for once my astonishment that human beings can go through such great and important moments of their erotic life without noticing them much, sometimes even, indeed, without having the faintest suspicion of their existence, or else, having become aware of those moments, deceive themselves so thoroughly in their judgment of them. . . . One is also amazed at the unexpected results that may follow an artificial abortion, the killing of an unborn child, which had been decided upon without remorse and without hesitation. —Freud, “The Psychogenesis of a Case of Homosexuality in a Woman”