Children of religious fanatics experience this abuse in its most frightening form. In your Rots Your Brain article, you state "A believer is essentially running a secondary simulation of an imaginary world on top of the consensu7s reality they perceive. " The perversions required to adhere to the rules of the fantasy world require constant perversion of natural instincts. I stopped a teenage father in the act of belt-whipping his toddler for walking too slowly in the mall - "He needs it" was this brainwashed boy's reason. Beaten children producing beaten children.

Our fear of emotions is so intense that we beat them out of our children, who according to christianity are "born sinners" who must be taught to be good. And the source of that poison? Centuries of abusive, punishing parents, who were themselves punished by their parents, and who cannot bear to reject their abusers - and become emotional orphans. Alice Miller explains this theory using Hitler's Hitler's abusive childhood as an example. By not expressing his rage at his father's abusive behavior, he was forced to vent that rage outward - and the death of millions of humans was the result. Voilence toward others is misdirected rage toward the original abusers - usually or own abused and therefore abusive parents. No matter how old we are, confronting our abusers is too frightening, and our rage spews outward toward substitute culprits - abortion doctors, immigrants, jews, and our own children, who's evil behavior must be eliminated. [part 2 of 3 - see next comment]

You just walked around the elephant. We need to talk about the emotions of sexualiity as well as the instincts behind the "need to breed." My father's entire discussion of relationships came down to "When you go to college, you may have sex - and if you get pregnant, we will provide an abortion in Puerto Rico." That was 1968. In 1994, he told me that scientists would be able to remove "unnecessary emotions" in the next 30 years, which would create a much more harmonious society - all that would be needed, he said, were fight or flight responses to imminent danger. His escape from his feelings is now pretty much complete - at age 92, he tends to the bird feeders at his nursing home, and is also conveniently deaf and incapable of discussing his own behavior. [continued in next comment]

The elephant in the abortion clinic is... Why arethese pregnancies happening in the first place? I think it's girls and women who are desperate for attention because of absent parents, loneliness, or confusion because of sexual abuse. Home-schooled children often have undeveloped social skills and immature behavior that makes them vulnerable to the desires of others. The emotional side of abortion, and other problems like drug/alcohol addiction, and violence - our culture is so afraid of dealing with feelings that we point fingers and rage against the results, but never address the source of these problems. Our healthcare system needs work - but the big problem in healthcare is not physical ailments, it's emotional isses, and we don't dare to address it for fear we'll have to look inside ourselves. If we had access to mental health help, made classes on emotional issues required in schools, the abortion and suicide rates would dramatically decrease. But it won't happen until the adults, and especially the doctors, are willing to look in the mirror.