TN Smart Girl

Abby speaks what has been in my heart for years. My church is not really listening. Is yours?

Time lapse video (1:31) of 2011 DC March For Life.

The largest rally ever ignored by the mainstream media.

For those who believe that abortion is just a choice that a woman makes, one that should be left to her and to her alone, please read on. Abortion breaks the hearts of men, too. It breaks the hearts of grandparents, and the hearts of uncles and aunts. It breaks the heart of God.

This is a true story about my son and the baby he named Gabriel…

Early last summer, my son was told by a young woman with whom he had had a casual sexual encounter that she was pregnant. He didn’t tell anyone for four months, but God finally broke through his denial in late October and he told me. Since the end of July, this young woman had been sending him text messages about his child. He had an ultrasound picture-at about 20 week gestation-that was sent to his phone of the baby she said was his son. I had the same picture on my phone the day after he told me about this child.

She sent these messages several times a day with comments like ‘your son likes Oreos’ or ‘your son doesn’t like tacos’. They talked about how he would play football. They talked about what he would look like. She went into great detail about her visits to the doctor, always saying her mom took her. She said her mom wanted to raise Gabriel, but that my son could be as involved as he wanted to be. She told me these same things. She and I talked several times on Facebook about her doctor visits, her heartburn, and her questions about pregnancy.

We welcomed her into our home and we welcomed the child into our family and into our hearts. My daughter-in-law gave her a basket full of baby items for him. Gabriel had Christmas gifts in my closet right beside those for my granddaughter and grandson.

Then, suddenly, in late November my son received a message saying that she was having cramps and that her mom took her to the doctor. She said that his child was ‘small for dates’. She said that the MD was putting her on bed rest to try and avoid premature labor. She said they wanted to give his lungs a chance to mature. She said she was going to stay at her mom’s.

Somehow, it had never been convenient for her for my son to go to the doctor with her, or to go to her mom’s home. But he did manage to get her mother’s phone number from a mutual friend and so, that evening, I called her mother. I told her my name, that I was his mother. She said nothing for a second, then just a rather confused “yes?” I said that her daughter had told my son that she had been to the doctor and was experiencing complications, and that I wanted to know if she was alright and if there was anything we could do. She was silent for a few seconds, and then said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about…..”

There was no baby. The young lady aborted him early in the pregnancy, but continued to let my son, and ultimately the rest of my family, believe that he was alive. It was such an elaborate web of lies that it is almost beyond belief. I told her mother enough of it to impress upon her that her daughter is in serious need of professional help, and I said I would pray for them. I don’t know what happened to her. I continue to pray for her healing.

What my son did was wrong, and he knows that. He stepped up to the plate and took responsibility for his actions. He asked God for forgiveness. He asked our church family for forgiveness. I am so very proud of him for that. I don’t think I could have done what he did.

He was never in love with this young woman, but he did fall in love with Gabriel. So did I. But Gabriel’s birth was just the fantasy of a very disturbed young woman. There has been a death in our family. My son, my grown son of 23, so strong, so confident, cried his heart out for days on end. So did I.

When I am in pain, God uses writing to help heal my heart. In my grief last winter, I wrote these words:

I don’t know how to say goodbye…

God desires for us to pour out our hearts to Him, to offer up to Him the deepest pain in our hearts. He cannot heal what we do not allow Him to touch. This is a lesson that I have learned the hard way, because for many years I thought that if I denied feeling pain, if I pretended everything was ok, then the hurt would go away and nobody would know. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I couldn’t sleep last night, so I started writing, trying to make some kind of sense out of this loss…

“Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress;
my eye is wasted from grief;
my soul and my body also.
For my life is spent with sorrow,
and my years with sighing;
my strength fails…” Psalm 31:9-10

Our “little angel that came out of nowhere” only existed in the mind of a very sick young lady. But to us, he was still very much alive.

I don’t know how to say goodbye…

How can something seem so real when it has vanished?
How can you love someone so much that will never exist in this world?

Brown curly hair…
with just a touch of ‘nappy’.

Perfectly soft sweet skin…
just a bit darker than mine.

Dancing green eyes…
that sometimes seem brown, or grey.

Chubby little arms with ten perfect fingers…
reaching up to be held.

Chubby little legs with ten perfect toes…
running into my arms.

Bumps and bruises…
as he learned to crawl, then walk, then run.

The voice of an angel…
singing silly made up songs.

Getting into everything…
as little boys do.

There were already so many dreams…

His first Christmas, lights dancing in his eyes…
playing around the tree with his cousins…

His first birthday…
cake and ice cream smeared all over his face…

His first day of school…
tears and excitement rolled into one…

Playing football…
a slightly crazy linebacker with no fear…

Singing and acting and dancing…
gifts and talents sent straight from heaven…

His name was Gabriel…

He never got a chance to live,
but still, I’ve lost a piece of my heart…

I don’t know how to say goodbye…

My prayer is that God will be glorified through this experience that is so beyond my understanding. I know that He holds us in His hand, I know that He will bring us through this nightmare together, just as He has brought us through so many times before. Although this deception was unquestionably evil and meant by Satan to destroy, I know that God will take it and use it for good.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:11-13

Abortion kills a child and wounds a mother. Perhaps the experience of abortion caused this young lady’s psychological problems. Perhaps she had them already. I don’t know. What I DO know is that I would have gladly taken my grandson and raised him as my own. His name was Gabriel…

Most Progressives are vitriolic in their support of a “woman’s right to choose”. That’s understandable. I do not write to them. I write today to what I call the ‘fence-sitters’, the conservatives who say that they are personally opposed to abortion but believe that it is up to a woman and her doctor. I submit that this is a cowardly stance to take. President Obama, the most radically pro-abortion President in history, says as much.

Pro-choice arguments always center around women’s rights. They claim that abortion is safe, that there are no lasting emotional scars. I issue a challenge: ask a woman who had an abortion years ago and now suffers the emotional/spiritual consequences of that ‘choice’ some questions.

Ask her if she wanted the baby’s father to man up and tell her he supported her and the baby he helped to create. Ask her if she hoped against hope that he would show up and carry her out of there. Ask her if her parents were more concerned about what people would think than about their daughter and grandchild.

Ask her if she got accurate medical information. Ask her if she was seriously offered another option. Ask her if, as she lay on that cold table, with doctors and nurses joking about where they were going to lunch, she wanted to scream and run away. Then ask her if she felt like she had anywhere to go. Ask her if she has regretted that choice every single day of her life. Ask her if she thinks about what her child would look like, what he or she would have grown up to be.

You’ll get different answers, because the initial reaction is relief. A crisis is over, a problem is solved. A woman is told that now she can go on with her life. But her life has been forever changed, and eventually that ‘choice’ will surface from the depths of her heart, from that place where she shoves it tightly down and slams the door.

It may surface as nightmares, depression, panic attacks, substance abuse, relational issues, or any number of other symptoms that mirror PTSD. Secular mental health providers are quick to discount a woman’s suggestion that a prior abortion is affecting her, if she is brave enough to even admit that she has had one. The American Psychiatric Association doesn’t even have the word ‘abortion’ in the index of the latest addition of the DSM-IV-TR, the ‘bible’ used to diagnose mental health issues and that providers use it to obtain codes to file for reimbursement. This stinks of politics and the strength of the pro-abortion industry.

So, if you believe abortion is a safe, harmless alternative to carrying an unplanned pregnancy to term, if you are ‘personally opposed’ but not brave enough to stand up for the truth, then I dare you. Find a women who has come to the place where she can admit that she had an abortion, and ask her. Ask me.

Abortion: A Matter of Choice?

The issue of abortion remains one of the most hotly debated moral and social issues in the United States, particularly with the recent passage of the health care reform bill that many experts say will include tax-payer funding for the procedure. Abortion is now legal at any point during pregnancy, in some cases long past the point of viability. The counseling that women receive from abortion providers prior to the procedure is often insufficient if not intentionally misleading, which calls into question the issue of informed consent and whether or not women are actually presented with the information necessary to make a wise choice. Many women will present in counseling offices with issues directly related to an abortion experience and the wise counselor will be aware of this possibility. Unfortunately, many mental health professionals either do not know of or simply disagree with the reality of Post Abortion Syndrome and women suffer as a result.

Introduction

The pro-choice movement insists that a woman has the right to choose what to do with her own body and that a pre-born child is not really human until some vague moment that is undefined. The pro-life movement believes that life begins at conception and thus to have an abortion is to take a human life; it has often been perceived to focus only on the life of the unborn child to the exclusion of the mother. The pro-choice lobby screams loudly that they are concerned about the woman and her rights but deny the mounting evidence that abortion actually harms many women. At the same time, the pro-life movement has failed to make the case that Post Abortion Syndrome exists and is harmful to women by focusing mainly on the unborn child.  It seems that the way to advance the pro-life cause with those who support a woman’s right to choose is to convince them that abortion is not a harmless procedure and that it damages women.

A Definition of Post Abortion Syndrome

Post Abortion Syndrome (PAS) is defined by Rue and Speckhard (1992) as being similar to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and as consisting of the four basic components of exposure or participation in an abortion experience, uncontrolled negative re-experiencing of the event, attempts to avoid or deny painful recollections, and experiencing symptoms such as depression, anxiety, or guilt that were not present prior to the abortion. One of the hallmarks of PTSD is that the individual will “reorganize her whole life around the traumatic event” which is also characteristic of women suffering from PAS (Rue and Speckhard, 1992, p 108). There is often a strong element of denial present, however as women mature and go through life experiences such as marriage and childbirth, the abortion is appraised differently and the realization arises that it did end a human life which results in emotional distress.

The Problem with Existing Research

The “reluctance to call attention to the negative consequences of abortion” due to social and political pressure has likely led to under-reporting of symptoms by many women who have been adversely affected (Rue and Speckhard, 1992, p. 96). A woman may deny that she is suffering because she is told that she should not, or may be so ashamed of what she has done that she lives in fear that someone will discover her secret. Regardless of the stance that abortion is a right and that it is legal, women were created with a strong instinct to protect and nurture their young and abortion is in direct opposition to this truth.

It seems that there has been an intentional position of denial of PAS by the American Psychological Association, who have not to date officially recognized PAS or included it as a diagnosable condition and who have suggested that research shows that abortion is “an emotionally benign experience for most women” (Coleman, Cougle, Reardon, and Strahan, 2005, p. 238). The APA has been criticized for relying on research that is flawed in methodology and of over generalizing the results. As of 1992, there were at least 20 cited shortcomings of APA research including insufficient sample size, no baseline measurement, unclear outcome criteria and substantial study attrition (Rue and Speckhard, 1992). Additionally, many researchers attempt to use moderators such as whether or not the woman was “emotionally attached to the fetus” and whether or not “she believed that the fetus was human” as areas to address in order to lessen the negative effects of abortion (Coleman et al, 2005, p. 245). It seems that the humanity of the fetus should not be in question and is simply a biological fact. Women are often given information concerning the procedure and its physical effect while receiving misinformation about fetal development. When a woman is thus deprived of the truth, she is deprived of her right of truly informed consent. Based purely on the number of abortions performed in the United States, a fresh and unbiased look at how abortion affects women is desperately needed. Abortion was legalized on the premise that it benefits women; however Coleman et al. (2005) state that “well-designed research specifically documenting how the procedure enhances women’s quality of life is generally absent from the professional literature” (p. 259). Failure to reexamine these issues will mislead women into making decisions based on insufficient information and will deprive them of informed consent and true choice.

Conclusion

There is a real and growing need for specialized post abortion counseling models and education for both menat health professionals and the general public. It is the opinion of the author that post abortion counseling is most effective in the context of the church, but sadly the church is often the last place a post-abortive woman turns to for fear that pro-life Christians will judge her. Christians must be intentional to value not only the life of the preborn, but to offer Christ’s grace and mercy, and the gospel message of His love and redemption, to women who made a choice that they now regret.

References

Coleman, P., Cougle, J., Reardon, D. and Strahan, T. (2005). The psychology of abortion: a review and suggestions   for future research. Psychology and Health. 20(2): 237-271.

Rue, V. and Speckhard, A. (1992). Postabortion syndrome: an emerging public health concern. Journal of Social Issues. 48(3): 95-119.