This article contains graphic content about abortion that might be distressing for some readers.
I have had an abortion — a horrific saline abortion in which I gave birth to a dead baby boy after hours of labor. It was over 45 years ago, yet it’s an image that will stay with me forever.
Believe it or not, I am grateful I saw that stark truth, exposing abortion for what it really is, instead of living in the darkness and lies. Like those of countless other women, my abortion was coerced, another truth so often denied or ignored by those claiming abortion is a good. The fallacy of “free choice” is easier to sell than the reality of the betrayal of boyfriends, parents, spouses, or other outside pressures.
As I listened to Sen. Dianne Feinstein during Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings speak of women she knew in the 1950s who suffered and even died from illegal abortion, I could not help but wonder whether Feinstein has ever spoken to the countless women who suffer now, or the families of those who have died from the “safe, legal abortion” she has worked so hard to ensure. Probably not. She can speak about how “distressing” it was for her not to get a straight answer from Barrett regarding whether the judge would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, but it appears Feinstein has no idea of the real distress millions of women experience every day due to a past abortion.
As we digress down this slippery slope we were warned about decades ago, “safe, legal, and rare” has become “safe, legal, and free,” as portrayed in the “Thank God for Abortion Anthem” video making its rounds on the internet. At least those proponents are honest. With more than 60 million abortions since Roe, rare it is not.
Joe Biden speaks of this election as a fight for the “soul of our nation,” and so it is. It is difficult, however, to listen to Biden speak as if he is on some high moral ground when, in fact, he advocates for abortion throughout the entirety of a pregnancy. This disregard for innocent human life goes beyond the soul of our nation. It is a fight for personal souls.
This self-proclaimed “devout” Catholic sadly has the support of some bishops, who tell their flocks they can vote for him “in good conscience.” Anyone who takes the time to contemplate the more than 60 million deaths of innocent babies, however, knows this cannot come from a good conscience, but from an absence of one.
I know about the fight for souls. I have faced it in my own life since that abortion all those years ago when I was tortured with guilt and shame. Those who support abortion blame my Catholic faith for instilling guilt and shame, but I know that’s not it. That agony comes from having seen my son lying on the bed next to me, killed from a saline abortion.
I also know about the fight for souls from the more than 200 new people I hear from each year who are seeking healing from abortion. These women live in pain and regret, often alone in silent suffering in a society that refuses to acknowledge their grief.
I know about it from the men who can’t let go of having coerced a girlfriend into aborting while they were in college, or the ones who had no say as their child was killed. I know about it from the siblings of aborted children who feel guilty for even being alive, or who wonder if their names would have been different if their brother or sister had been permitted to live.
Yes, we are in a fight for the soul of our nation, and for each soul within it, as our country chooses not to see what is going on, turning a blind eye to the horror of what we have done. These are decisive times. As we slip deeper and deeper into the depravity of the killing of innocent human life, with elected officials even entertaining infanticide, we lose a little more of our soul every day and will live with the consequences. We already are.
As Biden proclaims, “We are fighting for the soul of our nation,” I can only hope the scales that blind him will someday fall and he will come to realize his significant role in the loss of which he speaks. I pray we will be able to say, “I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see” before it is too late and we slip into the abyss with no way back.
