France enshrined abortion in its constitution last week. Countless gleeful faces celebrated the news that women are now constitutionally protected in their right to kill their unborn children. The Eiffel Tower was even lit up with the words, “mon corps mon choix,” my body, my choice.
Recently, while praying in front of an abortion facility in New York City, while holding my sign, “I had an abortion, life does not go back to normal,” a pro-abortion protester came up to me boasting how her life was totally normal after her three abortions. I never answer when such protesters approach me, but inside I couldn’t help but think, “Does she think this is normal for us, to spend our Saturday mornings in front of an abortion facility?”
Abortion changes people — in diverse ways, but looking around at the effect it is having on our country, one has to acknowledge it is life-altering, not only for the individual involved but for everyone.
For more than 50 years now, my life has been affected by an abortion I had at 17 years old. Coerced by my father to abort my unborn child in my fourth month of pregnancy, the imprint of his dead, burned body from a saline abortion will stay with me forever. I remember thinking, “How is it possible that this is legal?” I could not wrap my head around the horror of the reality of what had just happened, a horror to this day that is hidden from the world.
Abortion is cloaked in language like “women’s health care” or “reproductive choice,” never venturing near what it is, the slaughter of an unborn baby in the womb and the ultimate failure of love to preserve your “self” for whatever reason. A desperation to believe the lies, and the rhetoric we are bombarded with daily, wins out over the truth.
As we approach the election, it is hard to avoid the media bias on all the ways restrictions on abortion are supposedly harming women and their mental health. How terrible some are to dare to put any restrictions on abortion — they obviously do not care about women’s health.
It’s a hard pill to swallow when you are coming from the place I am with my own abortion, as it is for the thousands of women I have worked with in post-abortion healing ministry over the past 30 years. These women’s lives have been destroyed by the lies of abortion, and their experiences and pain continue to be denied by a society intent on protecting abortion at any cost. How is it that abortion can harm your mental health if you cannot get an abortion, but the harm experienced by taking the life of your child is not allowed to exist? The lies continue and grow, deadening the hearts of the ones who should be loving their children the most.
I recently read an article in HuffPost by a mother bemoaning the fact that she now felt like she had to choose a college for her teenage daughter based on the availability of “reproductive rights.” She wanted to be sure her daughter had access to abortion.
Denying Reality
Abortion is framed as a choice, but of course, the truth is that very often it is not a woman’s choice. Women are coerced into abortion by boyfriends, husband, and fathers. Minors are sexually abused and brought for abortions with no consequences for their abusers. Women are physically and psychologically harmed, with large segments of society refusing to acknowledge their pain. Recently, more women have been traumatized, having been told chemical abortion is safe and can be done “in the comfort of your home,” only to come face to face with their dead unborn baby, an event that will forever erase the comfort of home.
Yes, we as a society have gotten incredibly good at denying the reality of abortion. There is no place more protected than abortion facilities, with boundaries and laws specifically enforced for them. People can burn down towns and commit all kinds of crimes, but step out of bounds near an abortion facility and you are sure to get hit with the full extent of the law.
Many pass by these killing centers with no thought of what is happening inside. They choose instead to call it “women’s health” as babies are slaughtered. It is easier to pretend it’s “women’s health,” so as not to have to face what women are really doing, but one day we will have to look.
Facing Reality
In the end, we will all have to answer for the more than 63 million babies that have died in the U.S. while most not only stood silently by, but some even celebrated. We used to think people did not know what was going on, but now we have moved to abortion any time, any place, for any reason.
Before you vote, take a good long look and learn the truth of what abortion is. Make yourself come face to face with the reality of abortion.
When I was 17, I caved into abortion in fear — I thought to save myself. There are millions of us out there who did the same for whatever reason. I am glad I saw my aborted son myself so I could never deny the truth about abortion.
God forbid I ever stay quiet or deny the reality of abortion to save myself again, no matter what happens. I pray every day to have the courage to speak the truth, the truth of what I saw and what abortion truly is — the killing of innocent unborn babies under the guise of women’s rights.
