- How many post-abortive women do you personally know?
- How many are proud of their abortions & would choose abortion all over again?
- How many felt forced into their choice?
I personally know 5 women that have had abortions. I know of friends and sisters of friends who have had abortions. There may be more people I know that aborted but nobody is talking.
Two of the women I know had their mothers suggest abortion and/or drive them to the clinic. One friend of a friend was encouraged by her mother-in-law to abort.
None of them are proud of what they did - it's not like they are writing letters to the paper supporting abortion, picketing against the ProLife office, attacking us at Life Chain, or working at the local Women's Center (usually a clearing house for abortion referrals.) For the most part they have tried to get on with life as if nothing happened - which is the point of abortion for many people - trying to be "unpregnant" - which is a lie - once a mother, always a mother!
Most of them brought up the topic only once when they confided in me but did not want to speak of it again. One spoke of feeling relief but later wasn't sure she wanted to tell her fiancee suspecting he would think less of her and break up with her. Another one also expressed relief but eventually broke up with the father after having another child with him. One managed to keep the abortion hidden from her family but it has basically destroyed the father of the baby who did not want her to abort.
As for being forced to abort - I don't know about that. There was pressure, certainly. Sometimes it was "lifestyle issues". Two of the women were going to school full time, one aborted the baby because he was due the same time as her expensive wedding and one was "Miss _______" when she was in her late teens and she would have had to give up her crown in disgrace if she had starting sporting the telltale "bump" of pregnancy.
I think the saddest story has to be the one of a former friend. She got pregnant at 16 and her mother told her to abort (afraid of what the neighbours would say.) She got pregnant again at 18 and this time her mother told her to get married. A few years into the marriage my friend had an affair and a baby and was never sure who the father was. Then she had another affair and thought she might be pregnant and told me she'd abort if she was. It looks like she wasn't pregnant after all or had a miscarriage. She got a divorce, got pregnant and married the father of her new baby. She got pregnant again and had a miscarriage. Then when her youngest was about 4 she got pregnant again. Her reason for wanting to abort - she thought people would criticize her for having 4 children. I encouraged her to keep the baby, arguing that it's not like she would 4 kids under 6 year of age (her kids were 4, 8, and 12) but I see now that my reasoning was flawed and more pro-"choice" than Pro-Life. She did have the baby but our friendship was beyond repairing ( she accused me of not standing by her) and we went our separate ways.
What makes a person live their life like that? Fr. Pavone says, "when we go through an incident we don't understand we repeat it in an attempt to master it." Maybe the promiscuity was a result of the abortion? Maybe she felt unworthy to be a mother after the abortion? Whatever the case - this is a very sad but true story that is repeated all over the world every day. We've got to raise our daughters to "choose" better!
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