Copyright 1996 David C. Reardon. Excerpted with permission for from Making Abortion Rare, published by Acorn Books, PO Box 7348, Springfield, IL 62791-7348 for internet posting exclusively at www.afterabortion.org. All Rights Reserved.

Laws protecting women's rights will not be effective unless women will actually exercise these rights. As we have previously suggested, however, the majority of women who suffer psychological scars from abortion are too injured to bring lawsuits against their exploiters. They feel so much shame that their first impulse is to bury their pain by hiding it and denying it. Their second impulse is to believe that they deserve to suffer for what they have done. 

This is one of the ways in which abortion is like rape. Both rapists and abortionists injure women in a way which creates so much shame that their victims actually help to conceal the crime. Furthermore, the victims of rape and abortion are both inclined to blame themselves for the "stupidity" of having put themselves into the hands of their abuser. Focused on self-blame, they often ignore the fact that the abuser had an obligation to respect their rights. This is especially true in the case of abortion where the abortionist, who at least in theory is supposed to be acting in a professional manner, has an obligation to protect his patients from making a hasty, ill-informed, or dangerous decisions. 

Before women will aggressively pursue their rights against abortionists, then, we must create an environment which is conducive to post-abortion healing. The living victims of abortion must be helped to find psychological, emotional, and spiritual healing. It is only from this position of recovered strength that post-aborted women can properly exercise their right to redress, not just to compensate themselves, but to protect the rights of others. 

While this need to promote post-abortion healing is essential to the legal leg of our pro-woman strategy, it is even more essential as an aspect of promoting the Christian renewal of our society. Compassion and aid to post-aborted women must be given not because it empowers women to sue abortionists, but because it is the right thing to do. The former is a byproduct of the latter, which must be done purely for its own sake. 

Removing the Plank From Our Own Eye

Before we can develop a healing environment for others, it is essential that we must first heal ourselves. We, the pro-life movement and the Church, must learn to replace any traces of judgmentalism with compassion, prejudice with understanding. We must learn to see those who have undergone abortions not as different from ourselves, but as identical to ourselves. We must find the humility to see that without the overflowing grace of God, under the right conditions and the right pressures, we too would be capable of abortion, if not worse. 

We also need to remember that our concern for unborn children should always come second to our concern for the unborn's mother. As previously discussed, this is necessarily so because by God's natural ordering of things, an unborn child can only be nurtured and protected by the mother. All that we can do is to nurture and protect the mother. 

From another perspective, while we can and should mourn the deaths of the children killed by abortion, we should really be more concerned about the ravages of abortion on the souls of the women and men who have been touched by this sin. This argument will be elaborated upon further in Chapter Twelve. For now it is enough to share the insight of a crisis pregnancy counselor who once told me: "When I began this work, I was mostly concerned about the unborn. But after working with so many young girls who have had abortions, what saddens me most is how abortion destroys the joy of their youth, and strips away every last shred of her innocence. Nothing can make a young girl feel more worthless and despicable than having killed her own child." 

I sincerely believe this attitude is the only one which has any hope of creating a pro-life society. By applying generous doses of sympathy, understanding, and charity toward those who have been involved in abortion, we will create a ripple effect which will truly transform the world. 

Reducing Judgmentalism

Women who have had abortions are either filled with humility or shame. The forgiven feel humility; the unforgiven feel shame. The former have found humility in a repentance which requires the acknowledgement of one's guilt, one's weakness, one's flaws. But for the many, shame is a manifestation of denial. To protect their denial, many become resentful, defiant, and even hateful of everyone who aggravates the feelings of guilt which they are trying to deny. They feel that no one can understand them, and they fear that everyone is prepared to condemn them. 

This is our task then: to reduce feelings of shame by increasing our own level of understanding and compassion. Through compassion we seek to eliminate the hurdles women and men face along the way to repentance. This is the path they must travel in the search for post-abortion healing. It is therefore extremely important for the pro-woman/pro-life movement to concentrate its public relations efforts on counteracting the image that pro-lifers are judgmental and replace it with a message of understanding and compassion. This message must be prominent in all of our campaigns, but it must especially be proclaimed in our churches. 

Clergy should be encouraged to give entire sermons on the need for understanding and compassion for those who have had abortions. This can be done without in any way condoning abortion. Using as examples the testimonies of women who have chosen abortion, congregations can be reminded how in times of great stress people do even those things which they most abhor. With examples of women who have been literally dragged to unwanted abortions, and those who simply gave in under the weight of many pressures, people should be helped to see that women are not always fully culpable. This does not lessen the seriousness of abortion, but it does lessen the tendency to judge and blame. 

Church communities need to be reminded that we need not judge why people have had abortions--they will do that for themselves, perhaps more harshly than we would. Nor do we need to dwell on the humanity of the child or the sinfulness of abortion, because these truths are implicitly known by all who have been involved in abortion. Whether they acknowledge their sinfulness, or defend their abortions as "necessary," everyone, on some level, knows the truth of what happened. A life was destroyed. 

For many, this is a truth which they dare not look upon. Attempts to force them to confront it only aggravate anxiety, fear, resentment, and anger. In short, walls go up. On the other hand, hearing the truth of what abortion does to women, and men, makes walls come down because this is what they know, this is what they feel and have experienced. The knowledge that one's church community understands what one has experienced is itself healing. 

Building Bridges With Empathy

Using this approach of taking down walls of defensiveness, post-aborted women and men can be led to the truth they most desperately need, the truth about forgiveness. They need to hear that in repentance and reform there is freedom and new life, even after suffering the greatest of shames. They need to discover hope in the message of our non-condemning acceptance of them as our brothers and sisters. After all, since Christ Himself is offering them forgiveness, who are we to cast the first stone? In short, the message of forgiveness must always precede the message of life's sanctity, for it is only after they feel forgiven, or at least taste its hope, that post-aborted women and men can bear to look directly at the truth about their unborn children. 

To succeed in creating a healing environment, we must begin by teaching others how to understand their pains of doubt, their ambivalence, their grief. In the process, we will also be helping the post-aborted members of our churches to understand their own confused and buried feelings. Even if some post-aborted members cannot admit having had these feelings themselves, they will immediately recognize that what we are saying must be true at least for "others." This is very important, for by even this small step of admitting that the pain of "others" is real they are opening a door through which they may eventually recognize their own need to heal buried feelings of remorse. 

Most of all, we, their church community, must be ready to cry with those aware of their loss and suffering. We must graciously acknowledge their need and desire for healing and share with them the certainty of God's freely offered forgiveness. We must assure them that our faith does not condemn any of us to lives of shame. All of us are sinners, but through God's mercy, all of us can find peace again. 

A Healing Environment Builds Strength

By promising compassion, we break the paralyzing bonds of shame. By minimizing shame, we welcome repentance. By creating a more healing environment, we will be enabling more people to seek post-abortion healing. In helping post-aborted women and men to move beyond denial, resentment, and shame, we will also be helping them to become active witnesses for the sanctity of life. This is a good end in and of itself. But it is also good for the Church and the pro-life movement. 

The psychological and spiritual healing which can follow an abortion is never automatic. As with all healings of the spirit, it is always the result of the Lord's initiative and the sinner's response in faith, including sincere regret, a change of heart, and acceptance of God's forgiveness. 

Those who experience post-abortion healing strengthen the Church. In finding forgiveness, they find humility and a restoration of their faith. Many become deeply spiritual. Having experienced the depths of despair, they become marvelous witnesses to hope. 

They also strengthen the pro-life cause. They are the voice of experience, the unimpeachable witnesses of abortion's dangers. As readers of their stories know, there is no more powerful testimony on behalf of the unborn, in condemnation of abortion's exploitation of women, and in the appeal for social and political reform than the testimony of post-aborted women.⁽¹⁾

Toward Critical Mass

In physics, critical mass is the point at which a fusion reaction takes place and becomes self perpetuating. I pray for the day when the post-abortion healing movement will reach "critical mass." At that point there will be an explosion of interest in, and demand for, post-abortion healing services. On that day, public empathy for post-aborted women and men will have overcome the pro-abortion bias against "traitors" who speak out against abortion. On that day, movie stars, athletes, politicians, and other public figures will be able to publicly confess their guilt over past abortions and proclaim their healing to others without fear of destroying their careers. Everywhere, the witness of post-aborted men and women will be leading others to seek and accept post-abortion healing. 

As mentioned earlier, post-abortion healing will also propel post-abortion litigation. As more and more women and men find healing in post-abortion forgiveness, more and more will be freed from the slavery of shame to bring legal action against the abortionists who have injured them. Increased litigation will, in turn, draw more attention from the media to the question of abortion's dangers, and all of this together will destroy pro-abortionists' most potent myth: the claim that abortion is safe. 

Still another aspect of post-abortion healing which should not be missed is its impact on family members. Many people remain silent about abortion in general because they do not want to hurt loved ones whom they know have had abortions. But when these loved ones begin to witness to the grief abortion has caused in their lives, this same loyalty between family members which previously fostered silence will encourage these other family members to speak up and support reform. This effect should not be underestimated. For every woman who has had an abortion, there are numerous people who remain neutral on abortion, or hide their pro-life sympathies, out of deference to her feelings. Every post-aborted woman who is healed brings with her new allies in our battle. This is our key to a broad segment of the middle majority who are presently avoiding involvement in the abortion debate. 

Summary

Millions of men and women silently carry the grief of a secret abortion in their hearts. They are silenced by shame. Silenced by the belief that they are alone and no one can understand their pain. Indeed, they fear: "It's just something wrong with me. No one else feels this way after an abortion." 

These walking wounded need to learn that we do understand. They need to know that it is normal and necessary to not only grieve after an abortion, but to seek emotional and spiritual healing. It is our obligation, as Christians, to help them escape their feelings of shame and to find peace in God's forgiveness. Most of all, we must help them to forgive themselves. 

It is critical, therefore, that the pro-life movement and the Church must break through the media-imposed image that we are judgmental and condemning of those who have had abortions. Our rhetoric must hold fast to defending the twin truths of the sacredness of human life and God's love for all sinners, among whom we number ourselves. Perhaps we should invest in bumper stickers which read "Abortion always Kills. God will always Forgive." 

We need to overcome the fear that by stressing God's forgiveness we will be encouraging women to abort now and seek forgiveness later. I believe this is unwarranted fear which stifles the display of understanding and compassion which is truly needed to create an environment conducive to post-abortion healing. It is only through such a healing environment that we will finally build a pro-life society. Only then, when the grief and suffering abortion causes to women, men, families, and society is known by all, will abortion be not only illegal, but unthinkable. 

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1. For examples of their testimonies, see The Post-Abortion Review, Aborted Women-Silent No More, and Real Choices.
 

Copyright 1996 David C. Reardon. Excerpted with permission for from Making Abortion Rare: A Healing Strategy for a Divided Nation, published by Acorn Books, PO Box 7348, Springfield, IL 62791-7348 for internet posting exclusively at www.afterabortion.org. All Rights Reserved.