Posted on 01/22/2008 11:58:33 AM PST by Mr. Silverback
Note: This commentary was delivered by PFM President Mark Earley.
A woman—let’s call her Caroline—was 92 years old. She was dying, in agony, but Caroline’s pain was not physical. It was emotional. Caroline, you see, had been carrying a secret for more than 50 years: As a young woman, she had undergone two abortions, suffered terrible guilt all her life—and now, on her death-bed, afraid that God could not forgive her.
As her palliative-care nurse, Jean Echlin, writes, “At the end of her life she shared with me her agony over her lost babies . . . she felt that she had committed murder.”
Caroline is not alone, as Echlin writes in Perspectives 2007, a publication of the De Veber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research. Echlin also tells the story of a woman named Lydia, who was dying of cancer. Even with the use of a pain pump, which gave her steady doses of morphine, Lydia’s pain did not abate.
“I asked her if her faith or prayer could be of any comfort,” Echlin writes. “Lydia remained silent except for her moaning.” But the next day she confided the truth. “I can’t pray—God won’t listen,” Lydia said. “I killed a precious baby when I was 18 . . .” Lydia’s abortion had taken place more than 40 years ago—and she was still grieving over it.
Caroline and Lydia are but two examples of what the Institute calls an “unexpected correlation” between abortion and pain-relief care. Dying women experience unresolved guilt and psychological pain related to their abortion—guilt and pain that stand in the way of a peaceful death. Their guilt is so great, Echlin says, that it impedes the effectiveness of their pain medication. Only when the abortion issue is resolved—when someone listens to them and assures them of God’s forgiveness—is the pain medication made effective, and the women able to die peacefully.
This is dramatic testimony that abortion is not, as the abortion lobby claims, something women will “get over” in a week or two. It is evidence that we know inherently that we are made in the image of the God who gives life. When we do violence to that image—when we destroy life instead of nurturing it—it has a profound effect on our emotions, our psyche, and our souls.
Today, as we mourn the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and the tens of millions of abortions that have resulted from this dreadful decision, we must recognize that there are likely many women among us who are silently suffering abortion grief decades after their babies’ lives were snuffed out. As the De Veber Institute notes, these women need our compassion, and their trauma should be recognized and acknowledged by their care providers.
As we comfort the dying, we must also help the living. We must make sure young women know the truth: that abortion takes a human life; that there are alternatives to abortion; and that there are people who will help them through a difficult, unplanned pregnancy.
And they must be told that the notion that they will simply “get over” an abortion is a bold-faced lie. The truth is that if they walk into that abortion clinic, they may still be feeling the agony over taking their baby’s life—even on their deathbed a half century later.
They are doomed.
Yep, we're winning every day.
Your post is what I should have written. Excellent.
I’ve had a similar experience.
My love child would’ve been going on 25. I trust that my repentance was genuine and I have been forgiven.
Thank you for telling us that. I’ll keep you in my prayers. Freepmail me if you’d like to share a specific concern.
And though what you did was wrong, forgiveness is available.
You have described well many of the reasons women have that are listed in my post. I said there were no excuses. I don’t know about all times and all places but most testimonies say there was no waiting period and no advice given. That is not how abortion takes place.
Have you sought forgiveness?
One graph that you never ever see....The graph of deaths of women from legal abortion.
Well, when you come right down to it, there's no such thing as a difficulty that justifies or mitigates killing a child. But you have to admit that a lot of women that age would think they were supposed to be done raising children. Often they're looking at the next phase of their life, and they may convince themselves that they are likely to have health problems.
My wife is 41, and if she got pregnant again we wouldn't even worry about it, but not everyone has that point of view, and they take the easy way out.
Abortion....the Human Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.
Your post brought tears to my eyes. That must be a terrible burden. I’m so sorry.
Take a look at this post and follow the conversation that results. Now that's scary.
One reason, beyond the PC reason, is that when a woman dies as a result of an abortion her DC (death certificate) lists the medical cause such as hemorrhage or toxic shock syndrome etc. as the cause, which is literally true, but says nothing about abortion's role in bringing that condition about.
That is actually PC too since that wouldn't be true with cancer or diabetes as examples. The gov has no problem compiling statistics on those things or from complications from other types of surgeries for that matter.
If the information is not even collected then that has to be something written into law.
Luke
Chapter 16
- 19
- 12 "There was a rich man 13 who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day.
- 20
- And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores,
- 21
- who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man's table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores.
- 22
- When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried,
- 23
- and from the netherworld, 14 where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.
- 24
- And he cried out, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.'
- 25
- Abraham replied, 'My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented.
- 26
- Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.'
- 27
- He said, 'Then I beg you, father, send him to my father's house,
- 28
- for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.'
- 29
- But Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.'
- 30
- 15 He said, 'Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'
- 31
- Then Abraham said, 'If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.'"
Please don't ever spout this stuff in public. We have a hard enough time reaching these people without people like you calling them sluts and monsters.
Thanks for your post, I’m sure it’s not easy to write that sort of thing.
Good post!
I know...When I worked ICU I took care of a couple of casualties of legal abortions...
Not keeping the statistics is criminal IMHO.
I expect you would worry about it you just wouldn't take the easy way out, Bro.
Doing the right thing doesn't come with a guarantee that consequences we cannot possibly foresee will not come about. But, with wisdom, you can see that trying to avoid a possible negative outcome by doing something that is an intentionallly harmful act, in the here and now, just compounds all forms of negativity on into the future.
Sometimes the course of our lives appears to be fraught with fearful possibilities and we can find no actions to take to prevent them that are beneficial. It takes a committment to not commit negative actions in any circumstance to carry us beyond the temptation to thwart those fearful possibilities with a clearly harmful act.
I expect your POV is something like that or parallel to it. Not many even consider (not seriously) acting that way. Fewer still carry it out without stumbling. But it is worth trying.
I would agree it is criminal. Apparently you know first hand that those statistics are not kept.!?! My only knowledge of it is that they are nowhere to be found.
I've always believed that many "pro-abortion activists" are covering up their own guilt. I was in an argument with one woman about it, and pretty callously said that the only argument for abortion was that someone who would kill their child shouldn't be raising one.
She burst into tears and started shouting, "Don't! Don't! You don't know. You can't know." It was so obvious she had had an abortion and even while advocating it was fighting the guilt.
God's mercy on all of us.
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