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Post
Abortion Grief
Since 1995 I have
counselled over 1300 grieving women following their one of more
abortions. After experiencing the redemption of my own grief after
two abortions, through counselling and the ministry of a Catholic
priest, I gradually came to realize the need for specific type of
counselling for those suffering from post abortion grief, and
trauma.
In 1999 I established the office for the Victims of Abortion and to
this day continue to offer both counselling and information
services.
With over 40 million abortions per year, world wide, clearly there
is much silent, unacknowledged suffering in the community. The
symptoms of the grief are manifold. And the wounding and disruption
to the woman’s, men, family and societal life is enormous. The
effects of abortion not only on the women involved but also in the
wider circles, I believe, are contributing to and indeed
strengthening the culture of death which seems to show no signs of
abating. Noteworthy also, is the reality of the predominant fact
that often sexual and other abuse is found to be linked into the
abortion experience. Most specifically where multiple abortions are
the reality.
Abortion sorrow and grief can be ‘redeeming’ and indeed can only be
healing when experienced as a redemptive type of grief. This of
course is easier in the context of religious faith whereby the
suffering is raised to a spiritual level. At a secular level,
because forgiveness of many is the key ingredient, it becomes more
difficult to achieve (though not impossible) to experience. This of
course because our harshest critic is often our very self.
The women who have persisted in counselling and activities designed
for healing, and who have experienced and accepted (this is
important) forgiveness and healing have returned to joyful living
and satisfying personal relationships and personal lives. They can
do this without forgetting their experience of abortion and their
lost child. They now carry both in their heart without pain.
It takes courage to confront the reality of abortion. It takes
courage to admit the evil of abortion and it’s after effects. It
takes courage to accept responsibility for an abortion. It also
takes courage to proceed on the journey of healing of the effects of
abortion and its aftermath.
Because the term post abortion syndrome, grief, is associated with
the word “abortion” it is often associated with right to life. Post
abortion after effects is really a situation that occurs after the
“right to life” consideration has stopped its influence, or
benefits, and has not been influential in changing the woman’s mind.
At this point the human life in the womb has been terminated, and
the only living victim remaining is the woman and sometimes the man
as well.
Although there is a strong similarity between pregnancy loss
(miscarriage, stillbirth) and abortion loss, post abortion the
trauma is much greater due to the participation in the decision
making, by the mother, that is, the compliance . Although this
participation is at times little more than the giving of consent, at
times under severe pressure, the guilt mechanisms, and the eventual
realization of what she has done is enormous. Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder (DSM IV) specifies that a trauma is more severe and longer
lasting when the stressor is of human design, e.g. the volitional
aspect of the decision to abort.
It is difficult to imagine that a woman, who is designed by God to
be a life-giving and nurturing being, can agree to the abortion
process which is a medical violence. Yet hundreds of millions or
even billions of women have done so since the 1960s thus not only
breaking the invisible bond of love between herself and her
offspring, reshaping negatively her feminine design, but in the
process she has diminished her own sense of self respect. Her own
feminine genius. Her womanhood. And she has wounded deeply her
emotional and spiritual self.
We must realize that with the termination of the human life in her
womb, a part of her womanhood, a part of herself is also terminated
and the person after the ordeal of the abortion is no longer the
person she was before. There has been a deep loss now etched into
her being. It is almost as if two whole human beings have died on
the operating table, one physically and one spiritually and
emotionally.
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