Warning: potentially controversial and upsetting post. No offence is intended.
October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month in many places across the World. My Facebook feed has been full of posts acknowledging and mourning with the mothers who have been through the awful experience of miscarriage, stillbirth or SIDS. Please hear me when I say I am in no way demeaning or minimising these tragic circumstances. I am absolutely not. I know the pain and the grief of losing a baby in utero and I know many women who have been through this heartbreaking experience. But I, along with countless other women must remain silent and unacknowledged in our grief and mourning, because our babies died through abortion. We don’t get to have a say because we made a choice to end our babies lives… Now I can’t speak for others who have been in this situation, but I think I know enough to safely hazard a guess that most women don’t make the choice to terminate a pregnancy lightly, or easily. I know, of course that there are exceptions to this, but in my opinion, they would be in the minority.
For those of you who are new, or unfamiliar with my story, here it is in a nutshell.
I was sixteen, fresh out of high school when I met the boy who I thought was going to be the love of my life. Six months into our relationship we discovered I was pregnant. While the news came as a shock to me, it never occurred to me or entered my mind that this baby would not grow to term and enter the world. It was an idea I simply had never even contemplated. But unfortunately, I was not supported in my resolve to give our baby life. My boyfriends mother demanded in no uncertain terms that I was to dispose of the problem I had created (her grandchild) and my boyfriend, for whatever his reasons failed to stand up for me, or the baby I was carrying. So, just weeks after my seventeenth birthday, and at twelve weeks pregnant, I found myself alone in a sterile room while the ‘doctor’ literally sucked the life I was carrying right out of my body.
Did I make that choice? Well, if you want to be pragmatic, yes. But, in reality, no. I guess it could be argued that I went into that room knowing what I was doing. But the truth is, in 1984 I had no idea what I was doing. I had been deceived into believing the lie that I was undergoing a simple medical procedure to remove tissue cells that had yet to form.
I’m not here to argue the pro-life vs pro-choice debate. Anyone who knows me already knows how I feel. But that is not the intent of this article. The point of this blog is to acknowledge the millions of babies whose lives were violently ended by mothers who like me, were young, insecure, uninformed and bullied into a decision they would live with for the rest of their lives.
Our babies mattered too.
If you have lost a baby through miscarriage, stillbirth or SIDS, my heart goes out to you and I mourn for you in your loss… I can only imagine the shock and heartbreak of unexpectedly losing your child. If you have lost a baby through abortion, I know exactly how you feel. I see you, I hear you and I grieve with you.
If you, or someone you know is carrying unresolved grief and shame from an abortion, please get in touch. You are not alone. God can and will forgive and heal you. And I know you can, and will forgive yourself. I will answer all messages, on any subject, in the strictest of confidence and compassion. But I will not tolerate name calling or judgement. We are here to lift each other up, not tear each other apart.
I will finish with one of my favourite scriptures:
When they continued to question Him, He straightened up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.” And again He bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard this they began to go away one by one, beginning with the older ones, until only Jesus was left, with the woman standing there. Then Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, Lord,” she answered. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Now go and sin no more.” John 8:7-11
With much love,
Vikki