Silent No More - Healing after an Abortion Experience
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Kathy Hill
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Kathy Hill, Massachusetts Regional Coordinator for Silent No More, echoed the experience of women like Catherine Adair. “I supported by college roommate in her decision to have an abortion, despite my inner voice telling me not to. I told her, ‘I will support you whatever you do.’ I drove my friend to the abortion clinic, and then, we didn’t talk about for 28 years.”
“When a woman chooses abortion, she chooses silence. That is what imprisons her in a place of isolation,” Hill said. The Silent No More Awareness Campaign, a project supported by Priests for Life and Anglicans for Life, has held more than 1,500 gatherings national and internationally with almost 6,000 women and men sharing their testimonies of hurt and healing.
Said Hill, “We want to educate the public as to abortion’s harmful impact emotionally, spiritually, and physically, and to help others avoid the pain of abortion.” National events such as the March for Life in Washington DC include Silent No More participants sharing a three minute personal testimony. “The structure for the testimonies includes: why we had an abortion, what we experienced during the abortion procedure, how we felt immediately afterward, what long-term impact the abortion had on our life and behavior, and how we found peace and healing,” Hill said, “Women can’t tell their abortion story unless they have been healed. The pain just doesn’t go away by itself.”
Hill talked about results of research showing the impact of abortion on women. “Almost all women report experiencing emotional deadening, a feeling of being less in touch with their emotions or feeling a need to stifle them,” she explained. “The fear of other people learning about the abortion leads to intense feelings of loneliness and isolation. Many women experience denial, doubts, or negative feelings about the abortion. The denial of any negative effects of the abortion lasts for over five years, in those women who have acknowledged negative feelings. Insomnia, nightmares, and the increased use of alcohol or drugs is not uncommon, as well as women who express suicidal feelings and may actually attempt suicide.”
Hill played a video of a man giving testimony in Washington DC about his experience of losing two children to abortion when he and his girlfriend were teenagers. “Planned Parenthood only talked about abortion,” he said. “They told us our child wasn’t human. It was just a clump of cells, a mass of tissue. They made us feel like bringing our child into the world was the most foolish thing we could do. They told us, ‘You are too young to be parents’ and brought out an appointment book to schedule the abortion. Since then, I’ve suffered depression and alcoholism. Forty years later, the memory is still painful. That is why I am Silent No More.”
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