I Tried to Believe the Lie

  Scott
Manitoba,  Canada
 
  My name is Scott Miller. I am from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Early childhood abandonment issues, feelings of being rejected and not wanted were some of the issues that contributed to my being able to abandon my own child to an abortion clinic. A few months after the abortion I told a co-worker that my girlfriend had had an abortion. He looked at me and said ‘Really, I would never do that”. I said to myself ‘’Really, what was the matter with me that it was all too easy to let it happen?’ I’ve had a long time to think about the answer to this question. 36 years to be exact. It was 36 years ago that I allowed my then girlfriend and my mother to go to St. Paul Minnesota to a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic where my baby daughter’s life was taken. Since that time I’ve had to look at what it was in my life that contributed to this tragedy.

As I mentioned there were early childhood abandonment and rejection issues that contributed to my own feelings of not being valued and loved. The lack of bonding that occurred during those early years lead me to a life of seeking that sense of love and connection that seemed to be eluding me. My first attempts to overcome these feelings were more socially acceptable and commendable. I was a good student and athlete and almost always near the top of the class. When these successes did not bring the desired feeling of acceptance I become cynical and embittered. A sports injury at the age of twelve landed me in the hospital where I became addicted to TV. The people on these programs could not reject me like the kids on my street did or like the people who stared at my father’s birthmark did. This brought on more isolation and openness to try drugs and alcohol. This behaviour connected me with a group of people whose sexual morals were unbiblical. Soon I was participating in sexual immorality in a quest for acceptance without being prepared to look after the product of intercourse, which is a human being. When that child was conceived I was not in a place to be able to handle a child. Others could see that and, because of my lifestyle, my daughter was aborted.

This experience was an awakening to do something about my lifestyle. In spite of what the doctors said, ‘i.e., it was just a fetus,’ I knew I had lost something in that abortion. The problem was I did not know what. I experienced an unidentified anxiety as I wrestled with the aftermath of the abortion and tried to drown these feelings with alcohol. The fear, shame, and guilt I experienced after the abortion compelled me to leave my girlfriend, as I could not face her and what we had done. I realized there was a lot to deal with but, again, I did not know exactly what. As time went on, the emptiness within me seemed to grow, even though I was forgiven.  I eventually married someone else and wanted to have a family. Our two children were lost due to miscarriages, and I felt I was being punished for killing my first child. I eventually found out that I was learning the lesson that I child is a child whether a person wants them or not.

I went to Rachel’s Vineyard and became introduced to a program which gave me permission to explore my abortion experience. It allowed me to become open to examining that time in my life and identifying what exactly was happening for me internally.

 Through time I came to recognize that it was either a boy or a girl that I had lost and that this boy or girl had a God given personality and God given talents that I never experienced. I also came to see that I had had the opportunity with this child to experience the benefits of a reciprocal relationship, which one can only really experience in a father and child relationship. These realizations came clearer as I was blessed with the experience of fathering the child that the Lord gave me to adopt. The adoption helped me to clarify the emotional difficulties I went through after the abortion. I had the emotional difficulties because what I thought I had aborted was a clump of cells when actually it was a human being, my daughter. It was only when I addressed this experience in the light of this reality that I was able to lose the awful feeling of fear and loss that I carried inside of me.

I tried to believe the lie that a child in the womb was not a person, but I could not find healing until I faced the reality that human life begins at conception and any death after that point is the loss of a human life. Once I accepted that I could deal with all of the ramifications of my abortion involvement. I could then begin to deal with the guilt, shame, anger fear, deception, lying, grief, and loss that surrounded that event. I had to face the truth and discovered that when you know the truth the truth will set you free. I don’t want others in a difficult situation to believe the lie that a child is not a child at the point of conception and that is why I am Silent No More.
   
   
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