I have been sharing at Silent No More events for a number of years now and in reviewing different versions of my written testimonies it strikes me that each year I tend to focus on different themes, probably relating most to that which is going on in my life at the time of writing. Certain threads run through them, those of deep hurt and regret for that devastating “choice” that I made in October 1984 that took my precious son, Robert Joseph, and part of myself as well. The past year has been one of special graces and spiritual growth and healing. It is a time of great hope despite the politics of the moment. Through our testimonies babies have been saved and other post abortive women and men are finding their way to healing and hope. We are helping to bring forth the Kingdom of God and Jesus is returning, beginning with one soul at a time.
A woman’s right to choose is a LIE when the only choice she is given is abortion. My name is Nancy Tanner and in a moment of moral cowardice and selfishness I turned my back on all I believed in and chose to have an abortion. But, at the time, I felt like I had no other choice. I was a teacher, a mother of two little girls, a nurturer who had devoted my life to educating and empowering young children. Yet a lapse of judgment started me down a slippery slope of bad choices that resulted with me becoming pregnant. I was separated from my first husband. I felt confused, alone, embarrassed, afraid, unloved and out of control. Everyone and everything around me pointed to abortion as my only choice. The father of the child told me it was my problem, my choice, but that he would help pay if I chose abortion. Friends told me it would be irresponsible to have a baby; that I could hurt my other children or jeopardize my job. I couldn’t tell my parents. The doctor I saw wouldn’t prescribe medicine I needed for another condition unless I agreed to terminate the pregnancy. And besides, it was so early in the pregnancy that it really was only a small clump of tissue, not really a baby, or so they said. I just wanted it to be over. I saw no other way out but to choose what was supposed to be a quick and easy fix to my problem.
The choice of abortion was not a quick or easy fix and it didn’t solve my problem, it caused many more. The act may have been quick, but the repercussions remain with me today, over 24 years later. Nothing about it was easy and no one told me what really was going on. I had actually changed my mind once inside of the Planned Parenthood facility, but they would not let me leave, saying it was too late. They convinced me to sign a release that the tissue from the procedure could be used for scientific research. It would be many years later before I learned that I had given them permission to sell “the product of conception,” my baby’s body parts, for money. They said that the abortion would not hurt, but it did. I felt as though my insides were being ripped out by the suction machine that made a horrible noise that I sometimes still hear in the deep of the night. . Going in there no one had told me that the procedure would result in my child being ripped apart or that I would be forced to experience a macabre jigsaw puzzle performed in front of my eyes. The doctor pushed the machine to my side and emptied the container filled with blood on a tray in front of me. He asked how far along I was and yelled at me for being only 6 weeks, saying it wasn’t going to be his fault if I got an infection from tissue being left inside me. He couldn’t find all of the body parts. They were too small. I later learned the truth of his anger: that the purveyors of protein matter for research get more money for tissue over 8 weeks and for intact bodies. I had disappointed even them. At that moment I wanted to die.
The pain from the abortion was so much worse than I could have ever imagined. And the hurt only began that day. I immediately regretted my choice and I longed for my baby. I quickly descended into a hell of my own making. The “quick and easy fix” was neither. I became self-loathing, fearful of everything, subject to panic attacks. I tried to numb the pain, loss and disappointment in myself with drink and drugs. I became overprotective and afraid, waiting for the next catastrophe to happen. I worried about everything, and trusted no one, including myself. I felt out of control so I tried to control everything. I began filling my time with frenetic activity and all of my spaces with things, stuffing my home and myself, always trying to fill the hole that the abortion had left. When I tried to speak of my abortion I was told to keep it to myself and get over it. But I have been blessed and have been saved from the worst by heavenly intervention. I literally was lifted by the Mother of God from the pit I had created with my abortion and She has led me to Her Son. I remarried and was blessed with 2 more beautiful baby girls. Because of the abortion carrying them full term proved difficult both physically and emotionally. When my husband died suddenly eight years ago I was plunged into a depression complicated by still unresolved grief from the abortion. It has taken me a very long time to forgive myself and believe that God or anyone could ever really love me again. But I have come to know Jesus’ unfathomable love, mercy and forgiveness. He never left me, even when my choice was to turn my back on Him and all I believed in. And I have forgiven myself, knowing that no sin is greater than the love of God. The healing continues and God has placed on my heart a need to tell the truth of abortion and to help other women know that abortion is not their only choice, that it is a bad choice and not a quick or easy fix to anything.
Women have abortions because they don’t feel they have the support or love to make a different choice. We need to provide the help they need to choose life. They aren’t told the consequences of abortion. We need to share the truth that abortion hurts us. The choice being championed in the current culture of death is a LIE. But love and truth can counteract that lie. The truth is that there’s an epidemic of wounded, hurting women and men out there like me that know from personal experience that abortion under any circumstances is wrong. We regret our abortions and, with those gathered here today and in similar events across the nation, we choose to share the truth and will be silent no more.