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Testimonies
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Who Sees What I Am Doing?
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Angelina
Ontario,
Canada
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My name is Angelina and I'm from Ontario, Canada. I had an abortion at the age of 15. My first child was conceived in rape. Abortion was the solution offered to me when I called an abortion facility, looking for help. I had an abortion out of fear. Fear of rejection, fear of losing the esteem of others, fear of not finishing high school, fear of not going on to university or college. Up until the moment of the abortion, I was in a fog. That fog came to an end as the icy cold instruments entered my body.
I was told that the abortion would not hurt. That was a lie. I experienced an incredibly painful physical reaction the moment those icy instruments entered my body, and began to dismember the child within me. All my senses were involved. I heard the sound of a very high-pitched vacuum cleaner, and then I saw the bottle next to my right foot fill up with the remains of my child. I wondered as I saw this, "Is there really a baby? Is there really a soul? Who sees what I am doing?"
Then I experienced a sense of death, and the reality that there was a soul, and I began to cry. I cried from the depths of my being. I knew that I had crossed a line, and that there was no turning back. Deep inside, I knew that what was happening was wrong, very wrong. The realization was so devastating that I wanted to die. Immediately after the abortion, I was sedated in order to control my uncontrollable crying. Eventually, I woke up. I was sorry that I woke up, because really, deep inside, I wished that I could die.
I left that abortion facility changed. The girl who had gone in, who would never participate in the death of another human person, and I came out the girl who had participated in the death of her very own child. I went to the bus station. I was alone, and as I boarded the bus, I saw a reflection of myself in the window, and I remember thinking, "I hate you. You will never be able to fix this." Thus began the downward spiral of self-hatred that would go on for seven years, and move towards suicide.
Before that, I tried to change my name, my address, my job, and my friends, all in an attempt to start over. I lived in a prison of guilt and shame and self-hatred, and I suffered from depression. I turned to alcohol, to drugs, and to sexual affairs to numb the pain. The serial sexual affairs were really an effort for me to find someone who would tell me I was forgivable, and that I was lovable. I fell away from my friends and my family.
Years later, when I would break my silence with my mother, she would say to me without thinking twice, "So that's what's been wrong all these years." She knew that something had happened to her daughter; she didn't know what. She couldn't put her finger on it, but she knew that I had been changed.
Suicidal temptations were averted when I made a phone call to the help line. A counselor invited me to turn my life to Christ, to repent of my sin, and to give myself over to Jesus, and to invite the Holy Spirit into my life. I had so much healing through the validation of my feelings, and also the admission of my sin, that I thought the abortion was behind me. Then I got married two years later, and on the day of my wedding, abortion again took front and center. How come? As the priest asked me if I would lovingly receive children from God, I said "Yes" out loud for everyone to hear, but inside, I said, "In five years." I didn't realize it at the moment, but I was bargaining with God. I was going to work for five years to pay back for the abortion.
Pregnancy, babies, doctors, being a mother, vacuum cleaners, and dentist drills were all abortion connectives, and they would send me into emotional anguish. I still struggle with abortion connectives. As recently as last week, when I was doing an interview, and I looked out into these bright lights and I was standing in a flashback, being reminded of the day of the abortion, when those hot white lights shone over me during the abortion procedure. In an effort to escape from my anguish, I poured myself into my job. I starved myself, and I smoked profusely, and with every drink I tried to swallow the painful memories of the abortion. And then, I could not conceive, and I thought God was punishing me for my abortion.
Healing began with an ectopic pregnancy. After seven years of marriage, I finally became pregnant. The baby was growing in the fallopian tube, the tube ruptured, and I nearly died. I lost our son, Joseph Michael, who was about eight or nine weeks gestation. As I grieved his loss, I found the courage to face the abortion death of my first child. As I prayed to know whether my child was a boy or a girl, I was given to know through the name the received in my heart: Sarah Elizabeth. The most difficult thing I ever did was to imagine myself facing her, looking her in the eye, and saying, "Please forgive Mommy for participating in the death of yourself."
I found hope and healing through a regular support group, Second Chance Ministry, through going to Entering Canaan retreat through the Sisters of Life, and also through Rachel's Vineyard. I grieved the loss of my first child, Sarah Elizabeth. Losing Sarah, her brother Joseph Michael, and our genealogy and our family life, has often been agonizing. I have never been able to have any more children. It has not been easy for Walter and I to walk this road of infertility. We've been married 35 years.
Abortion did not undo the rape; it did not turn back the clock. Abortion eliminated my children, Sarah Elizabeth and Joseph Michael, and it robbed us of future children. It is over 40 years since my abortion, and I regret my abortion, and I will be silent no more.
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