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Testimonies
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I'm Not the Only One
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Janet
New York,
United States
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I think most of you know who I am, I'm Janet Morana. I co-founded the Silent No More Awareness Campaign. Of course, Healing the Shockwaves of Abortion, this initiative really has a very deep meaning for me because I've been involved in Pro-Life for many years. This is my 26th March For Life. I recently spoke to my daughters, I have three daughters, Jennifer, TaraLynn and Kelly. They knew Mommy was Pro-Life. I had brought them with our parish priest, Father Pavone to Washington, DC for marches. Of course, when I was working full time for Priests for Life, I came for several days and they had to stay in school, so they stopped coming to Washington. They knew my work. We talked about, "If you ever have unplanned pregnancy, Mommy will always help, et cetera, et cetera."
My daughter Kelly, when she was away at school in Michigan, unbeknownst to me, had an abortion. She was in fragile health. She was a type 1 diabetic. The abortion clinic should have never done this abortion on her with no medical history, and she hid that abortion from me. She dropped out of the school she was in Michigan after seven months claiming that she was homesick. She couldn't cope, it was too much, and she blamed her diabetes, so she came home. She took a little break. We got her back in college. She went to a local school in Staten Island, and again never told me about her abortion.
About a year later, she took a break from school again, and again because of her health, and she told me she was going for a job interview, and she flew out to Dallas, Texas. She was trying to get a job with the airlines. She didn't tell me at first, she just kind of, "Oh, by the way, Mom" that kind of thing, and I was in the midst of a trip in California. She did this while I was away, I wasn't home. I'm out in California speaking and I get a phone call that she's in Dallas. She had just gone to the abortion clinic that I had actually been, and prayed, and witnessed in front of it, so I've counseled at the Fairmont Clinic. She was experiencing pain and complications from the abortion. First of all, I was stunned obviously. I didn't know, but I had to think quickly, I'm miles away. Thank God, I know so many Pro-Lifers in Dallas because of my work.
I called my dear friend Joey Everett and I told him the story. He drove, got her, and brought her to the emergency room. She was still pregnant. They hadn't aborted the child. He took care of her, put her on the plane. I flew home. We thought we were going to have a baby and we're dealing this, and then about six weeks later, she miscarried. I never knew about the first abortion until the second one, and then she finally told me about the first one. I kept reviewing what I had or hadn't done. I kept asking myself, as a parent, I always taught my girls about, "Birth control is wrong, we're Catholics." I told them though, "If you ever became pregnant, please, Mommy is here to help you."
I tried examining everything I did or didn't do because I was a public figure, "Was she afraid?" She said, "Mom, I didn't want to disappoint you," and so we went for a healing program. We actually did the Hope Alive healing program for a week up in British Columbia, Canada together for an intensive week of abortion recovery. Of course, Kelly's doing okay now. She went on and she went to graduate school. She later met the man of her dreams, Mike. She's married now and lives in Florida. Kelly really said to me, "Mom, when you're speaking today, make sure to use my name because you have three daughters, that they know which one made this mistake." She said she's sorry she did it.
When I talk about my grandbabies and so many of you hear about my grandbabies, I have two living grandchildren, but I also have two in Heaven. I'm telling you this story now because of the Shockwaves and to say that I'm not the only one. I've met now many people who've come to me in the Pro-Life booth who told me, "Yes, my daughter had an abortion." We have to not be afraid to talk about this among ourselves, and also we have to forgive ourselves. I internally beat myself up without telling anybody for a very long time, just our family knew and that was it. When I think about it now, I probably could've even helped more people had I been more public about it.
My book, "Recall Abortion" when I was writing it, Kelly said to me, "Well, Tell Father Frank to put a line into about my abortion in the book." If you read the book carefully, this wasn't a surprise. You knew my daughter had an abortion. I'm telling you now today so that if you know someone who is a grandparent, who lost a child to abortion that we need healing too. For me, it was very healing to go with my daughter and deal with those feelings together, and work through, "How come? How come? What did I do?" Spread the word about healing.
I'm hoping one day we'll even get to do a grandparent’s video retreat just for the scheduling issue. Know that hope and healing is available, and know that it's okay to talk about it. It's okay that you're Pro-Life and there was a mistake made in your family. I'm going to be, from this point forward, silent no more about losing my grandchild to abortion. Thank you.
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