My name is Sharon, I was anorexic before, during, and after the birth of my first daughter. At her birth, the doctor inserted an IUD to prevent conception. But within several months, I was pregnant again. Anorexia and selfishness ruled my life. When my husband whisked me off to the local health clinic, they granted us an abortion based on low income and failed contraception. A spotlessly sterile hospital. Heavy anesthetic rendered me totally unconscious. I returned quietly home afterward just as if nothing had even happened. Contraception and abortion fueled my already spiraling sense of the pointlessness of life, and the self-loathing that had been festering me for years.
Eventually I deserted the marriage, and soon afterwards, now a single mother with a five-year-old, I found myself again pregnant. In sheer terror, I scheduled an abortion, but the baby's father was adamant that he would never see me again if I ended the life of our child. And only for this reason, at the very last hour, I failed to show up for the abortion. The hospital abortionist later attempted to shame and ridicule me into rescheduling, but he failed. Julie was born seven months later.
Yes, I thank and praise God for fathers who won't give up and relinquish their children easily. Something unexpected occurred in the time leading up to Julie's birth, maybe because I had come so close to ending her life, I began to follow with rapt fascination and awe every minute change taking place within my body as my baby grew within me. My heart began to open up to the reality and the beauty and the gift of the human life that was growing within me.
Many years later, I was horrified to see a picture of a garbage can full of aborted human babies. And for the first time, I wept then for my abortion. Julie's father and I did marry, and today I'm blessed with six grown children and many grandchildren. But the abortion took more than the life of my child, it endangered my future pregnancies and it destroyed my body's natural ability to carry a child to full term.
Our first son was born two and a half months premature, and he battled for weeks for his life. I have begged for and received forgiveness from God. He is all love and all mercy, and I've done the same towards my unborn child, and the children whose lives I may have unknowingly ended through contraception. I learned that contraception prevents a conceived child from being nourished in the womb and it causes starvation and death. Silent No More Awareness and Rachel's Vineyard have both helped me to become more honest, to stop justifying, to stop deluding myself and others, and to stop pretending and hiding. I intend to carry on my life with a loving, receptive, and open heart and to be silent no more. God bless you all.