Abortion -- just don't do it

I painfully admit that I had three abortions.  I couldn’t be inconvenienced. I couldn’t trouble my widowed mother with my reckless behavior. My pregnancies were an inconvenient by -product of intimacy. Intimacy had become for me a way to secure love. 

I didn’t date in high school and was uncomfortable around boys. I had my share of self-esteem issues and I began to do crazy things for attention.  My first serious relationship ended badly.

We were emotionally immature and dysfunctional. It came to an abrupt end and I was deeply wounded. I met someone new as my final year of college ended. I was not in love with this man, yet we had sex without protection.

We scheduled the abortion because it conveniently ended our problem. He worked as a drug and alcohol crisis counselor, but this crisis was handled poorly. And one bad decision led to another. Within the year we became pregnant a second time. I despised my boyfriend for twice causing me such pain and trouble. Each abortion broke me up inside and eventually broke apart our relationship as well.

I met the love of my life a year later and we were instantly attracted. Intimacy meant love, power and control and I wanted him to quickly like me. I naively believed that I could become intimate without intercourse and, I became pregnant a third time. I fell into my familiar pattern: shock, fear and shame. This man was a respectable teacher with students who looked up to him. This reckless pattern of behavior led me to the illogical conclusion:  I blamed myself and I would terminate this problem and move on. 

I hated myself.  It was late spring of 1982, and the Albany Medical Center in Chicago was overflowing with business. I was warned by the clinic nurse to beware of the protesters outside, “They’ve been known to be violent.”  Little did I know that one day I would be one of those protesters who counsel and pray outside the Albany clinic. As I waited to have my third abortion, I felt like an animal caught in a trap. I was worried, scared and felt alone in my misery. As I looked at all the other sad women, I realized we were together, but isolated, lonely, and miserable.

Two months later, I became engaged to this man, the father of my unborn aborted baby. The long-term effects of this decision caused years of secret hurt and unspoken pain. We made a silent pact to never discuss that dreadful day. We became parents of two beautiful children, but often I wondered how I deserved to be a mother or wife. And now, my babies have grown, and I pray that my children will never experience this pain and the regrets that consumed my life for so long.

I am speaking to you today to tell you that despite this dark picture, the light now shines again for me and my husband. Through the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the Catholic Church, I made a very humbling and tearful confession and was absolved of my sins. It was over twenty years of holding in my sad secrets. I was given absolution and I felt something I hadn’t felt in years:  joy and peace. My husband, too, received the saving grace of God’s infinite mercy and compassion. It has changed the direction of our lives. It has saved our marriage, brought us closer to Jesus and His Church. 

The most important thing about abortion is don’t do it.  It is exactly the wrong direction to take. Is it evil?  Spell “live” backwards and you get evil. It is the opposite of life and the opposite of love. 

During the most difficult moments of our lives we must trust in God. Have courage and be silent no more.