Haunted

"Sure, I still wonder what might have happened to that baby.  It used to haunt me, and if I’m honest, it sometimes still does.  Abortion was the right choice for me, and I hate that I feel guilty about it.  I think that having it out in the open might stop my guilt, or help someone else see that it was the right choice for them too."

I always have to wonder when women write something like what is written above, how abortion was the "right choice"if they are spending their lives feeling guilty and haunted by it. But I already know why. Another note, is the attempt to destigmatize it by bringing it into the open as if that would change what has happened is pushed in the pro choice movement, but women soon find that it does not work when they are alone with their thoughts and feelings.

The problem is, it was not the "right choice". It is never right to kill a person no matter how difficult the circumstances. It goes against every instinct of a parent no matter how inconvienent the time or circumstances surrounding the pregnancy are.

The need to continue justifying the abortion is intense. To admit it was not the right choice would mean having to look at the fact that you have taken the life of your own child, and that is a horrifying thought. I know, I have been there. It is impossible without knowledge of the love and forgiveness of God.

My heart breaks for this girl who was a kid herself when she aborted her baby, only 15. I have to admit a part of me gets angry when I read stories like this, a woman haunted by an action she never should have been able to take at 15,and of course without her parents knowledge.

Pro abortion groups keep saying they care for women, but the truth is their thoughts and actions change with each attempt to keep abortion legal at all a times, for any reason. They protect child abusers, they allow minors to make life altering decisions alone, they hide the truth of the dangers of abortion on physical, spiritual and emotional level, and they deny the existence of the impact countless women say it has had on their lives.

I am going to pray for this girl. Please pray for her too…I pray she will find that she does not have to haunted by guilt but instead, she can be haunted by a God who wants her to know his love, mercy and forgiveness.

here is her story (warning…some cursing)

http://gintearsandcremebrulee.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/i-had-an-abortion/

 

22 responses to “Haunted”

  1. Scube Avatar
    Scube

    Gosh, you are absolutely right. Even though she said it was ok for her YOU know better. I bet she just LOVES you using her hardest moments to undermine her decision.
    My friend had a baby at 15. She was torn open and traumatized by the birth then gave it up for adoption.
    She is still haunted by giving that child up now, over ten years later.
    I would NEVER presume to tell her what the right choice would have been for her because she still thinks that was right and she would do it again if asked.
    In fact it WAS right for her and it was her choice.
    How rude of you to judge another woman’s circumstance by your own religious beliefs.
    Pull your head in.

    Like

  2. R Avatar
    R

    I think you managed to miss the majority of her post. That quote’s a bit out of context, isn’t it?
    Also, I never realised god had a lover! Seriously, though, you’d probably have a bit more credibility if you proof read your post. =)
    Look, I respect that you are against abortions. I have a lot of respect for people who stand up for their beliefs. But, you’ve taken a positive post that someone wrote about a very difficult time in her life, turned it into a huge negative by taking one small quote out of context… and as far as I know, you did it completely without her permission.
    The best way to evangelise to others is to do it with respect.

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  3. Marve ou creve Avatar
    Marve ou creve

    It is never right to kill a person no matter how difficult the circumstances.
    Really? Was it right for God to kill the first born sons in Egypt? Was it right for me to shoot two Taleban fighters driving a jeep full of explosives towards Allied forces? People make decisions every day that we don’t approve of, but who are we to judge?
    “Judge not, lest ye be judged”
    “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”

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  4. Lauren Avatar

    Thanks for your prayers, but save them for someone who wants them.
    You took my entire post out of context, and imputed emotions on me that I don’t have. Here is my response.
    http://gintearsandcremebrulee.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/god-is-watching-you-shower/
    I stand by my choice 100%. Thank you for trying to take MY choice away from me. I helps remind me just how lucky I am to live somewhere where I can make choices about my own body.

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  5. Jessica Avatar
    Jessica

    I’m sorry, I must have totally interpreted the bible wrong. I thought the whole New Testament was based on “the golden rule”? You know, “treat others as you would like to be treated”. Thus unless you want to be discriminated against and belittled for your PERSONAL choices, I think an apology is due. It’s God’s job to judge our decision, not ours, because we are not omnipotent, nor have the wisdom He does. I’m praying for you to see the true way of Jesus.

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  6. Lerb Avatar
    Lerb

    Nice blog.
    Unfortunately rather than actually addressing the content of the blog, you select the shocking components (15 years old, no parental knowledge, general regret) and you wander off on your own rant.
    I get it, you are anti-abortion. Awesome, I wish you the very best and hope you get to use that position when you have the choice to make.
    I only ask you don’t project your opinions on others or hijack other’s stories for your own means. I’m pretty sure there are enough people who had abortions who are now anti-abortion and can be the topic of an anti-abortion blog.

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  7. Ellen Avatar
    Ellen

    Wow. Six comments and all of them make the point that a person simply defines his or her own morality. If it’s simply an option to destroy your own offspring prenatally, what’s wrong with making any other violent option OK?
    And I don’t think the post was at all “judgmental” toward the young woman. It was sympathetic.

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  8. Lauren Avatar

    Ellen – Being the young woman in question, I do think that it was judgmental – maybe not in a ‘you’re bad because you had an abortion’ way, but a ‘abortion is bad’ way. If it wasn’t, why would I need to be prayed for? Why would people’s hearts break for me?
    The intention behind this blog was to say ‘look, here’s a girl who had an abortion and feels some level of emotion (in this case, guilt, regret), therefore that shows that abortion wasn’t the right decision, and if it wasn’t the right decision here, it wasn’t the right decision at all’.

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  9. theresa Avatar
    theresa

    Lauren I was totally not judging you and those were your words. In fact I was sympathetic to your pain and the difficulty of your decision.
    If you are so ok with your decision why would you feel guilty, ashamed or haunted? I understand that you felt you had to make that decision, I think all women who abort do it because for one reason or another they feel like they have to. No one wants to have an abortion.
    I am sorry you are so angry, especially at someone who totally knows what you are feeling whether you want to believe that or not.
    And, no one took your choice away from you Lauren, you already made it.
    Peace.

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  10. Gerard Nadal Avatar

    Jessica says:
    “I’m sorry, I must have totally interpreted the bible wrong. I thought the whole New Testament was based on ‘the golden rule’? You know, ‘treat others as you would like to be treated’.”
    Actually Jessica, it’s evident that you are out of your depth. The point of the New Testament was God coming to earth in human form to make it abundantly clear that He expects us to lead lives of holiness according to HIS plan, not ours.
    The Jesus you portray is a moral relativist who wants everyone to respect one another’s choices, no matter how evil those choices may be.
    So, a primer in Christianity.
    First, Jesus EXPECTS us to confront one another about sins and transgressions, beginning in private, and leading all the way to excommunication (Matthew 18: 15-17)
    He commands us to, “Be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5: 48)
    Killing humans in the womb is a legal choice, protected and enshrined as a constitutional right. (Roe v Wade, Doe v Bolton 1973)
    There are many such constitutional rights given by the Supreme Court in our history
    Owning slaves once upon a time was a choice. (Article 1 US Constitution, Dred Scott 1857) Are you suggesting that Northerners had no business interfering with the legal choices of slave-owning southerners?
    Segregation was once a constitutional right (Plessy v Ferguson 1896). Do you defend that too?
    The compulsory sterilization of those with autism and retardation was a constitutionally protected right of the states (Buck v Bell 1927). Do you support that right of the people too?
    The right of the Federal government to throw Japanese-Americans into internment camps in WWII was a constitutional right (Koramatsu v. United States). How about that one? Do you support that?
    What all of these have in common is that entire classes of human beings were targeted by an elite and stripped of their personhood status by the United States Supreme Court. Thus having lost their rights, they could be disposed of at will. Never, did that ever justify the atrocities that ensued, and I dare say that none of you morally or intellectually enlightened women could ever defend those past decisions.
    Roe and Doe are just two more in a long line of atrocities from the High Court. And before anyone says the fetus and embryo are not human beings, I’m a Ph.D. Molecular Biologist. Biology has pronounced that they are in fact human organisms in their earliest stages of development. The only argument on the table is how we can define away their humanity, so as to strip them of their rights as we did to slaves, free blacks, the developmentally disabled, and Japanese Americans.
    Theresa is a brave and highly intelligent woman, and has spoken great truth to people who can’t defend what is indefensible.

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  11. scube Avatar

    “Theresa is a brave and highly intelligent woman, and has spoken great truth to people who can’t defend what is indefensible.”
    Um, yep, except for the truth bit.
    She quoted someone out of context and used thier own words against them, without permission, and continues to do so without apology.
    THAT is NOT honesty.
    I am not going to play “my god says vs this law
    says” because we could go ALL day with the stupid things that are written in the bible re keeping your wife in line, rape, incest, owning slaves etc.
    The difference between “god’s word”(keep in mind this is only YOUR God’s word) and law (other than the fact that one is belief and one is law) is that the law is constantly changing to fit the current social needs of the community it serves. That is what makes it so wonderful.
    As science, humanity and our social concience progresses, so do the laws we use to rule.
    The bible stays the same, you just choose which bits to quote at people to win an argument.
    So by all means, keep up your hard work to fight for the rights of embryo, over the rights of an already living woman. The law will listen to you if your argument is based on science, and human rights.
    But dont claim the fight in my name, and sure as hell dont claim it in Lauren’s.

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  12. Fr. Juniper Sistare Avatar
    Fr. Juniper Sistare

    Theresa is a beautiful soul, and a good friend of mine. As always, she writes right from her heart, and continues to reach out with our Heavenly Father’s Love and Mercy to all those women who made the wrong “choice”. As a Catholic Priest, I can tell you personally that abortion always hurts women. Countless women have come to myself and other priests to seek our Heavenly Father’s Forgivenesss, Love, and Mercy. And they always receive it. I encourage all women who have had abortions to receive this Everlasting Love, Mercy, and Forgiveness from our Father. I invite all those who are pro-abortion to do the same, and truly be for all women’s rights – born and unborn. God bless!
    Fr. Juniper Sistare

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  13. scube Avatar

    We are not arguing about Theresa’s soul.
    we are requesting that she do NOT use someone elses personal writing against them, when they do not beleive the same that she does.
    Thanks so much for the reference Father.
    Now that I know a God that isnt mine will forgive, and a man who will never need an abortion says that it is wrong and that it ALWAYS hurts women, I’ve totally changed my mind.

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  14. Lauren Avatar

    Theresa, you ARE trying to take my right of choice away from me – maybe it won’t affect me, but it will affect other girls who find themselves in my position. You’ve made a reference to ‘without her parent’s knowledge’ – the implication being that my parents should have had the right to know and presumably veto my choice. You say that pro-lifers “allow minors to make life altering decisions alone” – the clear implication being that I shouldn’t have been able to make the choice without parental consent. You also say I should never have been able to make the choice at 15. If that (and the surrounding ‘pro-life, anti-choice’ arguments) is not attempting to take away my right of choice, then I don’t know what is.
    You have no sympathy to my decision at all – in fact, you say that I shouldn’t have been able to make it. How is that sympathy?
    I had an abortion because my reasons for wanting to keep the baby were not good enough to meet MY standards. If my only reason to keep it was selfish, then how is that a good reason to keep it? Having an abortion isn’t something I feel guilty about. I feel guilty about the surrounding circumstances, but if I were to go back and found myself in the same situation, I would still have had an abortion, I just would have reacted differently.
    I don’t believe you do know what I’m feeling. If you did, you wouldn’t twist my words and take what I’ve said so out of context. All of my guilt and shame and regret is targeted towards how I acted towards myself and others when I made the decision, not at the decision itself. I am haunted by the fact that I could have done better by my partner at the time, and not caused him so much needless pain.
    Maybe you had an abortion, and maybe you regret that you did. Maybe it wasn’t the right choice for you, and maybe, for you to get peace, you needed to turn to god. That’s fine, if that’s what makes you forgive yourself, then I’m glad that you’re at peace with your choices.
    But don’t tell me that my justification of abortion is to absolve me from thinking I’m a murderer. I made the right choice, and even if I was to change my mind, it still wouldn’t make me think I’m a murderer; just that I had made the best choice available to me at the time. And it’s not ‘impossible without knowledge of the love and forgiveness of God’. I did it, and I’m glad I made the choice I did.

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  15. me Avatar
    me

    I don’t think it’s so much about beliefs as it is natural law. Natural law will always show abortion is wrong.

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  16. Lauren Avatar

    Fr. Juniper Sistare – Theresa might have a beautiful soul, but that doesn’t give her the right to tell me that my choice was wrong. The only person who can decide that is ME. Not her, not you, not your god. Me.
    You’re wrong, abortion does not ‘always hurt women’. I’m not hurting because I had an abortion. I’m more upset that you and others are trying to impute emotions on me that I don’t have than I EVER was about having an abortion, and that’s the truth. Not all people believe in your god. My religious beliefs have nothing to do with this, and yours have nothing to do with it either. I don’t want or need forgiveness from anyone but myself, and I never had to forgive myself because I never felt that it was the wrong choice. Yes, some women do need forgiveness, and how they go about that is up to them – not me, and certainly not you.
    I am totally for womens rights – that is, a woman’s right to choose. If she chooses not to have an abortion, good on her. If she chooses to have one, good on her, too. I support a woman’s right to make the choice without being made to feel guilty by people who use fear-mongering tactics like ‘she can be haunted by a God who wants her to know his love, mercy and forgiveness’.
    Women should make informed choices, they should know the facts and know that yes, some women regret their decision, and some women to suffer emotional pain. To be fully informed means that she also knows that some women, like me, stand by their choice 100%. She should know the risks of both keeping and aborting, and she should be able to make the choice using whatever resources SHE wants.

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  17. Lauren Avatar

    @Me – really? Do you know what natural law is? Natural law is the belief that there is one universal code that can be applied everywhere – morality that is inherent in all of us. If you’re going to use natural law to argue your case, you WILL lose. Abortion has been around since at least 1550 BC – initially through use of mercury and physical exertion, with some references being made in the 2nd century. We know ancient Romans also would leave ‘unworthy’ children to die of exposure, and similar things were done in China and England.
    Seeing as the idea of abortion has been around for such a long time and various bans/protests against abortion didn’t happen until the 19th century, and even then the majority of most societies has actually supported the right of choice to abortion, it’s a ridiculous argument that natural law always disagrees with abortion. In fact, until 1854, the Catholic Church didn’t even attempt to argue that abortion was morally wrong!

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  18. R Avatar
    R

    The problem I have with posts like this (other than, you know- taking someone’s story without asking if she’d like it to be an example for your cause… which is just down right unethical)- is by preaching on this, you claim to know the will of God.
    Who are YOU (any of you) to be able to say what God wanted for Lauren’s life? The Bible has so many interpretations from denomination to denomination (catholic vs baptist, for example, to show some obvious differences without getting too distant) that no one- NO ONE- can claim to know its meaning word for word.
    The belief in God is, when its broken down to its very core, completely based on a belief that God is all knowing, God is everything- and we must submit to him.
    So, Theresa, do you feel that you are so equal to God that you can tell another what His will for her is?

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  19. Bob the Builder Avatar
    Bob the Builder

    What a load of religious zealotry we’re seeing posted here. Utter rubbish and falsehoods claimed by mortals claiming to know “God’s will” and “God’s vision”.
    If you were so omnipotent you wouldn’t be mortal and you sure as hell wouldn’t have to be posting comments here on this blog.
    So let’s call it what it is, and leave the religious shit out of it.

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  20. Kristyn Avatar
    Kristyn

    This website is stupid. Shut the hell up. Go Lauren!

    Like

  21. mo Avatar
    mo

    @me if we are talking about “natural law” then you miss the point.
    One in every four pregnancies spontaneously aborts (a miscarriage). It happens. Naturally.
    Or as some asshole told me when I was grieving – it is “gods will.”

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  22. theresa Avatar
    theresa

    For a crowd who is posting about judgments, that is all you guys are doing.
    And for all the “right choice” it is obvious you are not at peace with yourselves, if you were, you would not be ranting and so angry. If you were at peace, you truly would not care what I think, or God for that matter.
    Yes, Lauren, I do not think a 15 year old girl should be making a life altering decision such as abortion alone. She has no idea how it will impact her . The implications will be there for the rest of her life.I have seen it over and over and over again. As much as you may not want to believe it, women come for healing decades after their abortions, many who felt just as you do now. And again, I never judged you, you are putting your own feelings on to me. So be it.
    I also think women should be told the entire truth about both the development of their baby and the dangers of abortion, which is something many women are not told and found they were unable to have other children after, or suffered for years. But I guess those women do not matter to you guys.
    If you do not like what I say, don’t come here. Simple as that. This is not a forum to debate abortion. There are countless places you can go to do that. It is to help those who are seeking help and want healing from the guilt shame and pain they are experiencing. If you do not have those feelings (although you say you do) fine, but I did not put one word in your mouth. If you blog it is public info. I did not judge you or post crude things on your blog, and no one called you a murderer but YOU. I have a right to say abortion is wrong. I saw my dead son.
    You guys should respect the women coming here for healing.
    On another note, while I appreciate the nice comments about me,I am not going to defend myself here because this is not about me. This is about helping those who are seeking help. After years of working with post abortive women, I know many who used to feel the same way you guys did, I have heard this all before.
    And no, I do not think I am like God,in fact the complete opposite. You have no idea who I am. I do know He is forgiving and merciful and He heals from the terrible pain of abortion and I want those who are suffering and seeking healing to know that too. They have that “choice”
    Comments closed…

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