Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

I was looking for something I had written to send to someone who had emailed me and I came across this old article I had in Catholic Exchange. I thought it was worth reprinting so here it is:

Reclaiming Our Children

I must admit, sometimes in this abortion debate I feel like I am floating on the periphery, looking on, while the world dissects and argues about abortion, and concerning the unborn and the women who have them.

For me, as a post-abortive mother, it is much more personal. It is about reclaiming my child.

It is about relationships, family, and my son, who is now “living in the Lord” (Gospel of Life, JPII).

At seventeen years old, I hid my pregnancy from my parents for over four months. When I finally told them, I was asked to leave the house and forget that I was their daughter. Coming from a Catholic family, it was the one scenario I had not played out in my head.

Staying temporarily at a friend’s, the pressures to abort began: I fought with the baby’s father, and my own father began having my sister call me telling me to have an abortion. With no job, no money and no place go, in the end, I gave in to his demands — like many other women, it was not because of free choice, it was because I felt I had no choice.

The rest is here