By JILL FILIPOVICSEPT. 10, 2015

POPE FRANCIS announced this month that for a year, beginning in December, women who had terminated pregnancies could be granted forgiveness from Roman Catholic priests, instead of facing potential excommunication for their sins. It sounds like a step in the right direction: Mercy for women who have had abortions certainly seems preferable to condemnation.

But mercy may actually be worse. While the pope’s announcement has been hailed as evidence of the church’s new, softer approach, it’s actually the latest example of the modern anti-abortion strategy: Portray women as victims who need to be protected from themselves with laws that restrict abortion rights.

Despite the concern for what the pope calls an “agonizing and painful decision,” research shows that a vast majority of women who terminate pregnancies in the United States don’t actually feel bad about it. In surveys, nearly all say it was the right thing to do, and positive feelings of relief or happiness outweigh negative feelings of regret or guilt for more than nine in 10 women, even years after the procedure.

The rest of the piece is here

I responded to this and actually was contacted by the NYT's..here is my comment. Women deserve the truth.

Theresa Bonopartis

Lumina/Hope & Healing after Abortion, NY 2 days ago

So Jill is a Cosmo writer…no surprise…it is so fitting for them to blame the church for guilt and shame and deny the very real feeling of countless women who have experienced abortion. She may think abortion is " entirely normal and common reproductive choices "", but after working with post abortive women for over 20 years and being one myself I can assure you, there is nothing normal about a woman participating in the death of their own child.
She also is totally ignorant about forgiveness, excommunication and the church, as usual putting out false an inaccurate information(the church has ALWAYS forgiven abortion and excommunication needs to meet certain criteria which I can assure her most women would never meet…hence no excommunication). In spite of the attempts of the pro abortion extremists,the truth of abortion is coming out, and healing is being offered. The Church does not cause stigma, abortion causes stigma the church offers healing and hope to the millions of women devastated by abortion.
As a last note, it is not a secret that most studies groups like this quote are done by pro abortion groups….no surprise here either. The fact is people like Jill are more interested in keeping abortion legal then they are about the women they claim to serve
Director of Lumina/Hope & Healing after Abortion
Co-developer of Entering Canaan post abortion ministry