They Are Trying to Drown us out but we Keep Coming up For Air!

So, the buzz making the rounds the last couple of days is the new Turnaway Study run by the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health program at the University of California, San Francisco. “Women’s Mental Health and Well-being 5 Years After Receiving or Being Denied an Abortion A Prospective, Longitudinal Cohort Study”, was published yesterday by JAMA Psychiatry.

The conclusion of this so called study is that abortion is said to have little effect on women’s mental health. Before I get into my reason for this article, there are a couple of points I would like to make, one being the affiliations of the people who did the study, like:  Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, and Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health. Need I say more? Unbiased and without an agenda this study is not.

The article has been addressed depending on the agenda of certain groups. The pro abortion crowd denies any negative impact and works diligently to remove the stigma in an attempt to make abortion an acceptable “normal” act of life. This is their dream study proving in their eyes that abortion really is no big deal.

The pro life side likes to have testimony to how deeply damaged those who have abortions are. Too often the damage is not followed up by the hope of healing to be found. It is important to some to make healing seem impossible to those post abortive because they want to make abortion unthinkable for any woman to even consider. Not a bad goal in itself, but without offering hope you sentence millions to life long devastation when healing really is possible.

I am not going to address either side of this. My purpose is not to debate the legality of abortion, or even its impact on all women. So, if you are a woman reading this who is fine with participating in the death of your child and wearing it proudly and loudly on your sleeve, so be it, but that is not the case for millions of us. Even The Guttmacher Institute has stated that at least 10% of women who have had an abortion have adverse effects. That is millions and millions of women, many who are suffering in silence. We deserve to be heard, we have a voice, a voice that often is ignored and marginalized and certainly not used for these studies. At one time because of our wounds we may not have been able to speak for ourselves because society denied our pain and we felt alone and confused and yes, even messed up. Even today our voices are often drowned out but we will continue to speak the truth from our experience so we can reach out to those still suffering in silence. These are people I am speaking to in this article.

I can only imagine the emotions that overcame you if you saw this article on the web or the news. I am sure it triggered a host of emotions in you, not the least being a feeling of craziness by the denial once again, of your experience of abortion. The message is clear; you are not allowed to feel negative consequences because according to them there are none. Your feeling must be wrong or come from a different place.

This article was particularly crazy, actually telling us that being denied an abortion was more damaging than having one. For sure these people have never experienced the post abortion grief, shame and guilt so many of us have lived with for days, months, years and even decades.

My message to you is you are not crazy nor are you alone. There are tons of us out here who have felt the same way you do. We have suffered from depression, anxiety, paralyzing fear, especially the fear of being found out.

We like many of you, have chosen poor behaviors which damaged us further because of our lack of self esteem, our guilt and our shame which came not from religious or societal guilt, but from participating in the death of our very own children. We get it and we are speaking out and reaching out to you to let you know that your feelings are real and normal and that healing is possible. We know, we have been there!

Many of us have sought counseling only to be told as this study does, that our feeling are not from our abortions. Sadly, we trusted their professionalism and as a result of this lie continued on a road of self destruction because no one was there to address our pain and legitimize our experience. But that is all ending as more and more of us are reaching out to the millions of women who are hurting and legitimizing their experiences.

It is time for us to be there for each other and to speak for ourselves. No one knows m=better than we do the suffering of abortion and we refuse to listen to studies such as these because we know the truth of what we experienced, but we also know that you can heal, not from denying its impact, or removing its stigma, but from looking at and facing the truth and working through the dynamics of healing.

So, don’t listen to the thunderous praise of this “study” which purpose is to not only keep abortion legal, but to expand its reach, and don’t listen to those who say there is no healing from abortion, and make you feel as though you will be damaged for life. Will you forget, no, but do you really want to forget your child? What will happen is you will be able to look at it in a different way, a way of newfound peace. Seek help from those who have been there and have walked the journey of healing. They may try to drown us out but we keep coming up for air and we are more than happy to light the way out of the darkness for you!

Theresa Bonopartis

Director, Lumina/Hope & Healing After Abortion

www.postabortionhelp.org

Co Developer Entering Canaan Post Abortion Ministry

www.enteringcanaan.com

lumina@postabortionhelp.org