The story of a woman whose secret abortions haunted her:
… I recall a story my mother shared with me when coming onto my puberty. She told me that my paternal grandmother on her deathbed was quite frightened of dying. She confessed to my mother, who attended her passing, that she was “afraid to meet all her dead babies on the other side.” It seems Grandma had induced several abortions which were secrets kept from family and friends alike. At death’s door, Grandma confronted her previous liasions with mortality and murder, carrying this hidden fear for years.
End of first trimester
That story made a strong impression on me, as I had been taught through the popular “planned parenthood” information materials that abortion was more like a tooth extraction than murder. A little painful, but not such a moral crisis. How could this be true when Grandma carried that guilt all her life? I couldn’t imagine similarly repenting my dentistry operations upon my deathbed.
