Abortion is a traumatic experience for many women, and this trauma is very real whether abortion is legal or illegal. Look at these two stories from the 1870s. They echo the same cries of pain from aborted women today.
“I go to church in despair, and I hear the minister proclaim free pardon to all sinners through the blood of Christ. Does he know what he is saying? Would he offer me the same comfort if he knew the extent of my guilt; if he knew that I had sinned, presuming upon that very grace which he declared is able to save the uttermost? And yet, if there be any truth in the doctrine, it ought to apply to all kinds of degrees of wickedness. But what avails God’s forgiveness if I cannot forgive myself? And what is salvation? Can God heal my self-inflicted wound, and save me from the inevitable result of my evil conduct? Nothing but a child can satisfy the earnings of maternal love; and I know of no joys of heaven that could make me happy there, unless this craving of my nature be first supplied or the instinct annihilated. Somebody else may have my mind and heart – I want my baby!”
And from another woman:
“I envy a mother who goes to weep beside her baby’s grave; because she knows where it is is laid, and remembers how it looked in life, and is not ashamed to say, “I have lost a child.” And when I hear mothers lamenting over such a loss, I pity them indeed; but I feel like saying to them, “you think you’re deeply afflicted, but your trouble is really light, because it is not mingled with remorse, and you are not to blame for the infant’s death.” Truly all sorrow that I have ever known or heard of is not to be compared with my sorrow, and that of others who have sinned in like manner!”
Elizabeth Edson Evans “the Abuse of Maternity, through Its Rejection” Philadelphia: J.P. Lippincott, 1875, Quoted in Rachel McNair, Mary Krane Derr, and Linda Naranjo-Hubbl. Pro-Life Feminism: Yesterday and Today (New York: Sulzburger & Graham Publishing, Ltd.) 75-76
Share on Facebook