Category: Siblings and Abortion

The following was published at Human Defense, and is shared with their permission. 

15 year-old Chloe Kilano wrote this letter to her older brother and sister, who were killed by abortion. 

Megan and Matthew,

My sweetest big brother and sister. Words cannot describe how much I love and miss you. I’ve thought of countless things we would have experienced if you were here. You’ve been watching me, you know what I’ve been through; I constantly imagine what my life would have been like if you had been there to hold my hand through it all.

People often judge me for missing you; they ask me how it’s possible for me to miss people I’ve never even met. Truth be told, I don’t know who I’m grieving, and I think that makes it even more painful.

I constantly imagine who you would have been, what your personalities would have been like. It hurts to think about the possibilities. It hurts to think about what I missed out on.

I’m so sorry for all the times you’ve had to watch me cry over you; I’m sorry if you’ve ever felt responsible for my tears—you’re not. I cry because I wish you were here to dry them. I wish you had been here to dry the millions of tears I shed growing up.

I would give anything just to have you here for a moment. For a mere second, just to hold you in my arms and love you and hug you and know what it feels like to have a big brother and sister. And I don’t care what that moment would consist of.

Megan—we could be sitting in my bed watching a movie or I could be barging into your room and yelling at you for taking my stuff without asking me.

Matthew—I wish I could experience you catching me off guard and throwing me into a pool or having an overprotective and intimidating brother who irritates every fiber of my being. I don’t care what it is, I just want to know you for a second.

I pray for you all the time. I pray that God wouldn’t let you see my tears, but instead cover it up with the happier moments I experience.

I used to bargain with God—“If you give me my brother and sister back, I’ll never say another cuss word. I’ll never sin. I’ll never lie again. I’ll do whatever it is you want me to do, please, just give me my brother and sister back.” No words can emphasize how much I would give for a simple hug, a short moment. I’ve imagined those moments to try to fill the void of your presence, but nothing can.

I’m sorry for surviving the horrors of abortion, and I’m sorry that the both of you had to suffer through that. You didn’t deserve a single second of what that machine did to you. Of what a so-called “choice” did to you.

I would take the pain away from you in a heartbeat, without a single doubt. I’m sorry that you were aborted and I wasn’t.

Your lives are valuable beyond words; I do my best to tell your story so that you may live on through me, and to help other moms recognize the value of their own babies.

I’m sorry for the times when I’ve cried over you. I know you see it, and I know that you don’t want me to cry over you. I’m sorry in advance, because I know it’s going to happen again.

I pray for you all the time. I pray God would give you an extra hug or kiss on the cheek because I can’t. On my difficult days, I ask God to block your view on me so that you won’t see me struggling.

Everything I do is to praise Him and to honor your lives, I want nothing more than to follow His will and to make you proud of me. I hope you’re proud of the work I do—I do it all for the both of you (and for the moms and babies, of course).

I pray that He would love you a little extra sometimes, because I can’t. Living without you is so, indescribably painful. Sometimes I walk through the halls of my high school and think: “You would have gone here. You would have walked these halls.”

Sometimes I need advice and have nobody to turn to; it is in those moments that I miss you the most. I miss what I could have known. I miss the possibility of your light shining on our family.

I really hope you’re proud of me. I know I’ve made mistakes, but I fight every single day to make sure that no baby suffers what you both suffered. I try not to think about what you suffered. I fight to be their voice. I wish I could have been there and been your voice. I beat myself up for it every single day, for surviving when you didn’t.

I think about whether or not you suffered; and if you did, how much you suffered. Your lives were sacrificed so I could find my life in the Lord and I could pursue this work. I feel so guilty all of the time. I question why you didn’t survive and I feel so awful for surviving. I love you more than you know and I would do anything for you.

I’m sorry that nobody fought for you. I’m sorry that nobody thought you were important enough. You’re more than important enough. I grieve you every single day; next to God, you’re the most important aspect of my life. I remember the first time I got up on stage, ready to tell my story. You would’ve been in the back cheering me on, I know it. You would’ve done the same thing at my middle school graduation, ecstatic for me to finally leave the place that created me into someone who had suffered from depression. You would have made the depression less difficult; I would have had someone to trust and lean on. You would have told me what I could look forward to. In reality, in those moments, I felt like I had nothing to look forward to.

As I sit here and write this letter with tears streaming down my eyes, I wish I weren’t doing this. I wish I had never shed those countless tears. There used to be moments where I had wished I were sacrificed on the altar of choice instead of the both of you. I could keep going on and on, but just know this: I love you more than words can describe, and I’ll be united with you soon. Until then, I have to be here and try to save the babies that were just like you.

While I’m still here, I promise I’ll try to cry a little less because you’re not here now and smile a little more because God has a plan for me. I love you both so, so much. Rest peacefully and don’t worry about me.

Your lives were sacrificed. You both are gone, but your memory lives on through me. Rest assured, I will never stop fighting to honor your precious lives. You both will have two seats saved at my wedding and graduation. I will one day place a tombstone with your names on it next to our grandfather’s. I’ll go back and visit it every single year on August 2nd, the day you were aborted. My kids will know who you are. So will theirs. A photo of your ultrasound will be hung up in my office and in my home, to act as a reminder of the love I have for you, and to allow that love to push me through life’s obstacles.

Survivor’s guilt. Depression. Anxiety. Bullying. Separation. Loss. In my short 15 years on earth, I’ve experienced all of these things and more. But because of the Holy Spirit and the both of you, I was able to turn that pain into beauty. I’m able to use your lives to save the lives of others.

I love you so, incredibly, indescribably much—I’ll never be able to put it into words. I hope the tears I’m shedding as I write this letter give you some insight as to how much I love you, miss you, and just wish you were here. I think about you every single day, I don’t even think there’s an hour that goes by without me thinking about you.

I look forward to the day when I enter the gates of Heaven and, after meeting our Lord and basking in His Glory, seeing the both of you standing behind Him with open arms. I love you, I love you, I love you so so much. I’ll never forget about you and I promise to never stop fighting.

With abundant love,

Your little sister, Chloe

Note: Religious beliefs expressed in testimonies reflect the writer’s point of view and may not be endorsed by Clinicquotes. 

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A 1982 study concluded:

“Children who have siblings terminated by abortion may have psychological conflicts similar to those of children who survive disasters or siblings who die of accident or illness.”

Philip Ney “A Consideration of Abortion Survivors” Child Psychiatry and Human Development, vol. 13, 1982, 160 – 179

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From the sibling of an aborted baby:

“As a child, I can remember feeling like someone was missing from my family. During my teen years, I pushed those thoughts away because it seemed not true or possible. Six years ago, when I learned my mom had an abortion four years before I was born, suddenly everything that didn’t make sense to me came into focus.”

Anna Reynolds “Abortion affects sibling survivors: ‘I miss them although I never knew them’ Live Action News March 16, 2018

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At a retreat for the siblings of aborted babies, one woman wrote:

“I thought about my siblings deeply for the first time… ever. It hit me that had any of them been born, I would not have been ‘the eldest’ but the second youngest. The more I thought about it, the more I felt a certain identity crisis.”

Anna Reynolds “Abortion affects sibling survivors: ‘I miss them although I never knew them’ Live Action News March 16, 2018

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Barb, who has worked with the AAA Center for Pregnancy Counseling for nearly thirty years:

“I think one of the most difficult things for me to face is a woman who is attempting to justify an abortion for the sake of her other children. I always want to tell them…the best thing for her little ones is to have a brother or a sister. In fact, explaining to sons and daughters a few years in the future as to why they aborted their sibling will probably be the most difficult thing they will ever do…”

Kristi Burton Brown “The suffering brothers and sisters of aborted children” Live Action News February 18, 2013

Read facts and testimonies from siblings of aborted children here.

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A pro-choice woman who had an abortion and doesn’t claim to regret it describes what her daughter said to her when she found out:

“But my daughter said something when I told her. She said, ‘Gee I’m glad you didn’t abort me. Aren’t I the lucky one?”

Cara J. Marianna Abortion: A Collective Story (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002) 65

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A daughter whose mother had multiple abortions tells her story:

“I was only 12 years old on that disturbing day when my mother opened up to me … She shared with me that she had experienced more than one abortion prior to my youngest brother’s birth. To be exact, she had had four abortions… A thought hit me: my baby brother almost wasn’t born and almost wasn’t part of my life. …Did she also consider aborting me?

Then my mother complained about how my father was so selfish, how she couldn’t take birth control pills because they made her sick, and how he was never there for her emotionally. She told me that he worked such long hours, blah, blah, blah…

I could not help but be upset and disappointed at her for being so helpless and irresponsible… She then proceeded to tell me the reason why she kept my baby brother. The doctor told her that it would be unsafe to perform another abortion…

Nowadays, the aftermath and repercussions of these abortions still float around us and are still being experienced by our family. My mom constantly cries and complains about her health issues and how the abortions have weakened her body, causing all her aches and pains. She complains to me and nags me, but does not do so to my father. Why me?…

During my temperamental adolescent years, I would get myself heatedly involved between my bitterly enraged parents whenever they would separate. I would argue with them, at them, and for them… They had separated total of three times, and each time it made me extremely angry!… They would vent their feelings, then place me in the middle, as the referee… I felt like screaming, “Hey! I’m the kid here, not the adult!”

Cheryl Chew Make Me Your Choice (Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image Publishers, 2006) 59-62

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One woman recalls how she told her kids about her abortion:

“My only regret about having this abortion is that many years later, within the last three or maybe five years, the boys were out here, the oldest and youngest boy, for Christmas or something, and somehow the subject of abortion came up. I think [my partner] said that she’d had an abortion, and the kids were interested, and I said, ‘Well, you know, I had one too.’ As soon as it was out of my mouth, I knew that they didn’t know. There was a look of surprise, particularly on my youngest son’s face—he was probably twenty-three or so at the time. It was either later that evening or the next day when we were out hiking, he said, ‘I feel very sad that I could have had a little brother. That there could have been four of us, not just three.’ He said, ‘[It] just makes me very sad.’ You know, all these years had gone by. I’d never told them, and it just came out in a conversation about pro-choice. That’s my only regret, that I told my sons that I’d had an abortion. I had no idea that it would affect them so personally. That they, particularly [the youngest], would feel it as such a personal loss.”

Cara J. Marianna Abortion: A Collective Story (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002) 51

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Teresa Tomeo told the following story, relate to her by Dr. Philip Ney, a psychologist:

“Similarly, there are psychological effects on siblings of aborted children. Dr. Philip Ney, a Canadian psychologist, has studied these effects for decades. He tells a story of a woman who came to him for counseling for her six-year-old child who was having nightmares, wetting the bed, and suffering from separation anxiety. Dr. Ney, in his interview with the mother, asked her about any pregnancy losses. She told him about two abortions that she had prior to giving birth to this child. Then in a separate interview with the child, Dr. Ney asked the child to draw a picture of her family. She was an only child, and yet she drew a picture with her mom, dad, brother, sister, and herself. She had a sense of the missing siblings.”

Teresa Tomeo Recall Abortion: Ending the Abortion Industry’s Exploitation of Women (Charlotte, North Carolina: St. Benedict Press, 2013) 65 – 66

This seems far-fetched to me, it’s true that children can be remarkably perceptive, but this borders on paranormal. I can’t help but be skeptical, but I’m including the story here and readers can make their own decision as to what they think of it.

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“When I was 18 my mother told me about her abortion… I was aghast, and said something cruel to her like, “how could you do something so terrible?” We let it drop and I forgot about it. But I had not really forgotten. I didn’t think about it consciously for years… Suddenly I found myself thinking about my little brother! I became disoriented and lost control of the car for a moment as I burst into tears having lost him. I was astounded by my reaction, but I couldn’t shake the sadness and longing to have known him.”

Torre-Bueno A. Peace after Abortion (San Diego, California: Pimpernel Press, 1997) 70 – 71 from

Elizabeth Ring-Cassidy and Ian Gentles. Women’s Health after Abortion: The Medical and Psychological Evidence Second Edition (Toronto, Canada: The deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research, 2003)

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