“Because it is not socially acceptable for men to have intense reactions to these events, however, it is typical for them to dissociate from their feelings about the baby who was lost. They tend to feel it is not their place to grieve deeply for their loss, or even to have their own voice heard in the decision-making process about a particular pregnancy.
This means that men’s losses cannot be consciously dealt with but are often “acted out” instead….
I have known other men in my practice who have discovered many years after an abortion that they still carry a great deal of grief over this kind of loss. There is simply no place for them to speak about it…Men, like women, need to seek out opportunities to remember, honor, and speak about the pregnancy losses and abortions they are party to. And we all need to listen.”
Kim Kluger-Bell Unspeakable Losses: Healing from Miscarriage, Abortion, and Other Pregnancy Loss (New York: Harper, 1998) 116-117
This story is from a teenager who was pressured into abortion by her boyfriend, who came with her to make sure she went through with it. Sitting in the abortion clinic about to have an abortion against her will, she wished that some “crazed, lunatic Christians” would come and save her.
“After we parked, a man on the sidewalk tried to talk to us, but Jerry yelled at him to leave us alone. We entered through a metal detector and up some stairs to the waiting room.
We waited for hours in a cramped room with about 30 other women. One woman sat next to me and declared loudly to her friend, “I already have one son. That’s enough.” It made me sad to think how callous these people were – workers and patients alike. I wanted so badly for some “crazed, lunatic Christians” to storm the doors and rescue me. But they didn’t come.
I went into an office for a pregnancy test, and they confirmed that I was pregnant. A nurse told me it could be a tubal pregnancy, which would kill me, and how, because I was so young, I could die giving birth if I carried to term. I learned later that these statements were not true. I think this was a scare tactic, so I would have an abortion…
I expected the doctor to be a nice person who would take pity on me. I asked if it would hurt and he said, “It’s gonna hurt a lot more if you go through labor!” As he spoke, he didn’t look directly at me, and he seemed irritated.
I felt like I didn’t have a choice. My boyfriend wasn’t going to let me leave until I went through with it.…
My baby’s life ended that overcast April day.”
Barbara Horak Real Abortion Stories: The Hurting and the Healing (El Paso, Texas: Strive for the Best Publishing, 2007) 25
Sadly, no one helped this teen, and she came to deeply regret her abortion. Her wish for “lunatic Christians” to help her went unheeded. There was no screening at the clinic, and no one stopped to find out if this was what she really wanted. In fact, the clinic worker tried to scare her into having the abortion, and the doctor was rude.
A teenager who was being pressured to abort by her boyfriend and his mother told herself her baby was just a parasite:
“On Friday morning, I muffled my sobs in the shower. I jabbed my belly with my finger and called my baby a parasite, trying to distance myself from what I was about to do. My heart wasn’t in those words, but I knew if I was going to do this, I had to do everything I could to keep my mind from envisioning a little face that would never be.”
Barbara Horak Real Abortion Stories: The Hurting and the Healing (El Paso, Texas: Strive for the Best Publishing, 2007) 24
In her book, Teri Stanon describes how when her daughter Sheri became pregnant, they did not care about the feelings of the baby’s father. They decided on abortion without consulting him:
“Once Sheri’s pregnancy was discovered, the baby’s father was totally unnoticed and unrecognized. He was not made a part of the decision-making process that was flying all around him like a cyclone without a brain. Nobody asked him how he felt, or what he thought, let alone what he wanted for his baby. Worse yet, nobody cared.… We just, unintentionally, removed him from the whole event like he was somehow a nonentity in Sheri’s life or the life of their child.”
Teri Stanton Two Minus One: Our Abortion Story (Meadville, PA: Christian faith Publishing, Inc., 2016) 33 – 34
As in many cases, the father never had any say in whether his child would be aborted.
“Unresolved guilt over abortion and pregnancy losses can result in a tendency to behave in a self-destructive manner. Shame is a common accompaniment to many forms of pregnancy loss but can be particularly acute in the case of abortion, and can actually prevent grieving from ever taking place.”
Kim Kluger-Bell Unspeakable Losses: Healing from Miscarriage, Abortion, and Other Pregnancy Loss (New York: Harper, 1998) 136
A woman who had In Vitro Fertilization done and conceived four babies had a “selective reduction” where one baby was aborted. A pro-choice therapist asked her some questions:
“Did you feel like you got enough emotional support during the pregnancy reduction?”
“No, not really. Mostly because the people we talked to mainly were doctors and medical people and they were all coming from the point of view that it was dangerous medically to carry that many babies….but because that was the only side I was getting, I wished later that I’d known I had more of a choice to keep all four…I felt like there was a whole emotional piece missing….and also no one ever said we could consider keeping all four and I think now, why wasn’t that an option?…I’m not blaming anyone; I just wish I’d had another point of view to consider.”
Twins, a pregnancy where a selective reduction might be done
The therapist then asked:
“And did you – I know this might be a difficult question to answer – but how did you decide which one to reduce? Did you leave it up to the doctor?”
“Yes. They really just…picked the smallest baby,” she said, her voice choking, beginning to cry. “I’m really feeling the loss now, because…that little one…just because it was little, you know…lost its life.”
Kim Kluger-Bell Unspeakable Losses: Healing from Miscarriage, Abortion, and Other Pregnancy Loss (New York: Harper, 1998) 94-95
Other women who have undergone selective reduction say they regret aborting one baby every time they look at the surviving babies.. They will always wonder what the other baby would’ve been like.
Selective reduction is usually done by injecting poison into the heart of the baby being aborted, killing him or her. When the woman goes to term, she gives birth to her living babies as well as the dead one.
Selective reduction is often done in cases of in vitro fertilization when multiple embryos are placed inside the woman. Because many embryos from IVF fail to implant, doctors often place multiple embryos in the womb to increase the odds of a viable pregnancy. Sometimes this leads to more than the desired number of children growing in the womb. Specialists then pressure women to abort one or more babies to increase the chances that the others survive to term. In reality, if there are three babies, selective reduction to one only increases the odds of a healthy birth slightly.
Selective reduction is also done on request when a woman is pregnant with twins or triplets but wants only one baby.
Some authors have suggested that women who are troubled by their abortions often help convince other women to abort, reaffirming their decision through the other woman’s choice. This may be why an estimated 70% of those who work at abortion clinics have had a previous abortion.
One woman who had an abortion recounted that her friends tried to convince her that abortion was the best choice. She says:
“My girlfriends tried to guide me by sharing their stories of abortion. I didn’t say it out loud, but I thought to myself, “Who are you trying to convince that abortion is okay, me or you?”
Barbara Horak Real Abortion Stories: The Hurting and the Healing (El Paso, Texas: Strive for the Best Publishing, 2007) 38
Hydrocephalus is a disease where fluid collects in the brain of an unborn baby. the prognosis varies, but many children with hydrocephalus go on to live normal lives. The mother of a child with hydrocephalus describes the pressure that was put on her to abort him.
Jennifer Mckinstry was pregnant with her third child, Colton, when he was diagnosed with hydrocephalus.
“We were told that we should terminate our pregnancy with Colton seven times,” explains Mckinstry, “and by three different doctors. The first time they told us to terminate the pregnancy was the hardest because it was all such a shock to us.
The doctor was trying to tell me about his brain disorder and I couldn’t even hear him, everything was blurry and I felt so light headed. About a week later, we went to another doctor…and he told us that it would be best to terminate the pregnancy and that Colton wouldn’t make it.
If he did make it, he would be a ‘vegetable’ who would never laugh or smile. After the second time that they told us to terminate we came back home and were so unsure of what to do.
I never thought I would even think about terminating a pregnancy at all, but with everything the doctors were telling us, I wondered if it would be best.
For three days, my husband and I thought back and forth if we should terminate or not. It was the most stressful and depressing days of my life. We decided that the best thing we could do was put it in God’s hands and pray, and whatever happened was meant to be. …
The next month we were told a few more times to terminate the pregnancy because it would be best for Colton, and that it was selfish of us to keep him because he would be in so much pain if he even did make it.
Well I am proud to say that Colton did make it through the pregnancy and when he was born was breathing on his own.
He did need surgery to help drain extra fluid in his brain, but he is five months old now and is smiling, laughing, nursing, and meeting close to ever milestone for his age!
The doctors are shocked and keeping telling us that he is doing amazingly well and way better than even the best case scenario they ever thought!”
6 1/2-week-old human embryo – baby. Most abortions are done at this time or later
One woman who had an abortion knew that she was pregnant with a child, but tried to convince herself it was just a bunch of cells:
“My whole world fell in around me as I tried to make the hardest decision I have ever faced. I had always said I didn’t want children. But there was a child growing inside me. My child….I tried every way possible not to think of it that way. I told myself it was nothing but a bunch of cells. It was just an accident I had to deal with.”
Former abortion nurse describes how she disposed of “fetal remains” i.e. aborted children:
I used a simple kitchen strainer, over a sink, and sifted through the contents of the collection jar after an abortion. I had to make certain all the body parts of the baby were accounted for. The garbage disposal was available and used for the placenta and any other tissue that had fallen into the sink. At that time, I was instructed to place the babies into a simple plastic container and packaged to be sent to a lab for disposal. The clinic reportedly hired a company which would send a truck to pick up the babies. Maybe this is a way the state could tell the abortionist how to dispose of the bodies.
Nurse Misty Coburn. who worked at Fort Wayne Women’s Health Organization, an abortion facility
The “fetal remains’ above are the legs of an 8 week old aborted child. This is around the time when most abortions are performed. So this was what Nurse Coburn was sifting through.
Abortions are legal at 20 weeks in many states. At this stage, fetal remains are very developed. Nevertheless, they are treated the same way.
preborn baby at 20 weeks.The arm and hand of a 20 week old aborted baby. These would be handled in an abortion clinic like any other fetal remains.
