Sometimes I think of Gabriel, growing up, having children, having joy. But then I stop. When I was 17, I left home, school, and church. I got a job in a birth control center, and one of my jobs was to make arrangements for women to get abortions in Ontario or New York City. I was convinced that contraception was a duty, and that abortion was part of a good solution to the problem of unwanted children, and too many people.

And then I got pregnant. I used contraception and I got pregnant. I arranged my own abortion. I felt I was doing the right thing for the world, my parents, and me. Was it good for the child? I wasn’t going there. A week after the abortion, I got a severe pelvic inflammatory disease. The doctor who examined me said “this is what you get for having an abortion”. I was very sick, and I wondered about my fertility.

I got married and had 3 children. I didn’t get depressed or turn to alcohol or drugs. I was a slightly withdrawn mother, wife, and friend. I didn’t give my heart easily. But I was fine. At Christmas I hung a tiny teddy bear on the tree for my child. But seriously, I wasn’t going there. But… “there” came to me. I had come back to my faith and one quiet night- shift, I was reading a book about prayer. I read “I deeply repent of having an abortion or encouraging someone to have an abortion. Forgive me, Lord”. 

Until now, it wasn’t a real life I had taken. Just a possibility. But, this night, I knew. I had lost my child. I had lost my child, and it was because I – the one person who should have protected her, had cast her aside and had her aborted. Because when I should have, I didn’t go there. I did not acknowledge her “I am”.

My tears were God’s grace and I felt God, and His mom, put their arms around me and cry with me. I felt great, life-giving compassion and mercy. Now, I truly confessed this because I was sorry. I can never be sorry enough and yet, I am forgiven. I went on a retreat with women like me, and we grieved, and we healed.

Pro-choice women, come to their position out of love. Love for women, self-determination, society, and for children. Every child a wanted child. They won’t or can’t push through the science and the morality that would have them know that this is their child, To the women who have had an abortion. I lost Gabriel. And I went there. It took 25 years, but I went there and was set free because I acknowledged that Gabriel’s life was worth grieving and missing, and I am allowed to grieve and heal. Thank God!

You lost a child. Go there. Go with God, go with a counsellor or a pastor, but go there. Your child deserves to be acknowledged and missed. Your pain needs to be acknowledged and healed. 

I went there, and I am no longer silent.