|
|
| |
Paul
New York,
United States
|
| |
|
| |
I lost two children to abortion when I was in high school, and for the last several years I have been prompted to share my story for the purpose of:
• Promoting healing among men that have been hurt by abortion
• Challenging young men to remain abstinent until marriage
• And encouraging those who find themselves facing an unplanned pregnancy to choose life over abortion.
The first abortion experience occurred when the mother of my child was somewhere between five and seven months pregnant. We were sixteen years old at the time.
Believing they were doing the right thing for their daughter, her parents took her to NYC to have a “therapeutic” abortion.
It was a decision that was made for her, not by her …
I will never forget that weekend because on Friday, I saw her, and she let me put my hand on her belly. I could feel our baby moving around inside. But when I saw her again on Monday or Tuesday, our baby was gone.
At first I thought maybe she had delivered prematurely, but that wasn’t the case. And I can’t even begin to tell you how devastated I was when I found out what had happened.
I didn’t understand much about abortion back then. When she told me, I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that someone could inject saline solution into her womb and legally kill our unborn child. To me this was unconscionable and the impact of that abortion has never left me.
The second time she became pregnant was about 18 months later. We fully intended to do things differently. We went to an organization that was relatively new to the Syracuse area at the time, thinking that we could get information on how to plan for our role as parents.
Having an abortion never even entered our minds when we went to Planned Parenthood, which tells me just how vulnerable people can be when they enter a clinic that performs abortion.
Naively, I thought I’d quit school if I had to, find work, move in together, and just kind-of figure out the rest as it came. But once we walked into Planned Parenthood, all the nurse talked about was abortion.
She told us that in the first trimester our child wasn’t formed as a human yet, that it was just a clump of organic cells. She showed us diagrams of what this mass of tissue most likely looked like. She told us that because it wasn’t human at that stage, having an abortion shouldn’t conflict with any religious belief we might have. When we asked about parenting classes, she made us feel like bringing a child into the world at our age was the most foolish thing we could do. “You are too young to be parents,” she kept repeating. Then she brought out the appointment book, and a few days later we lost a lifetime with our second child.
I won’t go into detail about the emotional condition my girlfriend was in after having the second abortion, except to say that she was deeply hurt again. Personally, I remember walking underneath a bridge together, as she stood there sobbing on my shoulder. My heart turned as stone cold as the cement wall we were leaning against. I felt utterly helpless. All I wanted to do is turn back the hands of the clock, but there was nothing I could do to change what we had done.
Our relationship ended shortly thereafter. For the next several years I dealt with the pain I was experiencing through massive alcohol consumption.
Truthfully, I almost drank myself to death until I was in my mid-twenties.
Many years later in 2003 I went through a post-abortion Bible study for men. God began to set me free from the pain and shame I had carried all those years. Contrary to what many people assume, there are a lot of men who truly regret and hurt from the abortions in their past, especially if they had no say in the decision.
Imagine how it affects a woman or man that has been through an abortion, when, a few years later, they are expecting a child they plan to keep and realize during an ultrasound that the one they aborted already had a heartbeat and little arms and legs. Speaking for myself, I had knots in my stomach because what I saw was far more than just a blob of tissue.
To this day I still feel the pain and have nightmares about the abortions we went through. That's why I am silent no more!
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
Silent No More Awareness Campaign: Reach Out - Educate - Share
www.silentnomoreawareness.org |
|