When I was 17, I read a book called The Population Bomb that said overpopulation was going to lead to hundreds of millions of deaths. I believed at the time that we needed protection FROM babies. I made up my mind then to have an abortion if I ever got pregnant.
A year later, when I was working at a birth control center and arranging abortions for other women, I had a chance to test my resolve when I discovered I was pregnant. True to my word, I had an abortion.
I was fired from my job after my abortion because it was making other employees sad to think about the children they had not protected from abortion.
Life went on. I married a wonderful man and had three children. But something was missing. Every year, I hung a small teddy bear on our Christmas tree. I could not have told you why. But one night while I was in prayer, God got through to me. What was missing was the child I aborted.
I had never been sorry before this, but that night for the first time I knew that the child I had aborted wasn’t just any person, it was my child. I, his mother, the person who above all others was supposed to love and protect him, had killed him. I ached for my child, and I was horrified with myself.
Looking back on all this, I know that I was a distant mother to my three living children, and a distant sister, wife, daughter and friend. I kept part of me closed. Abortion changed me. The body remembers the physical violence of abortion. Allowing the violence the protection of silence hurt me and it hurt my relationships.
Does anyone really talk about abortion the way they talk about other medical procedures? No. few are proud of having an abortion; it’s something we hide. We protect our privacy, we protect our way of life, we protect our right to “choose.” We do not protect our children.
Back when I was still 17 and had not had my abortion, I saw a picture of a homeless couple in Dallas, holding a tiny coffin. They had found the body of a newborn who had been abandoned in the dumpster where they were searching for food. Poor as they were, they sold their wedding rings to pay for a funeral for this baby, a stranger to them.
Through my abortion, I too, had thrown away my precious child when I should have protected him.
To anyone who has lost a child to abortion, I urge you to look inside. Acknowledge your loss, and your role in ending your child’s life. Acknowledge what has been done to you. Talk about it. The abortion silenced your child – don’t let it silence you. Don’t let the abortion take more than it already has.
I regret that I did not protect my child at conception, and that’s why I will be Silent No More.