Joan Haselman

My name is Joan Haselman. I was born in Bakersfield, California in 1949 and my parents were separated before I was one-year old, and subsequently divorced.

With the exception of the first five years of my life, in which I lived with my maternal grandparents, I was immersed in what is now identified and accurately termed the Culture of Death. Back then it was merely considered a glamorous, fast and loose, or immoral way of life.

My mother was a professional and successful sales person of office equipment and supplies and a feminist. She would often brag that she had connections who would take care of her friends unwanted pregnancies. I was her only living child.

I well knew what she would do if I were to become pregnant, so I worked very hard as a teenager to avoid sexual situations. A few times I failed. I was a senior in high school in the fall of 1966. I was 17 years old. My mother suspected that I might be late for my period, and she asked me if it was possible that I could be pregnant. I denied it. She kept asking, and I kept denying. Finally, I told her it was a possibility.

She called an acquaintance of hers who was a physician. He met us at his office on a Saturday morning and did a test, which he said was inconclusive. He gave me a shot of something, "just in case." My mother brought me home. My body went through many changes that day. My tongue swelled up, I felt like my head would explode, my whole body felt awful. I cramped and cramped for hours.

After some hours of excruciating pain, I expelled something, just a little something, which I learned 33 years later was a very tiny human being, with a very real immortal soul. Because this tiny being already possessed a soul, he or she possessed the capacity to love, and was already known and loved by God.

After that day, I went into denial. I felt like I was sub human. Suicidal tendencies became a daily battle for more than 33 years. I struggled to be good, but believed deep down inside that it was impossible. I sought solace in relationships that were shallow on my part and in 1969, suffered a first miscarriage.

My mother died in 1970. Before she died, she struggled in many ways that help me to believe she made her peace with God. I was with her just after she suffered a massive stroke and I was with her when she died. She was in a coma before her death, but there was forgiveness and peace between us, yet I was deeply sad, fearful and confused.

We were never able to talk about the abortion, nor were we able to talk about issues that were close to the heart. We had both been in denial. For four months after her death, I fell into a destructive way of life. With the grace of God, I slowly turned my life around and began to seek a better way. I went back to school for secretarial training and landed a good job. I bought a small car and took night courses. I had decided that I would not date at all unless the person would be a good person to marry.

Four months later, I began to see my future husband. We were married eleven months after our first date. I joined the Catholic Church hoping that it would help me to become a better person. It would be another 25 years before I would become fully committed. All of the vast resources available in this Church with a 2000-year history could only help me as far as I was able to be honest with myself.

In the first 5 years of our marriage I suffered 5 miscarriages, then in the seventh year, after our foster son came to live with us, our daughter was born. We lost one more child to miscarriage when she was one year old, and we have three more biological children.

I was expecting our third child in a time of great stress and little support, and after he was born, after a hard struggle of three months, I succumbed to a severe post partum depression, which became a full-blown breakdown.

In December of 1986, I was hospitalized for two weeks. I fell into a lot of blaming, anger and despair. Finally in the spring of 1987, I began to make my peace with God and accept my situation. All through this the abortion of my past went unrecognized and denied.

We moved to North Carolina and in the fall of 1988, our fourth Child was born. This time I found some much needed and appreciated support and acceptance in our community, and I made some wonderful friends.

The following years were years spent in counseling trying to make some sense out of my life. I was unable to bond with my children, as I desired, although I loved them with all of my heart. Our married relationship was strained, and I found myself unable to trust. I was held together by the timid hold I had on our faith and by the sound advice of a few good spiritual directors. There were many other voices that were less than helpful.

Finally, in 1997, I completely surrendered to the teachings of our Church and to the Hands of God and by His grace; I have never gone back. This time the struggle was marching forward because I had a firm grip on the cross, and I decided to carry it and follow Jesus.

In the year 2000, I met another post-abortive woman who had been forced to accept a shot that caused her abortion when she was a teenager. She was definitely pregnant and the shot she was given had the same effects and results as the one I had been given. It was then that I faced the fact that I had been pregnant when I was seventeen and that shot had caused an abortion. My denial collapsed. In May of 2001, I went to Smithfield to a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat led by Fr. Rick from a Byzantine Church in Cary, North Carolina. I am forever indebted to all of those who made this retreat possible.

I have had seven miscarriages, which I have grieved deeply, But learned to accept as something over which I had no control. But my first child was taken from me through the violence of Abortion. This child would never be held, would never be rocked to sleep, would never take his first steps, would never laugh, would never cry, would never be scolded, would never achieve the joy of overcoming hard obstacles, would never experience sorrow or happiness or rain or snow or sunshine. He would never learn to swim, would never learn to read or do algebra, would never have hopes and dreams in this life because he was not allowed to be born. I deeply and sorrowfully regret my abortion, and I promise you this. I will be SILENT NO MORE.