Testimony of Pat Wingert
Center Director
Pregnancy Ministries, Inc.Waynesboro, PA.
When I had my abortions in 1979, 1980 & 1982 I was not told the truth. I was not told that my babies’ hearts were beating and pumping their own blood, or that they would probably feel the pain of the abortion more than I would. I was not told about the physical and emotional consequences that might take place after the abortion. I want women today to know the truth about abortion.
The men I was involved with did not want a baby and were not committed to the relationship. I was a divorced single mother with no marketable skills and saw no other option for me and my young son. I had already placed two children for adoption and didn’t feel capable of making it on my own.
I have no recall of the first abortion, except that it took place in Ft Worth, Texas. The waiting room was large and very crowded. The second and third abortions took place in a clinic in Hagerstown, MD., where they rented a suite on the second floor of a large bank building downtown. It was small and very sterile. The waiting room was crowded, but quiet. I don’t remember anything about the second abortion. The third abortion was the most memorable. I felt very old; the group of girls with me in "pre-abortion counseling" was much younger than I was. I was 26, a veteran. Our "counselor" showed us a flip chart with animated drawings of the female reproductive system. She showed us a diagram of our "product of conception. That abortion was excruciatingly painful. I cried as a nurse held my hand. It was almost like I had paid someone to rape me with this huge suction machine. When the Dr was finally finished, the nurse was at the sink cleaning out the contents of the machine. She commented to me that I would have had a girl. I was devastated to know that she could tell the sex of my aborted baby.
After realizing I had killed my baby and not a "product of conception", I was desperate to leave. I did not want to stay for the recovery period and to have juice and cookies. They let me call my fiancé; he came and waited for me in the parking lot downstairs. Later that day I began to feel sick. I was running a fever, so I called the abortion clinic and they told me I would have to come back the next morning. When I got there, they had to do the abortion all over again. It was the most horrifying experience I have ever gone through. I have often thought what would have happened if I wouldn’t have called them back and not gone in? For the next two years I felt as if my female parts had been desecrated. I believed God would punish me by never allowing me to have another baby. Ironic that I had been pregnant 6 times already, none of them planned. I placed two babies for adoption, aborted three of them, and was parenting one, my son. Yet I still had the desire for that one baby girl. The one I never got to "keep".
My healing came well after my child bearing years were over. I finally had my daughter, she was my first planned child and God had mercy on me, and on her. She was perfect in every way. He used her to show me that the void in my life was a lack Him, not her. In January 1989 I gave my heart to Christ and began a new life completely. Even though I knew I was forgiven of all my sins, even the sins of abortion, it would still be 11 years before I would seek His specific healing in that area of my life. I didn’t know I needed it.
I had been working as a Center Director for a Crisis Pregnancy Center for about a year and a half, when listening to an afternoon radio program one day about Post Abortion Healing, it suddenly hit me. I was still carrying the load of shame and regret for those sins that Jesus Christ died for on the cross so long ago. I was forgiven, but I wasn’t living in His forgiveness. I was still bound by the lies of Satan, believing that if the world knew what secrets my past held, they would think I was the biggest hypocrite of all time. I contacted the lady on the radio program the next day, and enrolled in a "long distance" Post Abortion Bible study. It was painful, it was difficult, and it was often like pouring salt on an old wound. Many uncomfortable memories and haunting dreams came up during those days. It was all part of the process. Those things are necessary to root out the torment that lies deep within so that the healing balm of Jesus’ blood can reach to soothe the soul. Once I was past that point, I was able to bask in the freedom that one can only know after being imprisoned for so many years. To be able to look into the mirror and see the woman who God created me to be, whereas before I could only see the face of a woman who had made many mistakes and had three abortions hanging over her head. How oppressive! The most important thing about abortion that I think people need to know is that there is healing and forgiveness. If you have had an abortion, or participated in some way in helping some woman to get an abortion, there is forgiveness for you. You do not have to live with the guilt and shame of it forever.