I was an African American, young woman in 1980 and within the first wave of causalities of the new abortion law. I had an abortion because I was a young, recently married woman in undergraduate studies and had just given birth to my first child, a daughter approximately 1 year previously. I was told discreetly by other educators and society that I would not make it to finish college and my life would be ruined by having more children at such a young age. I was told that I had been given a privilege thanks to affirmative action and civil rights and now being pregnant again so quickly was going to ruin my life and I would not fulfill what others before me had worked so hard for people like me to have an opportunity.
I was on a college work study program with the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT and the promise of a high paying job upon graduation from college was not going to someone with “all those children and black, too.” Though no one tied me up and dragged me to the procedure, those who knew I was exercising my so called choice, secretly and silently pushed and encouraged me to do so, in “the best interests of my future as a black woman.” The abortion was not seen for what it was but a lie that it was “my right to my body.” No where was I told that my right meant I was literally killing a baby. I was told the proverbial “It was just some tissue.” The Federal Government even covered the cost through my health insurance.
There was no deterrent along that rocky road and I can’t remember even one person really informing me what I actually was doing to my body or exploring any other options.
During the abortion procedure there was silence. No one talked! I was awak--for GOD SAKE--during the procedure. I hate that only sound heard made during the procedure to this day! I can not stand the sound of a dental office. The noise of the suction takes me back to this day 28 years later! NO one spoke; it was cold. That was the coldest place in earth on that table within the room and the heart of those present. I was all alone though the nurse and doctor there were faceless, quiet at the atrocity I was doing, but my mind had to separate and they were not filling in the reality of what I was actually doing.
Immediately after the abortion, I experienced numbness, isolation, I was truly all alone in that cold recliner. I had waterless tears, I felt empty and pretty much just told to “get up get going and no attention to my after needs after such a life-changing event now that they had collected the cash, and I was done. There was more to do before the procedure (how they will be paid to be sure they were paid) than after to attend to my needs, so I stuck it deep down inside with no one to share that awful feeling with. I was silent. I remember becoming obsessed with trying to research what I had done by requesting my medical records I wanted to see was it a boy a girl? I remember even calling, inquisitive to what happens to the “remains.” I even made up a story to my husband that I “had to have the abortion because of a medical condition (I did have a mild heart condition) to rationalize what I had done. I lied like they had lied to me and to others over this dark dark secret that was a solution to a problem.
As time went on after the abortion I felt and experienced several replacement children who were also aborted because I thought unconsciously that I did not deserve to be a parent, I experienced not optimal parenting with the one precious child I did have prior to the abortions, a divorce, major depression diagnosis, several suicide attempts, drug addiction to the point of almost destroying myself by overdose, alcohol abuse, promiscuity. I later tied my tubes at a very young age because I did not feel I was fit to parent after what I had done. I became silent to the facts of that time period of my life in order to go on with day to day living. All of these self-destructive acts were an attempt to continue the silence and quiet my own thoughts regarding the matter.
I began to seek help and forgiveness through a spiritual journey to various types of religions including those that explored my cultural roots, African and Native American Spirituality, New AGE-Science of Mind. Once finally in recovery from alcohol and drugs for about three years and my brain waking up to reality and working in an internship with other alcoholics and addicts a counselor who was also a minister offered me the sinner’s prayer in his office and I was saved and accepted CHRIST as my LORD and Savior.
I decided to further my education and help other alcoholics and addicts while in a graduate program. To supplement income during my new second marriage, to make financial amends after an addictive lifestyle, and to take care of an adolescent daughter I took part time employment with a big time recruiter of graduate study college women with an abortion provider agency. At that time the organization kept its reproductive clinic separate from the abortion provider clinic. It is interesting in looking back now that this was a tactic to further their deceptive mission under the gist of money as a lure.
As a patient educator for this organization I was never given the tools once again, of the truth the reality of what an abortion really was as a matter of fact we were clearly told not to discuss this, not to refer to Crisis Pregnancy Centers but to JUST GIVE THE ADDRESS of where they could go to get an abortion if that was their choice, NOTHING MORE. We were even further brainwashed as employees to believe that the Crisis Pregnancy Centers those PRO LIFE people wanted us dead! SO don’t even listen to anything that they say. We were silent on the matter so to say as to the truth of abortion. Finally, when the clinics in order to survive had to merge in my community to come out and put together PLANNED PARENTHOOD and ABORTION Provision. I was able to leave as the pain of my own past was pushing up to my conscious and I could not work with an organization that hid the truth, besides I was clean and sober now so there was nothing to push down the reality.
Later, on the wings of an angel of GOD, I was hired at a job within an organization whose mission was life affirming for others and enabled women to give birth with dignity despite what the world says. This organization in the process educated me to the truth that was with held from me for so many years. This life-affirming agency opened the door way to the truth of other life-affirming reality opportunities that nurtured my wounded soul. I participated in an existential group training with a prominent pro life advocate and scholar that changed my world for the better, thanks to this organization.
Further forgiveness came through rededicating myself to Christ and getting water-baptized and receiving the Holy Spirit of my LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST in 1998. I began to speak to those who were seeking abortion as a solution to the wrong problem. I began helping those who have had an abortion to forgive themselves and to go to the ultimate Forgiver. I now have a marriage and beautiful grandchildren whom I cherish. I have taken back what the enemy had only meant for me to keep silent about so he can continue to perpetuate and validate his plan of ultimate destruction. Abortion not only kills that precious baby, it is a method to plant a seed of destruction within that woman as well, that grows and grows into further destruction of herself, her family, her community.
I am no longer silent. I am selective in whom I speak, however not silent any more. You open the door to the discussion about abortion, and I am coming through it with TRUTH that abortion does hurt the woman, hurts the community and wounds the soul and not only destroys a life that could have been, but makes the life of the woman not what it could or should be by our Lord due to its damage. You can’t fix or change anything that you can’t talk about so I will not be SILENT NO MORE!