My name is Angelina Steenstra. As a teenager, I became pregnant through a sexual assault. A positive pregnancy test led to the conclusion of abortion - the “new morality” for victims of rape and incest. Fear of gossip, ridicule, the shame of being pregnant outside of marriage and not amounting to much, united with the opinion of many around me, impelled me in a self-centered panic to find an ad. A woman answered the phone. Assured nobody needed to know, I was told how to find the facility, and how much money I needed. The procedure and its consequences were not discussed.
In Buffalo, New York, I entered the abortion mill, paid the fee, did what I was told, by strangers, while feeling vulnerable, helpless and exposed. The procedure began. Despite the anaesthetic, I felt the icy-cold instruments and then excruciating pain. I heard the sound of a vacuum and saw red fluid filling the jar. In shock, I wondered: is there a baby? A soul? Who sees what I am doing? I cried uncontrollably. I could not retract the action - it was done, it was over! My senses repeatedly remembered what happened!
Alone, I returned to Canada with a secret. Everything had changed. Isolated from God, family and friends, in the aftermath, I stumbled along a self-destructive path of promiscuity, alcohol and drug abuse to numb the pain. I feared being found out. What would people think of me? Would others reject me as much as I rejected myself? Shame and guilt led to depression and temptations to suicide.
I had yet to connect that a child died that day. I did so fourteen years later when I conceived my next child. Rushed to emergency with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, surgery saved my life. That day my husband, Walter, and I lost our only child, Joseph Michael. Grieving the loss of him was a turning point. It took courage to gather and face the facts of what really happened on the day of the abortion. It was not a “positive pregnancy test” that ended, it was the life of a child, approximately 12 weeks gestation, a girl, whose name is Sarah Elizabeth.
The words “Follow Me” drew me along a path of hope and healing. I was reoriented toward Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Through healing programs such as Rachel’s Vineyard and the Hope & Healing ministry of the Sisters of Life, I came to know and receive God’s forgiveness and mercy. I am Silent No More so as to bring a message of hope to others. Sin and loss can be transformed into JOY. And to quote Pope John Paul the Second, may we all become “most eloquent defenders of everyone’s right to life”, and in the words of Christ, be made “Fishers of Men”. I will be Silent No More.