Sanctity of Life

Abortion. Almost one in three women in America has now faced it; almost everyone is touched by it in some way.  It has changed our world more than any other issue in that the very inhabitants of the world have been lost.  In mourning such a gargantuan loss, people can forget to consider that we should mourn not only for the children, but for the mothers who have often been taken advantage of, who need great compassion and mercy.

1. Knowing that God will heal abortion doesn’t mean you should choose one. The possibility of healing from abortion is not at all a justification for the deed.  Far too often at the sidewalk, I heard women walking in say, “God will forgive me.”  They figure that if God is as loving as we say He is, He will, therefore, understand why they are having an abortion and just cover it in grace and excuse it.  This is a form of the antinomian heresy that Christ’s love justifies proceeding to choose bad behavior.  Paul says in Romans 6, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!”

2. Repression and healing are vastly different. Many post-abortive women try to find a way to cope through repressing what happened. Repressed trauma can manifest itself in various degrees of visibility through symptoms like depression, self-destructive behaviors, and repeat abortions.   Trauma also often causes illogical overreaction to subtly triggering circumstances.  There is information available online to help women identify whether they may be suffering from PASS-Post Abortion Stress Syndrome.

3. Healing requires genuine confession of wrongdoing. Until a woman admits what happened, her conscience will chase her. Budziszewski has theorized five furies that happen until a woman finally seeks healing.  Among these is a desire to share one’s personal abortion story without admitting it was actually wrong.

4. Healing involves admitting being wronged by others, but also forgiving them. Many can be blamed for the prevalence of abortion.  Maybe a woman blames her partner, pressuring family, doctor and nurses, the culture at large, the lawmakers, Planned Parenthood, or the lack of alternative options.  All of these people and institutions do bear some of the weight of responsibility, but first acknowledging having been wronged or manipulated, and then forgiving the perpetrators, is vital to healing.  Focus on the Family talks about what forgiveness is and is not in reference to divorce, but some of the same principles apply to the issue of abortion.

5. Healing requires forgiving oneself. On the other extreme of antinomianism are women who feel like God will never be able to forgive them for what they have done or who struggle terribly with forgiving themselves. Often, forgiving oneself can be the hardest thing to do, but one must cling to knowing that Christ’s grace is enough for you and that refusing to forgive yourself is minimizing the extent of His sacrifice.  Thus, it is possible to overemphasize the sacrifice by justifying a decision to go ahead and have an abortion, or underemphasize Christ’s sacrifice in a refusal to forgive yourself after you have already had one.

6. Healing is not an instantaneous process. It will take lots of time and a different amount of time for each person. It will not often happen overnight but take lots of combing through the issues leading up to and following the abortion.  Trying to rush one’s own or a loved one’s healing is unhelpful, because it is impossible to simply “get over it.”

7. Healing doesn’t happen alone. This is why it is very important that everyone should know a bit about recovery from abortion. It is very important that others aren’t judgmental of the women, but rather eager to hear her story, love her, and help her heal. Friends, family, partners, and spouses should be supportive and seek healing themselves if they were involved in the abortion. Women should feel free to seek outside help through counseling, pregnancy center support groups, and post-abortion retreats.  Project Rachel is a well-known post-abortion retreat option that has helped many women as they strive to go on with life after abortion.

8. Healing will look differently for different people. This is because people will often have had the abortion for different reasons.  One’s own circumstances and one’s own personality means one’s own healing will be unique. People need different amounts of engagement with God, counselors, friends, other post-abortive women, and others involved in their abortion in order to fully heal.

9. Healing involves remembering. Many women have found great refuge in remembering their unborn children through memorial services.  Often, as a part of these, an aborted child is named.  By acknowledging the dignity and humanity of their children, they are able to come to grips with what abortion was.  Until they face that reality, it is difficult to heal.

10. Healing is ongoing and not complete. Regrets will remain.  Life will never be the same without the child that was lost.  It’s okay that the feeling never entirely goes away.  The scar is still there, even if the wound is no longer raw.  On this side of heaven, the painful memories will, in some sense, remain.

Chandler’s friend, Jason Dohrman, is a senior at Sparkman High School in Harvest, Alabama.

Every life is a gift. Each of us is fearfully and wonderfully made. If our society advocates for equality and opportunity for all, we must ensure the right to life, especially for those who cannot speak up for themselves. Nearly 90 percent of babies in the womb diagnosed with a disability like Down syndrome are aborted. This statistic is absolutely unfathomable.

The claim of atheist apologist Richard Dawkins that “it is immoral not to abort a baby with Down syndrome,” breaks my heart in more ways than one. My heart is broken because the very individuals who take this horrific stance are likely to have missed out on the opportunity to form the beautiful relationships that I have developed which have positively affected me. Some of my most cherished friendships are those that I share with my Down syndrome friends, who are extra-special to me.

With this in mind, Congress MUST pass H.R. 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, into law. The passage of this 20-week abortion ban would prevent the termination of an innocent child’s life past 20 weeks for any non-fatal reason — including those with diagnosed disabilities. The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is important to all lives, but today I’m advocating for the passage of this legislation for our special needs community.

Let me share a personal anecdote:

Before my birth, my soon-to-be mother took a number of standard prenatal tests, and one indicated she was at high risk for having a child born with Down syndrome. My mother was encouraged by her nurse to undergo the prenatal testing procedure known as “amniocentesis.” According to my mother, our family medical records were not, and have not been, as readily available due to my family’s origin, which is one of the reasons they proceeded with the testing. As my parents were sitting in the waiting room, many of the couples surrounding them had a history of Down syndrome in their families. During the procedure, with the assistance of an ultrasound, a needle punctured my mother’s abdominal wall into her uterus to retrieve amniotic fluid for testing. This fluid contained fetal cells that were examined for chromosome testing to determine whether or not I, her baby, had Down syndrome.

By no means were my young and expecting parents considering an abortion, but they were desperately seeking answers to a question that they assumed a test would correctly answer.

The test led the doctors to believe I would be born with an extra chromosome. I would have Down syndrome.

The test was inaccurate. The test was also later labeled by my mother’s doctor, not her nurse who originally suggested the test, as an invalid and unreliable test.

Based on this personal anecdote, my concern is heightened for mothers like mine who achingly receive these (potentially inaccurate) results and, unlike my mother, regretfully choose to end their child’s life. The majority of abortions done to children diagnosed with disabilities occur after the 20-week period, and since the most informative testing procedures take place between 18-20 weeks gestation, there may be a correlation between the two.

This must stop. Congress must pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

I believe every child is a child of the Lord and deserves the right to life to fulfill a meaningful purpose. My heart beats wildly for the special needs community, and it manifests outwardly in the relationships that I have with my extra-special friends. Two of my friends have truly epitomized what it means to exude a genuine joy. Jason and Chad are brothers; they both have special needs, and their parents willingly adopted them. I am confident there are families who are actively seeking the opportunity to serve as loving parents to those with special needs.

Statistically speaking, 79 percent of parents said their lives were more positive as a result of their child with Down syndrome. Ninety-nine percent of people with Down syndrome reported they were happy with their lives.

Let us value opportunities for others. Let us value friendships, sons, and daughters.

Let us value life itself.

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well,” Psalm 139:14.

The Supreme Court has struck down Texas abortion clinic regulations meant to protect women, provoking strong reactions on both sides.  In this decision, the court drew upon its own legal precedent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 1992 abortion case where abortion regulations were proclaimed legal only under certain conditions.  Apparently, ensuring abortion health and safety measures is an “undue burden” for women seeking an abortion, even though it cannot be proved that any woman who wanted an abortion didn’t get one as a result of requiring clinics to be safe.

The Supreme Court has, unfortunately and incorrectly, decided that abortion is a woman’s right and that getting it — no matter the sub-par conditions — is what truly matters.

Where does it end?  Because of this, it may become legally harder to implement and enforce much of the headway we have made towards regulating abortion in states throughout the country.  These particular regulations — which were not about abortion itself but rather about the safety of women — couldn’t even stand!

There is no clear metric for deciding what is or is not an undue burden and what can or cannot be regulated.  What about states that are smaller — places like Rhode Island or Delaware where driving to a top standard clinic takes a short time? Geography, finances, and individual preference could all contribute to what constitutes “undue burden,” which is truly an undefinable and transient concept.

But though this case will certainly open the door for rolling back regulations meant to protect the unborn, the case directly applied to rolling back regulations meant to protect the woman.  And rolling back women’s health and safety is scary.  No one should want to see back-alley abortion clinics again.

As one pro-life doctor said in his response, “Today’s Supreme Court decision means that Gosnells are still going to be allowed out there practicing.”

So that means we can have doctors who can’t admit patients to a local hospital, but can perform abortions.  The prospect of doctors without hospital admission privileges is terrifying, and no doctor will be held accountable for patients with complications who need to visit the ER after their abortion.

That means more women can easily get a medical abortion with less follow up, a procedure with the trauma and risks of expelling their small baby at home.  (1 in 100 women need hospitalization after this procedure due to heavy bleeding that won’t stop.)

That means more women will be rushed to the ER because of botched abortions, or even die, their stories often forgotten.

If further regulations are thrown out, and abortions can continue to be done with dirty tools in infected facilities, women will rush into abortion without seeing an ultrasound and without regard for her rights to informed consent.

Let history record that the pro-life movement tried to ensure clean abortion clinics that met health and safety standards.  Let history record that women in America, thanks to the Big Abortion Lobby, were left instead with this:

“In all the years I have spent writing and thinking about a woman’s right to choose, I have never set foot in an abortion clinic, because I have never needed to. In my mind, I had always pictured a clean and comfortable place. … This was no Westchester clinic. The place was dirty and dark and the women in the room outside were standing, as there were no chairs. A woman beside me was crying … the visceral reality of abortion — the grimy clinic, the sobbing and hapless young woman…abortion is still a dirty word,” Reporter Hannah Selinger.

Chaney Mullins serves as Special Projects Writer for Concerned Women for America.