I Had an Abortion and I Can't Get Over It

Last week many people wrote to me in gratitude for the news about Project Hope, which the Family Ministry Department of the Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference is carrying out to try to ease the pain of mothers who have had an abortion. Some people told me they did not know what Post-Abortion Syndrome was. Below I transcribe part of some testimonies that appear on the website “No Más Silencio” (http://www.nomassilencio.com/SPA/Testimonios.htm) from women who suffer from this syndrome (PAS), even many years after ending the life of their own child:

“I am writing because I need help. I am always reading and looking for information about abortion, trying to find some comfort… I had no access to information when it happened, neither from the people around me nor from the place where I had it done, and I had no Internet access. The induced abortion, which was not my choice, happened when I was 17, under pressure from members of my family, who decided the future of my small, innocent and defenseless child. Today, at 31, I still weep for him. I cannot get over it, and every day I feel more pain…”

“I would like to help you, because I still suffer from PAS. In my country abortion is punishable by law, but they are trying to legalize it, which makes me feel terrible because I consider it murder. I am 50 years old, and when I was 21 I got pregnant. I wanted the baby but my boyfriend did not… my mother took me to an abortionist who gave me anesthesia, and in 20 minutes I no longer had my baby… I go through life sad. I was left with self-contempt, I cried for many years, and now I fight in defense of life…”

“I am going through PAS and I cannot be consoled… I am in therapy and looking for spiritual help. I wish I could undo what happened and the pain I carry in my soul… I am ‘dead while alive’… and the worst of it is that my only mental rest is thinking about death… I am tormented by having gotten rid of my child because I felt cornered by the ‘I can’t’… and by the idea of being alone with a life in my care… I got rid of a situation, but I opened the door to another kind of embarrassing pain: ‘the pain of my soul’… Please help me!”

This is only the tip of the iceberg. The testimonies of the “Association of Abortion Victims” in Spain (http://www.vozvictimas.org/) reveal the tragedy and the huge business that the legalization of abortion has become in that country. One of the current government’s proposals is to reform the law that allows 16-year-old girls to have an abortion at any clinic without their parents’ permission. Here is the testimony of one of those Spanish victims:

“In 2004 I decided to end my pregnancy at a private abortion clinic because it was quicker. They told me it would cost 380 euros… When I arrived there were many women waiting; it looked like a cattle barn. We paid in advance, with no receipt… the gynecologist told me it was a six-week pregnancy; he made no reference to the words child, baby or fetus. They gave me a pill to calm me down… they assured me my case fell within the three legal grounds, and I had to sign a consent form that stated: ‘possibility of death, risk of incomplete abortion and uterine perforation’… The pill they gave me was taking effect, and I could not answer when they asked about my psychiatric history. Everything was very fast and cold, horribly unpleasant… It is outrageous that doctors are allowed to do these things. How can a doctor do something so horrible? They are supposed to look after our health and our children’s… Right away I felt ill, physically and psychologically. I asked myself, and I still ask: why did they let me do this? Why is it so easy to have an abortion? Why did no one tell me what could happen to me afterward?… If anyone asks me, I will tell them without hesitation: don’t have an abortion! Anything but an abortion! It is not a question of faith, it is a question of being a parent: abortion wounds the deepest part of our being… It is not right for the State to allow such brutality, in which parents kill their own child…”

A commenter on my article last week pointed out that civilized countries legalize abortion. Another commenter replied that a nation’s degree of civilization is measured by how it protects those most in need. As Mother Teresa of Calcutta said: “I feel that if rich countries allow abortion, they are the poorest, and they need us to pray for them, because they have legalized murder.”