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What’s Missing From the Abortion Conversation

What’s Missing From the Abortion Conversation

The woman on the phone was crying. She had told friends about her miscarriage, and they had rushed to offer support. Unfortunately, that only made her feel more isolated, she said, because her friends said things like “I’m so sorry this happened to you” – phrases that each time reminded her that she had lied. She hadn’t had a miscarriage. She was in anguish because she’d had an abortion.

Abortion has been in the proverbial spotlight throughout 2022, mostly divided among those who support its full-term legalization, those who oppose its legalization, and the majority of Americans who fall somewhere in the middle. But there is another divide, one which is too often ignored – the line between those who suffer after their abortions, and those who “shout” their abortions.

The woman at the top of this piece didn’t talk to me personally; she called the After Abortion Line offered by Support After Abortion. Like so many other women and men who contact us, this woman felt ashamed because she needed someone to talk to, but she believed her friends wouldn’t understand her grief and shame. And so, she lied, compounding not only how she felt, but the traumas she had undergone during and before the abortion.

There are many reasons that women and men suffer emotional and psychological challenges after abortion. Sometimes, women come to us because they feel their pro-life family, friends, or clergy  will judge them. Others simply want to come to terms with the unborn child whose life was ended. And still others believe that because abortion is socially acceptable, opening up to those who support legalized abortion will result in being ostracized.

Feelings, fears, and actions like this woman’s are common among people with underlying traumas. I’ve seen it throughout two decades of helping children and families; the psychological literature is likewise clear that people often hide trauma because the truth is too painful. Support After Abortion’s recent national study shows that this same trend happens with abortion-related trauma: 69% of women who want healing from abortion want to do so anonymously.

We all know someone who hides pain behind a face. Perhaps it’s ourselves or our significant other; in my private practice, I’ve treated a woman whose parents were emotionally unavailable during her childhood. The only way she got attention was to replicate the successes of her parents; but even a nose job at 14, possessing physical beauty, and graduating at the top of her college class haven’t solved her low self-esteem and anorexia. She is terrified every day that society will see the “real” her.

Women and men who experience abortion are no different. Their pain and their trauma are real; but instead of acknowledging their suffering, our society pretends it doesn’t exist. Sexual abusers, alcoholics, and drug dealers get mental health resources; but someone suffering after abortion is left to drift while their sufferings ripple unabated.

The Support After Abortion team hears these stories daily; but behind each call is a need for open minds and warm hearts that see humanity, not politics or religion. Our study found that while one in three women suffer adverse impacts from their medication abortion, almost two-thirds of all women who experienced medication abortions sought healing care or could have used someone to talk to.

The woman who called us lied because though her suffering and hurt are real, she was afraid to be invalidated about her loss being from abortion rather than miscarriage. Like millions of other women and men, she needed permission to grieve. It’s time to give women – and men – the safe place they need for healing.

Lisa Rowe, LCSW, is CEO of the abortion healing organization Support After Abortion.

This article was originally published at RealClearHealth.

Image credit: RawPixel, CC0 1.0

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Lisa Rowe, LCSW
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    Kendra Santiago
    December 5, 2022, 8:13 pm

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    Dan Riser
    December 6, 2022, 1:07 am

    True healing comes through repentance and turning your life over to Christ.

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      December 6, 2022, 9:33 am

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  • Avatar
    Terry C
    December 6, 2022, 4:28 am

    Killing a viable preborn child is a hideous act that should produce an equally unpleasant feeling of shame and guilt. These feelings beckon the offender to recognize their offense so that they may genuinely repent of their act determined never to repeat it. This is the path to restoration, forgiveness, and spiritual rebirth.

    "The culture does not dictate truth. The Gospel dictates truth." – Voddie Baucham

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    December 6, 2022, 4:38 am

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  • Avatar
    Swissarge
    December 6, 2022, 3:18 pm

    Women have to be taught that the creation within their bodies is the most divine miracle of mankind.

    They should also be taught that it’s not their body.

    A person has a body, this body has a marker which is identifiable by examining any part of a person’s body; whether it ‘a hair, nail, drop of blood, or any part of the body, it’ s identifiable with a distinctive marker that only applies to that body. This marker is called DNA.

    Many women, to excuse their position on abortion, claim “it’s my body!”

    • A single sperm and the mother’s egg cell meet in the fallopian tube. When the single sperm enters the egg, conception occurs. The combined sperm and egg is called a zygote.
    • The zygote contains all of the genetic information (DNA) needed to become a baby. Half the DNA comes from the mother’s egg and half from the father’s sperm.
    • This means that it is not the woman’s body; it is another distinct DNA, which proves it’s not “her body” or even part of her body.
    • So when women referring to the conception that took place
    • say that it’s their body, they are wrong. Period.
    Pro-Choice is Pro Kill

    REPLY

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