The “National Memorial for the Unborn” in Chattanooga, Tennessee stands where an abortion clinic once stood. It is a place for mothers to honor their aborted babies. Below is a letter on display at the memorial.
Baby Tara,
Today I honor you as my unborn child, now in eternity with the Lord. You would be 25 years old today. My heart weeps for you. You are in my heart & on my mind always. You would have 3 other siblings had you lived. My life was filled with sorrow, shame & regrets until I sought help. I feel now that I am forgiven by God & myself. I have a lot of healing to go. It makes me feel better knowing that someday I will hold you in heaven.
Love,
Mom
The pain sensed in that letter, which is dated Feb. 27, is typical of how many women feel after an abortion. In the July 2006 issue of Think, a woman named Nancy Carmel describes her pain. She says that women undergoing abortion “have no idea what suffering they will encounter after the abortion, and daily for the rest of their lives, when it suddenly dawns on them that they chose to extinguish a precious life.” She goes on to say that the guilt of killing your child “eats away at your soul continually, like a ravenous cancer, causing one to pray for a quick demise.” The pain is only intensified by thoughts of what the child would be like. She says, “You will always wonder if the fetus was male or female, what he or she would look like. Yearly, you will mournfully recall the day your baby was ripped from your body, only to be carelessly tossed into a garbage pail at your side.”
Statistics show that most women suffer significant psychological pain after an abortion. Feelings of guilt, anger, depression, grief, regret, sorrow, shame, loneliness, nightmares, insomnia, suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, loss of self-control, and difficulty maintaining relationships have all been reported.
Below is an article from an unnamed woman who chose to have an abortion at age 18. She talks about the pain it has caused her from that day forward.
I am writing this article in hopes that it will help anyone who is thinking of having an abortion or anyone who already has.
In April of 1978, I had just turned 18 and was on top of the world. I had my whole life ahead of me. I had all the answers as so many do at that age.
Then the bottom fell out. I found out I was pregnant. I was able to hide it for a couple of weeks but soon the morning sickness came and it didn’t take my family long to figure out what was wrong with me.
My parents strongly urged me not to have an abortion. Some of my brothers, along with their wives, offered me all of the help I could possibly need.
But I told myself that I was too young to be stuck with a baby. I had too many other things to do. A baby would just mess up my life and tie me down and keep me from doing many great things. So what did I do? I hired a “hitman.” I paid some “quack” to take the life of my own child.
From the very moment that I had the abortion, I knew my life would never be the same.
At first I went through severe depression. I stayed in my room practically all of the time staring at the ceiling.
I was then put on nerve pills and sleeping pills. I walked around like a zombie most of the time. All of the life was zapped from me. The effects of the pills caused me to gain an extra 75 pounds. As of today I have only managed to get rid of half of it.
Then I discovered what “getting high” meant. I had never fooled with drugs or alcohol. I was always so high on life. Even my teachers in high school had commented to other people about how happy I was all of the time. The Lord blessed me with something that very few people have — true happiness. But now it was all gone. I became addicted to drugs. I thought I had found the answer to my problems. But I would later find out that the drugs would turn on me.
In 1981 my husband and I found out that we were going to be parents. From the moment I found out, I kept waiting to lose the baby. I knew God was going to pay me back.
My little boy was due on December 31, but he decided to join us on December 8. He is now 7 years old and every day of his life I’ve been waiting for him to die or be kidnapped. And it’s been the same with my little girl who is 5.
The Lord has blessed me with two beautiful, healthy children and I can’t enjoy this blessing for worrying about them.
I would like to say that Dr. Everette Koop, former Surgeon General of the United States, does not know what he is talking about when he says there is no clear evidence of psychological scars from having an abortion.
Like many who have abortions, the woman who wrote that article never imagined the choice she made that day would trouble her for the rest of her life, but it has. It is a pain that never goes away.
Elaine Rotondo had two abortions before giving birth to three daughters. In the January 1990 issue of Decision, she spoke of the pain she suddenly felt years after the abortions. She explained, “But driving home from the supermarket one afternoon, I found myself thinking about two other children from my past. Those two I had never fussed over. In fact, I had tried to forget them entirely. Before now I had not even called them children. I had called them abortions.” She recalled pulling her car to the shoulder of the road and wondering how old they would be and what color eyes they would have. Elaine continued, “I fought off the sickening reality that was rising in my mind. The full impact of what I had done so many years before was finally upon me. ‘They were alive,’ I said out loud. ‘They were real children!’” For the first time, she acknowledged that she had taken the lives of her children and “cried out to the tiny souls who never had felt their mother’s arms.” She “longed for them” and “wept for a long time” wishing that the very mountains would cover her and hide the guilt.
In addition to psychological pain, it has been proven that the risk of miscarriages, premature births, bleeding, and breast cancer increases in women who have had an abortion.
We should also note the pain felt by the rest of the family. What about the father of the child? It often seems that his feelings are ignored. He too must live with the fact that his child was aborted. Fathers of aborted children are prone to psychological problems of their own. What about the grandparents of the aborted child? What about the other siblings? Rarely do we take time to consider their feelings. Abortion hurts more than just the child and mother. It hurts everybody!