Not even my mother?

I haven't written anything for quite a while, actually not since the anniversary of my abortion on August 22nd.  I just haven't felt like it and for me, I have to feel like it, otherwise whatever comes out seems forced or contrived.  Over the last week I've been jotting a few notes down here and there, starting to shove that writer's block out of the way little by little.  But, today, after this, I'm not even going to try to sound like a good writer.  This is about the heart and the pain and the woundedness and loss that comes with having had an abortion.

A few months ago I wrote about how to win the prolife fight.  I felt pretty good about what I wrote and a few outlets had even picked up my little opinion piece.  I started to feel again like maybe I am doing some good work here.

Then stuff like this happens.  Today, I scrolled down my Facebook feed and came across the video, "An Interview with an Unborn Child."  Okay, I'll watch it.  The first graphic was okay and not the blood and gore that so often accompanies these types of things.  I hit play.  I watched it all the way through one time and felt my neck start to flush and the lump in my throat begin to form.

I watched it a second time and started to talk back to the video.  I watched it a third time, angrier by the moment, trying to write down some notes, blinking back the tumbling tears that refused to stop falling. 

This video, my dear friends, can destroy a person.  It can destroy me.  And before you go on and on about how people need to hear the truth and blah blah blah... allow me to just give you my, albeit one sided, perspective.  This video presumes a hell of a lot of things - all of which are wrong in my case and I'm guessing for millions of other postabortive moms. 

First, watch and then I'll tell you why.

 

 

Let me tell you something, not a day has gone by since August 22, 1987 when I have not thought of my daughter.  Not. One. Day.  And that's not a cliche'.  That's truth. 

I have heard her screams over and over and over and over and over again in my mind and heart and soul for 26 years.  When I seem to forget the screams, I will force myself to remember them.  Her greatest pain is my greatest pain.  The assumption in this video is that not even the unborn baby's mother knows his pain.  Wrong.  Wrong even for the woman who celebrates her abortion as her right and claims relief when it's over.

I know who Grace is.

I know her.

I love her. 

Grace experiences my love every single day.

Death is the only kiss this "unborn baby" claims to have known or will know. 

I kiss Grace with every thought, with every prayer, with every tear, with every breath of mine.

Yes, she was torn from my womb and I never held her or saw her, but she remains with me because I am her mother.

Even before I spoke the word abortion out loud in the first step toward healing decades after my abortion, I knew her.  I loved her.  I have spent the last years learning that this love for my daughter is real.  I have learned how to love her and not have it destroy me.  I have learned that my love for her and her love for me surpasses our circumstances. 

This is the kind of prolife propaganda that assumes that every woman who walks into an abortion clinic is doing so of her own free will, with a premeditated plan, exercising her legal right to have an abortion.  This kind of prolife crap is what reopens the wounds of abortion for women who have tried to heal in every way possible and still remain weak no matter how tough they seem. 

I walked into an abortion clinic that August morning, at the age of 17, because my mother told me to and I had no choice.  I was a child carrying a child.

I get it.  I know what the prolife side is after with this kind of message.  I know I'm supposed to consider myself part of the "choir" and they aren't really talking to me when they put this stuff out and pass it around Facebook and everyone chimes in with their comments about how freakin awesome it is. Everything I've ranted about above, I know in my heart.

Even for the woman who walked into the abortion clinic and walked out relieved and claims to this day that it is the best thing she ever did - she knows somewhere in her heart that she is a  mother and she does love her child, but no where in this video or countless others is that mentioned.  There is no mercy here.  There is no forgiveness here.  There is no hope here.

For the tender conscience that has spent years piecing together hope and faithfully grasping for just an inkling of mercy or an ocean of it, this video is capable of making it all evaporate with some clever wording and haunting background music. 

Why?  Because you never fully heal from abortion, not this side of heaven, and this kind of video can be like a stake through the heart.  I just keep saying it over and over in my mind.  I know her.  I love her.  I know her.  I love her.  I know her.  I love her.

And what keeps me alive is the fact that I know that she knows me and she loves me.