It is constantly being brought home to us that – besides the obvious result that a baby, an unborn human being, is killed in the process – abortion hurts, damages and affects so many people, particularly the mother. Members of organisations such as ‘Silent No More’ – made up of women who have had an abortion – are bravely speaking out in public about their experiences.
‘What I’m really thinking’ is the title of a short piece in the Guardian newspaper’s ‘Weekend Magazine’ (13 October 2010), and it is a very chilling reminder to all of us of the torment that a mother contemplating abortion goes through.
It tells the sad story of a young girl. ‘There isn’t a choice’, she says, ‘I am an unemployed recent graduate barely able to afford the pregnancy test, with a boyfriend on bar wages. But after the scan, I want the nurse to find some unfathomable medical reason why termination isn’t an option, so I’d be justified in keeping a child I don’t want to lose but can’t really provide for.’ Following the abortion of her child, she says: ‘Hopefully soon I can focus on a career and creating the right circumstances eventually to have a child. But the due date for this baby is seared into my mind now. I won’t ever be able to forget it.’ [Emphasis added]
There are wonderful agencies in nearly every country now that offer the help and practical assistance that was so obviously needed by this young woman. The tragedy is that the services provided by agencies such as, for instance, the Cardinal Winning Initiative and the Sisters of the Gospel of Life in Scotland; Rachel’s Vineyard; ARCH (Abortion, Recovery, Care and Helpline), in the UK, to name but some of them, are often over-stretched, and indeed their existence is sometimes unknown by those who need them most.
