Ladies for Life

We continue to have interesting responses to the fetal models we stock in our bookstore cum gas station, but the one that haunts me the most is a woman who never had an abortion, but…

She had to wait to pay for her gas, and she picked up one of the dolls while she waited, and she read the information card that comes with it, and when it was her turn to pay, she still stood there, holding the tiny doll, thoughtful. “You know,” she told my husband, who was running the cash register, “all three of those kids in my car out there almost were abortions.” She went on to explain that the youngest two were only out there because she’d fought everybody around her, including the father of the children. “But… the 15-year-old… I almost did on my own… Not a day goes by that I don’t think of how I almost…”

My husband gave her a fetal model, on the promise that she’d show it to her kids when the time was right. “I’ll do that. I’ll do that,” she said, “We’ll have a family meeting tonight.” And with that she went out to her car. And had a breakdown. It was a long time before she stopped sobbing enough that she could drive away.

God have mercy.

Ladies, there is so much obvious hurt in the wake of an actual abortion, that I wonder if we pay enough attention to the people torn apart by the guilt of knowing they considered an abortion? Or the pain caused when families split into the ‘kill the kid’ and ‘don’t kill the kid’ camps when a woman gets pregnant? Or the lasting scars carried around by women who thought they could count on support from those they trusted, but instead found that their trust was misplaced?

I’ve only had a few women confide in me that they considered an abortion, decided against, and then had to fight family members and friends who thought it was the wrong choice. But so far every one of them has said, at some point in the conversation, some variation of  “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about how I almost didn’t have that child over there,” or “Not a day goes by that I don’t think how my father/her father/my supposed best friend/etc. wanted her dead.”

Every one of the mothers has said how glad she is that she toughed it out. But every one of them is having trouble coming to grips with what she went through on the way.

Christianity offers a way to get past that, at least as far as letting you shed whatever guilt you might be toting around, and letting you start fresh. Repentance provides gifts beyond measure. By all means, if you are struggling with guilt over ‘nearly having an abortion’ or over being ‘pro-choice’ in your younger days, I strongly recommend you take it to the Lord in prayer. If you are truly sorry, whether it is over something you did or something you thought, you can get right with God, and be freed up to move on to the next lesson in right and wrong.

But, let’s face it. Families that sit around and discuss the pros and cons of killing the newest member are doing more than holding a family conference. They are behaving treacherously. And there’s no reason to think that the survivors of that treachery will forget it. Is there? Perhaps, with God’s help, they can forgive it some day. But is any family ever the same after abortion is discussed, especially when it is being discussed in relation to an actual human being, instead of just being kicked around in the abstract? I have to wonder.

Certainly, at our store, we’re seeing people who have been hurt, and deeply, because somebody – well-meaning, perhaps, but perhaps selfishly – promoted abortion instead of the love that stands staring into the face of adversity and declares its loyalty.