Editor's note: This article is a Pregnancy Help News original. Kevin Burke, LSW, is a pastoral associate of Priests for Life and co-founder of Rachel’s Vineyard. An expert on men and abortion loss, he is the author of Tears of the Fisherman and co-author of Rivers of Blood/Oceans of Mercy. Theresa Burke, Ph.D., is the founder of Rachel’s Vineyard and a pastoral associate of Priests for Life. She is the co-author of Forbidden Grief and Rivers of Blood, Oceans of Mercy. Heartbeat International manages the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN) and Pregnancy Help News. More abortion recovery resources are available HERE.
Michelle Goldberg writes in the New York Times that the end of Roe is going to, “Tear America Apart.”
“The death of Roe,” she writes, “will intensify our national animus…You think we hate each other now? Just wait…”
While this may be typical fear porn from the media, it does reveal how abortion continues to be an emotionally charged and divisive issue in our nation.
What Goldberg fails to understand is the connection of our “national animus” to the abortion procedure itself. The emotional fireworks that accompany this issue in the public square are often fueled by the complicated grief and other powerful feelings that accompany the experience of abortion loss.
The Washington Post shares a profile of Lacie Wooten-Holway who organized a protest at the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. Justifying the need to protest at Kavanagh’s private residence, Wooten-Holway said, “We’re about to get doomsday, so I’m not going to be civil to that man at all.”
We learn that she had two previous abortions, the second a chemical abortion, and is a survivor of sexual assault. Post reporter Ellie Silverman observed that Wooten-Holway “cannot separate the politics from the personal.”
This observation is unintentionally revealing.
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With a natural experience of death there is normally an opportunity to acknowledge that there has been a loss and find support moving through that experience. There are religious rituals, family and social supports, expressions of concern and compassion that all help in the grieving process.
After an abortion, emotions often remain shrouded in shame and secrecy.
At AbortionTestimony.com a woman named Aimee laments, “Every time I look at my children I have now, I think about that little face I never saw and the child I have never known.”
At times this grief and pain seek an outlet. This may be manifest in symptoms such as, anxiety, depression, and immune system disorders. Sometimes the need to suppress and cope with this pain can lead to different forms of self-medication with drugs, food, promiscuity, and other impulsive behaviors.
Other women, like Wooten-Holway, and men, can redirect the powerful feelings associated with an abortion experience into an intense commitment to defend abortion rights, framing any limitations on abortion as a doomsday scenario.
Like a fragile dam holding back a mighty river, denial of personal abortion loss often requires a continual reinforcement of energy devoted to justifying the abortion decision, accompanied by an intense conviction to respond aggressively to any threats to unlimited access to abortion.
Leslie Blackwell discovered she was pregnant right after she landed her dream job as a TV talk show host. After her abortion Blackwell threw herself into work creating the façade of the perfect young career girl who had it all together.
But beneath the public posture, she was paying a high price for her denial:
“I was drinking, drugging and sleeping around … self-destructing. Trying to validate my choices, I became a strong pro-abortion supporter and at times militant with anyone who didn’t agree with my opinion.”
Abortion as re-enactment of abuse
Wooten-Holway’s experience of sexual assault may also be contributing to her intense abortion rights activism. Keep in mind, the abortion procedure can be experienced by some women with past sexual trauma as a type of re-enactment of abuse. The intimately invasive procedure can recreate the painful experience of intrusion, helplessness, and powerlessness that accompany sexual assault and abuse.
As we read in her story, failure to heal the emotional and spiritual wounds of abortion and other abuse can lead to the re-creation of the relationship patterns and other dynamics leading to additional abuse and abortions.
There is another way; a path that leads to reconciliation, healing, and peace.
An abortion healing program can help restore the damaged relationship with the aborted child or children, and reduce the power of the symptoms suffered after abortion. This restoration of a strong emotional and spiritual relationship with the aborted child (or children) is the foundation of the recovery process.
Healing a divided nation
This excerpt from the Supreme Court draft by Justice Samuel Alito, which was leaked to Politico, reveals that what is tearing our country apart is not the possible death of Roe, but the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision itself:
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe … enflamed debate and deepened division.”
The shockwaves that spread across our nation from that tragic decision are not only rooted in bad law and social engineering by activist judges.
Abortion intimately wounds women, men, relationships, and families. The failure to acknowledge and heal these wounds has contributed in a powerful way to the poisoning of our national discourse and the divisions within our great Republic.
God willing, soon Roe will die, and we can begin a time of national reconciliation and healing.
