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.
As we draw closer to Mother’s Day the controversy around the leaked decision in the Roe v. Wade abortion case reveals the massive fault lines that have fractured our nation since that fateful decision. This will intensify what is already a sensitive time for women with past abortions.
In many faith communities Mother’s Day is a time when women with children are invited to stand and receive a special blessing. For those with a past abortion loss, and no living children, this can be a very painful, and confusing experience. Here’s how it impacted one woman:
“I honestly wanted to run out of the church. I could feel my anxiety rise; I was angry but also confused by the sense of grief and loss I was feeling.”
Is it possible that for other women, this secret and shameful event from the past can be a cause for celebration? No, this is not the false celebration of those in denial of their loss and engaged in pro-abortion activism.
This is something different. It is a fruit of emotional and spiritual healing.
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Susan Swander, a Rachel’s Vineyard team member in Oregon, shares, “Yes, Mother’s Day can be a hard day for women with past abortions. But it can also be a day for those women to celebrate being mothers.”
To understand how Susan can once again celebrate Mother’s Day, we first need to explore the heart of the abortion wound.
So many of the symptoms women and men struggle with after abortion such as depression, anxiety, addictions, and relationship problems are rooted in how abortion severs the unique bond between a mother and her child.
With conception, a mother’s body is quite aware that there is a very small child growing in the womb. The female body is anything but “pro-choice.” From the beginning of the pregnancy, a mother’s body begins the intimate process of nurturing and protecting the developing life that resides within her.
A woman’s body is clearly pro-baby and pro-life.
But we know that pressure from the baby’s father, other family members, fears and anxieties about motherhood, and challenging circumstances can lead parents to see abortion as the only way to resolve an unplanned or difficult pregnancy.
Yet, even when a conscious decision to abort seems the only possible solution, (which of course it is not), and there is a sense of relief after the procedure, a mother is still deeply injured when she participates in severing that intimate relationship with her child.
Given her role in the child’s death, the circumstances of the pregnancy and trauma associated with the procedure, it can be very difficult to sort through the emotional aftermath and pain to find reconciliation and peace.
Until that broken bond between parent and child is re-established in an abortion recovery program, women and men may develop substitute relationships with things like substances, work, and sex as a way to cope with repressed grief and the complicated feelings that often accompany the abortion experience.
Often these symptoms lead to the process of traumatic re-enactment resulting in repeat abortion procedures: Close to 50% of all abortions are repeat procedures.
Thanks to the mercy of God our Christian faith gives mothers the sure hope that while there may have been a physical separation with the child (or children), she never stopped being the mother of her unique and precious child.
When parents go through an abortion recovery program they come to understand, and more importantly, intimately experience a new reality. The bond between parent and child, which was denied for many years, is now resurrected and firmly rooted in their maternal and paternal heart.
The spiritual relationship with their child in this life, and the hope of reunion in eternal life to come with the Lord, is a source of great consolation and peace.
Susan shares:
“So many women who have had abortions never thought of themselves as mothers, if they didn’t have any living children, until after a healing program like Rachel’s Vineyard. And even someone like me who does have a living son, after doing my Rachel’s Vineyard retreat, Mother’s Day became a day for me to honor and celebrate my three aborted children & one miscarried. So, now I have five children that I rejoice in.”
You can find abortion healing programs in your community by visiting www.abortionforgiveness.org.
