Wounded Mothers
by Deborah Danielski

A large billboard along a rural highway in East Central Missouri declares: "ABORTION = ONE DEAD CHILD AND ONE WOUNDED MOTHER." The billboard invites us to consider abortion in a way most of us seldom do.

We're accustomed to thinking of abortion as a "dead child." Do we ever consider the "wounded mother"? Do we see these women as guilty sinners deserving of damnation? Most of them are confused, misguided, and frightened, and if we fail to see their "woundedness," we miss the opportunity to help them.

According to recent statistics, one in four American women have had at least one abortion. That means there are wounded women in our workplaces, our clubs, our homes, and our churches-women who suffer from guilt, loneliness, anxiety, and depression associated with post-abortion grief. And they generally suffer alone. Afraid of what people would think if they knew about the abortion, such women are alienated from friends, family, and Church. Many of these women believe they have committed the unpardonable sin! They don't need our judgment. They do need our compassion and they need to know we are a forgiving Church.

I was 20 and living in a small Missouri town when I chose to have my abortion. I'd love to say I agonized over the decision, but it wouldn't be true. I already had a three-year-old son, a five-month-old daughter, and a miserable marriage. It was February 1972. Abortion had just been legalized the month before. I've often wondered if my doctor felt guilty-the IUD he'd inserted hadn't worked. I'll never really know, but I do know when I showed up in his office pregnant that day he immediately presented the perfect "solution" to my "problem."

"I can send you to Kansas City for an abortion," he said.

"Okay," I responded. End of discussion. He made the appointment for the following week, and I left the office.

I have no memory of the passage of that week or of the five-hour drive to Kansas City for the abortion. I never allowed myself to think about the baby growing in what should have been the safest place in the world, her mother's womb. As the doctor had said, this was a problem to be solved, and solve it I would. My husband was somewhat opposed to the abortion, but I didn't give him a chance to argue. Having given no real thought to the decision, I'd made up my mind and refused to discuss it. Nor did I talk with anyone else about it. Fifteen years would pass before others would know it had happened.

I have begun to recover some disconnected memories of the clinic. I remember sitting in a room full of women in white hospital gowns. It seemed no one dared look anyone else in the eye. And I remember the abortionist holding up the IUD that had been lost in my womb and proudly proclaiming it had been removed.

Many women admit to feelings of guilt even prior to actually having the abortion. I often think I'd have felt some, too, if I'd had any faith in God at the time, but I didn't. I had abandoned my belief in God at 12, and wouldn't recover it until years later. In retrospect, I know the guilt was there, but I wasn't able to face it. My suppressed guilt manifested itself in various ways that devoured almost everything in life.

Statistics show most marriages are destroyed by abortion. My marriage was pretty much destroyed before it even began. But it did end soon after I murdered our child. Alcohol and illegal drugs began to consume my life. My relationships with my other children suffered horribly. My children and I had lived for awhile with my parents, and eventually my father took my children to their dad and said, "Here, keep them until she straightens up."

It would be 10 years before I regained custody of my daughter, and my son never lived with me again. I can't say that none of this would have happened had I not had the abortion, but I'm convinced my abortion played a huge role.

About a year after my divorce I married a drug addict and convicted felon who, not surprisingly, was abusive as well. My faith in God had been dead for years, my emotions had died with the abortion, and I was slowly killing myself. Two ectopic pregnancies (caused by scarring from the abortion) also left me incapable of having any children in the future.

I later began to suspect that my destructive pattern of behavior might be the result of guilt over the abortion, so I tried psychotherapy. I was diagnosed as clinically depressed and given Elavil. Weekly counseling sessions provided little help. The psychotherapist continuously admonished me for dwelling on a problem that was "over and done."

A dedicated and caring alcohol counselor would lead me to rediscover my long-lost faith in Christ. I can't claim a miraculous, instantaneous transformation, but my life began to improve gradually. I'd been forgiven for my drunkenness, promiscuity, and pride. But as my faith grew, the guilt over murdering my own child grew as well.

My search for peace led me from one Protestant church to another. Each, it seemed, had a little more to offer than the one before. "God has drowned your sins in the sea of forgetfulness," the preachers intoned. So why couldn't I? I never discussed the guilt with any of my pastors. Only God could forgive sin, I believed, or maybe I just couldn't humble myself enough to admit to anyone else what I'd done. So I plodded on, "Father, forgive me, for I knew not what I did."

Twenty-two years after my abortion, the miracle that would save me from its aftermath began on my 42nd birthday, when my best friend gave me a book about apparitions of the Virgin Mary. With my Protestant fundamentalist background, I began to read the book only to "save" my friend from what I considered to be her new "unholy obsession" with the Virgin Mary. Instead, I soon found my own heart opening up to Mary as well.

My eyes were gradually opened to the truth of Catholicism. Having to confess my sins to a priest was one of the last doctrines I embraced. The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the communion of saints, the "workings" of grace, all came more easily than the "public" confession of sin. When I eventually entered the confessional for the first time, the first words from my mouth were, "I murdered my own child."

I'd love to say my feelings of guilt were immediately relieved that day, but they remained. Hearing the priest say that I was absolved from my sin helped a little, but I still wasn't convinced. A few weeks after my first Confession I was praying my daily Rosary. An interior vision interrupted the prayer, and I saw a young girl running through a field of flowers with the wind in her hair.

"This is your daughter," I heard the Blessed Mother say. "God has forgiven you, and so has Elizabeth Anne." Tears of relief flooded my eyes and my heart lifted to heights I'd never known. I received further confirmation the next day when I came across an article discussing post-abortion trauma. I'd never named my aborted child, and until that day had never known that naming the child was an important step toward recovery. But the Blessed Virgin Mary had known, and had named her for me. At the time, I thought my healing was complete. Now, I know it had only just begun.

The healing process for post-abortion trauma is not easy. Women must allow long-buried emotions to resurface. Today, more than four years after the vision of my daughter, I still struggle even to write this story. But I must. It's not only a part of my own healing process, but an appeal to others who may suffer from the same guilt, or know someone who does.
In his encyclical The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II wrote:

I would now like to say a special word to women who have had an abortion. The Church is aware of the many factors which may have influenced your decision, and she does not doubt that in many cases it was a painful and even shattering decision. The wound in your heart may not yet have healed. Certainly what happened was and remains terribly wrong. But do not give in to discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly.

If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. You will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost and you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now living with the Lord. With the friendly and expert help and advice of other people, and as a result of your own painful experience, you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone's right to life.

Deborah Danielski is a freelance writer from Quincy, IL.

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