A pro-abortion feminist recently published a piece at RH Reality Check which made a supposedly controversial statement: good women have abortions.
After working with thousands of women coming in for abortions they have observed that good women, the majority of them women of faith, have abortions. They say to women, “You are a good woman. It may be hard for you to believe that right now, but deep in your heart you know you are making your decision out of a place of goodness. This pregnancy and whatever choice you make about it doesn’t change that. For some women abortion is a clear, certain decision. For others is can be really hard. For most women, it is somewhere in between.”
They encourage women to honor themselves and work to eschew the judgements of others. They remind women that the anti-abortion protesters don’t know them and what is in their heads and hearts. They also ask:
“Can it be that women know something very deep inside, even deeper than fear and shame? Can it be that women know it is their responsibility to decide when to bring new life into this world? Women are not the enemies of our children- even those we decide not to bring into the world.”
In a way, I agree with her.
I believe that most women who have abortions are good women. They’re good women who are scared, alone, intimidated, and misinformed. They’re good women who think they have no other choice. They’re good women who are lied to by the abortion industry. They’re good women who think that their parents will kick them out or that their partners will leave them. They’re good women who are told that their futures, their lives will be ruined if they have a baby.
I’m a pro-lifer. But I don’t hate women who have abortions, and I don’t think they’re evil. I understand how frightened and alone and confused they are. And the truth is that over time, many of these women feel guilt and regret. They struggle with depression, and they grieve for their babies. The fact that many of these women suffer so much afterwards, feeling guilt and shame and remorse, shows that they are good women. These are good women who made a mistake. They still deserve our compassion and our understanding.
Far worse are the people who push for abortions, who aren’t satisfied for abortion to just be legal. They love abortion. They don’t want women to have the choice to keep their babies – they want abortion to be widespread and common. There are the members of the abortion industry, who lie to and manipulate women to continue profiting off their bloodlust. There are the leaders of Planned Parenthood, who want women to believe that abortion is their only hope – who tell women that their futures depend on the ability to kill their children.
Now, many of these women — the ardent pro-abortion activists — have abortions themselves, usually multiple abortions. But these aren’t your average women who find themselves getting an abortion. The average woman who gets an abortion, is young and unmarried. She’s certainly not an abortion advocate cheering on Planned Parenthood and claiming abortion is women’s last hope.
Put yourself in her shoes: you’re 22 years old, you’ve got a boyfriend but you aren’t married, and you’re just starting your career. You find out you’re pregnant, and you think you can’t have the baby. Your boyfriend is pressuring you to have an abortion, you’re worried about losing your job, you can’t afford a child, you don’t want to disappoint your parents. You go somewhere — say, Planned Parenthood — where all of those fears are confirmed and reiterated. They sell you on abortion. They tell you that having a baby will ruin your career and leave you broke. They tell you that abortion is safer than childbirth. They don’t talk to you about other options. They don’t talk to you about ways you could keep the baby or about adoption. And when you ask questions about the baby, such as if it’s alive or if the heart is beating, they lie. So they grip someone’s hand, they cry, and they do it. Because no one ever told them they had another choice.
If you want to know who the evil people in the abortion debate are, they aren’t the women who were sucked into having an abortion. They’re the people making women think they have no other choice… that their lives depend on taking another.
