In a book written to help post-abortive women, a woman named Tommie told her story of being pressured into an abortion by her husband after taking medication before she knew she was pregnant. She feared the medication might have affected the baby.
Tommie’s husband demanded she have an abortion. He didn’t want a child who might have a disability. Tommie said, “[M]y marriage was in chaos. My husband insisted that I get an abortion. He didn’t want another child, let alone a ‘damaged’ child. He badgered me, and I was weak enough to give in.” Tommie explained that her husband was abusive:
Through many years of verbal abuse and diabolical mind games on his part, I can say that I lost my ability to think for myself. My husband demanded that I get an abortion, or he would leave. I was too frightened to think that I could make it on my own without him.
Although Tommie had been raised Catholic and gone to Catholic school from grade school through college, she said despite this, she knew nothing about fetal development or reasons why abortion was wrong:
[T]he topic of abortion was never mentioned. I tended to believe the feminist agenda that abortion was the answer to crisis pregnancy, and now it was safe and legal… I went along with the feminist and media lies, but deep in my heart, I knew that abortion was wrong.
Tommie added, “I did not want the abortion and did a lot of stalling, hoping that my husband would change his mind.”
When she got to the abortion facility, a doctor examined her and said she was too far along for the abortion. She recalled, “As I was leaving, I walked through a room where women were resting after their abortions. Most of them were weeping and seemed distraught. This really hit me hard.”
Tommie was happy then, thinking she could have her baby after all. But her husband, she said, was “relentless” and took her to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood sent her to an abortion facility in Lansing, Michigan. Tommie wrote, “I can remember every detail 27 years later. As I entered the ‘abortion mill’ I was so alone and frightened.”
READ: Pressure and deception: Abortion counselor told woman her baby was a ‘micro-dot’
She also described the “counseling” she received there, in which an abortion worker lied to her about the development of her baby and even dehumanized her child:
They took me into a room for counseling. The “counseling” consisted of a woman asking me why I wanted the abortion. I asked her if it was a baby. She laughed and said it was just a blob of tissue. I then asked if it would feel any pain. She asked, “How can a blob of tissue feel pain?” That was the end of the counseling session.
Tommie described her traumatic abortion:
By the time it was my turn, the anesthetic was wearing off. I told the nurses, and they gave me more. As they began the scraping, I could feel the scalpel [the actual term is curette] inside of me.
The next thing I remember was being aware of the nurses slapping me and calling my name as they tried to revive me. I wasn’t responding and they were panicking. I could hear their frightened voices and their remarks, but I couldn’t move to respond. I remember thinking that this was my punishment from God for taking my child’s life.
She felt compelled to keep her abortion a secret, saying, “My husband and I never spoke about it again, and I never told another person.” The marriage fell apart and they divorced. “My baby’s life was given up for nothing,” Tommie said. “I know now that I could have made it by myself, but it was too late to save my baby’s life.”
Tommie was an abortion supporter for some time, yet she felt guilty about her abortion. She said she “forced” herself to watch the pro-life documentary, “The Silent Scream,” which shows a baby being aborted via ultrasound. Upon seeing the reality of abortion, Tommie said:
The lies and deception of the abortionist, the feminist, and the media became apparent to me. When I heard the pro-abortion representative on TV stating that abortion was good for women and that women were smart enough to make intelligent choices on their own, I became angry. I felt the word choice was a lie from the pit of hell. I was not pro-life then, but I knew that women could not make informed or intelligent “choices” because they were not being given the truth.
Tommie is now pro-life. She suffered emotionally for many years due to her abortion. Hopefully, her story will raise awareness about abortion, abortion coercion, and abortion’s harm to women.
Source: Yvonne Florczak–Seeman A Time to Speak: A Healing Journal for Post-Abortive Women (Clarendon Hills, Illinois: Love From Above, Inc., 2015) 81 – 82, 83
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