(Sarah Terzo – Substack) In a 2021 book by Janet Morana, a rape victim describes the trauma she endured after her partial-birth abortion.
Christina’s Story
Christina from Alberta, Canada, was a substance abuser who was raped at seventeen. She hid her pregnancy for months until her mother found out. According to Christina, her mother “promptly made it clear to me that I would not be ‘keeping it.”
Because Christina was so far along, her abortion took three days to complete. The abortion facility told her nothing about the procedure.
It was a partial-birth abortion. This type of abortion became illegal in the US in 2007 after the Supreme Court case Gonzales v. Carhart upheld a ban against it. I will discuss partial-birth abortions in a minute, but for now, I want to talk about Christina’s experience.
Christina says:
During the abortion, I experienced pain like I’ve never felt before and I could feel my little baby crying out for help. She did not want to die. I began to scream and cry, but to no avail. The nurse…told me to be quiet.
Christina passed out and woke up in the recovery room. She says:
Immediately after the abortion, I felt dead inside. I awoke weeping, bleeding profusely, and in the fetal position in a room filled with other women who were all doing the same thing.
The Aftermath of the Abortion
After the abortion, Christina began abusing drugs she’d never touched before. The abortion didn’t heal her from the rape. Rather, it gave her an extra trauma to deal with, as she wrestled with guilt.
Christina says:
I did quite a bit of damage to myself. As time went on, I felt angry, depressed, and hopeless. I began to obsess about my terrible deed, and I felt I would surely go to hell for what I had done.
People often tout abortion as the ‘solution’ for pregnancies caused by rape. Even many people who consider themselves pro-life support abortion after rape.
However, Christina’s experience isn’t unique.
A Book of Testimonies from Women Who Conceived After Rape
David C Reardon, Julie Makimaa, and Amy Sobie conducted a study and interviewed women who became pregnant after rape and either aborted or chose life. Their book is called Victims and Victors: Speaking out about Their Pregnancies, Abortions, and Children Resulting from Sexual Assault.
This book contains the testimonies of dozens of women. It is available for $3.99 on Kindle (see link above). With the Kindle app, you can read it on any smartphone or tablet, or even on your PC.
It should be required reading for everyone who considers themselves pro-life and anyone who cares about the health and well-being of pregnant people. If you support abortion in cases of rape, it may not change your mind, but it is guaranteed to make you think. It’s important to be aware of these women’s experiences.
Many times, we ignore the actual voices of people who become pregnant through rape in the abortion debate, as abortion supporters use their existence to push for unrestricted abortion.
Statistics from the Study Cast Light on Abortions After Rape
I summarized Reardon et al.’s study in an article in Live Action News. The results of the study show that the common belief that abortion helps rape victims is untrue, at least in many cases.
In the study, 88% of the women who aborted regretted their abortions. Only one woman expressed positive feelings about her abortion. The other women who didn’t express regret were ambivalent. They felt they made the right choice but acknowledged that the abortion was traumatic.
In her testimony, one woman expressed many of their feelings by saying, “It bothers me a lot, but maybe it was for the best.”
Ninety-three percent of those who aborted said they would not recommend abortion to another raped person. Also, 43% of women who aborted said they felt pressured to ‘choose’ abortion by those around them, often their families, or by abortion workers.
In startling contrast, not a single woman who had her baby wished she’d had an abortion instead. The only woman who expressed regret was one who felt she should have made a different decision about adoption – but even she was glad she carried to term. Eighty percent of those who gave birth expressed happiness about their children or their situation.
Only four of the women said that abortion “might” be a good solution for a pregnancy caused by rape, meaning that 94% felt it wasn’t.
Information on Partial-Birth Abortion
Partial-birth abortion, according to the late abortionist Martin Haskell, who developed the procedure, was created because D&E abortions are difficult to commit on late-term babies…
Continue reading entire article here.
Editor’s Note: This article was published at Sarah Terzo’s Substack and is reprinted here in part with permission.
