On Mother’s Day, many of us share our positive reflections on motherhood. However, not all have such heartwarming experiences. Denise Leipold, the Executive Director of Right to Life of Northeast Ohio, shared “A Very SAD Mother’s Day Story” about her May 13th encounter outside the Northeast Ohio Women’s Center, an abortion facility in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. She writes:
As I was driving down State Road in Cuyahoga Falls, I saw a large crowd of pink vested abortion escorts outside the Northeast Ohio Women’s Center Abortion facility and realized that they had switched their abortion day from Sunday to Saturday this week, probably because of Mother’s Day. How ironic. There were only two pro-life witnesses standing out front so I abandoned my errands and decided to spend the morning joining the other witnesses.
Leipold said the abortion escorts “took it to a new level this week.” Outlandish abortion escorts are nothing new. Yet pro-abortion media outlets, like Teen Vogue, present these abortion supporters as heroic and courageous souls. Leipold experienced something altogether different.
Lie #1. Abortion is just like all other choices.
When an older man tripped outside the facility and refused medical treatment for any possible injuries, the abortion escorts equated his decision to the “choice” of women to abort. Leipold was ignored when she explained to the escorts that all choices are not the same, as aborted preborn children have no choice in the matter, and they’re the ones losing their lives.
The United States is one of only a handful of nations where children can be aborted up until birth, for any reason. These children have no right to life until they are born, as if exiting the womb — rather than their own human DNA — makes them human. Instead of interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment as acknowledging that preborn Americans have the right to be born, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision interpreted it as acknowledging a “right to privacy,” which somehow translated to a “right to abortion.”
Beyond this, women aren’t always willingly making the choice to abort. Statistics show that up to 64 percent of women may be coerced or pressured into their abortions, and women have shared this themselves. All too often we hear that women have abortions because they feel they have no other choice or option. That doesn’t sound like a happy or “empowering” choice.
Lie #2. Women’s abortions are cause for celebration.
Women having had an abortion is apparently cause for celebration for an abortion facility, because it means income for that business. As abortionists themselves have shared, abortion itself is quite lucrative. But viewing women and their preborn children as dollar signs isn’t showing respect for anyone. Abortion facilities which see women as dollar signs tend to dehumanize in other ways.
At this particular facility, for example, Leipold said the escorts would yell out “Here comes number 1” and so on, when women would exit the facility. Leipold said the escorts shielded the women from being able to see the pro-life witnesses, who were there to speak to the women going in as well as coming out, offering post-abortive help and care.
If abortion escorts believe that women are capable of clearheadedly choosing abortion, they should likewise believe that women are strong enough to consider choosing life, when offered that option. Instead, the abortion industry opposes abortion regulations, including informed consent laws (which facilities have also broken).
An abortion is not worth celebrating. Regardless of what one thinks of abortion, one should be able to recognize that a woman seeking an abortion doesn’t typically do so as an act of empowerment.
Lie #3. Having an abortion means you aren’t a mother.
Leipold shared that as she was leaving, she heard escorts make note of it being Mother’s Day weekend, and how the women having abortions “don’t have to worry about being mothers anymore.” She told the escorts that “abortion didn’t change the fact that these women were still mothers….it was just tragic that now they are mothers of dead children,” and they laughed at her.
The fact is that from fertilization, a unique human being with his or her own DNA is present. The woman carrying this child is his or her biological mother. This is science, not philosophy. No matter how long this tiny person lives, even if he or she does not survive until birth, he or she has never existed before and will never exist again.
Some mothers have shared how difficult Mother’s Day is for them as a result of having aborted their children. Just as the escorts laughed at Leipold’s statements, the pro-abortion movement as a whole largely ignores and dismisses women who have suffered in physical and psychological ways after their abortions.
Mother’s Day is for all mothers, but for some, that weekend is a painful time. Regardless of whether one’s child was aborted, miscarried, died at or shortly after birth, was placed for adoption, or is not with the mother for any other reason, that woman is still a mother.
There is both religious and secular help available after abortion. And for women who have taken the abortion pill, there may be a chance to reverse the procedure and save a life.
These are the things abortion facility escorts don’t want women to hear, so instead, they keep women away from pro-life witnesses and justify abortion under the guise of “choice” and “empowerment” for women.
