When I was nineteen years old, I had an abortion. When my mother found out that I was pregnant she kicked me out of the house, and two weeks later told me to return home and have an abortion or to never return and keep the baby. My mom handed me the money for the abortion and my sister drove me to the clinic while my mom and step-dad stayed home as their first grandchild was being terminated.
The clinic was filled with so many women, young and old, arriving and leaving in a catatonic state. I was told that my baby was a blob of tissue and that the abortion was a safe procedure.
When I came back home, my parents and I lived as if nothing had ever happened and we never talked about the abortion again. After the abortion, the feeling of relief of no longer being pregnant was quickly replaced with feelings of guilt and remorse. I cried for two months and because the emotional pain was so overwhelming, I tried to kill myself by starving myself to death. In three weeks I went from 125 lbs to 111 lbs. Realizing what I was doing, my mother pleaded with me to start eating again, and I did, regaining the weight.
As for my boyfriend, he didn’t want to marry me and we broke up. But I had also suffered another loss equally as tragic as the loss of my child, my relationship with God. I had stopped going to church and believed that God could never forgive me. Then two years later, I met my future husband, Steve, and I got pregnant again and had another abortion. Steve drove me to the clinic and waited for me as I was ushered into the abortion room. They injected me with an anesthesia and I drifted off into a peaceful oblivion only to wake up to the reality that I had a second abortion.
God would definitely never forgive me. Steve and I drove home in silence and never spoke about the abortion again– eleven months later, we were married. For the first eight years of our marriage, Steve watched as I battled with bouts of depression, infertility, and two attempts of suicide (ironic, one for each abortion).
If abortion is such a good alternative to an unwanted pregnancy then why do people live in secrecy and silence after it happens? Why doesn’t a woman leave an abortion clinic happy to have exercised her freedom of choice? It is because we have been lied to by this world and by the enemy of God, the devil. The truth is abortion hurts a woman (and a man) emotionally, physically, and spiritually. The post-abortive woman suffers a significant loss—the loss of a child. She struggles with a pain so deep that can only be healed by the loving touch of the Savior’s hand.
My husband and I were not married as believers, but we eventually gave our lives to the Lord and in spite of our shame, God blessed us with two beautiful daughters. But I still struggled with feelings of guilt and shame, and after twenty six years, I finally found a place where I could grieve the loss of my aborted children. God directed my footsteps to a post-abortion bible study called Forgiven and Set Free. It was a safe place where I and the other women could talk about our abortion experience without fear of judgment or condemnation. By the end of study, God had revealed to us the gender and name of our aborted children, and we will be holding a memorial service in their honor. In addition, my husband spiritually adopted the child from my first abortion by signing a post-humus-adoption agreement, not recognized by the laws of the state of California, but recognized in the eyes God.
My two living children now know that their mommy had two abortions, and through a little grieving of their own, they are excited to know that they have two siblings waiting for them in heaven. This Saturday, my husband and my two daughters will be accompanying me to the Memorial Service for Morgan Marie Shlichtman. As for the child that Steve and I aborted… she will be next.
By Maribel Shlichtman