Twenty five of my friends, relatives, or acquaintances have had an abortion. Of the 25, 18 are Lutheran. Two are wives of pastors. At least three have had more than one abortion. These are just the women who have told me.
Each one of these women have said, “Please warn other women: Abortion hurts. It hurts a long time. It affects other choices, relationships and families.”
Recently, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) printed a Danish study that concludes there is not a statistically significant difference in mental health issues in women before and after an abortion. Grace Kern, Executive Director of Word of Hope, writes, “This study is flawed and presents a view that is not at all consistent with more than 30 studies that have been published in recent years showing abortion does increase the risk for a variety of mental health issues.” Grace Kern and I have worked together. She has spent what seems like a lifetime caring for women who suffer from depression, perpetual anger, anxiety, substance abuse, eating disorders, and thoughts of suicide following their abortion choice. She is called by women serving time in prison who point to the anniversary of their abortions as a “trigger” for some other kind of violence.
My life has been affected by the women who’ve shared with me their spiritual and psychological trauma from abortion. In part, the little ministry of Titus 2 for Life (the mentoring outreach of Word of Hope) came into being because of these women. The very least I can do is help other women — those who may feel trapped between a rock and a hard place — be informed about the very real, long-term risks and consequences of abortion. It would be heartless of me to withhold truth and a word of warning for a younger generation of women.
Grace explains that one of the biggest flaws in the Danish study is it’s duration. “It only followed women for 12 months after their abortion or childbirth . . . [but] negative effects of abortion may not surface for many years.
“The death of a child,” says Grace, “is perhaps the most difficult loss to mourn.” It is for this reason that nurses, doctors, social workers and clergy are encouraged to be sensitive to hurting parents. With the death of a premature baby, a stillborn child, or a miscarriage, parents are attended to and even encouraged to name and hold their dead baby.
“Every woman who has an induced (unnatural) abortion also suffers the death of her own child,” says Grace. “Yet, these women typically find themselves alone to cope not only with the loss of the child she will never know, she also has to deal with her feelings of personal responsibility in the child’s death. She may have difficulty understanding how, on one hand, she feels relief that she is no longer pregnant but, on the other hand, feels a profound sense of loss and emptiness.”
Following an abortion, the woman may feel such relief that she seems cheerful and “o.k.” with what’s happened, but doesn’t want to talk about it. As feelings of relief subside, a period labeled by psychiatrists as emotional “paralysis” or post-abortion “numbness” sets in. “This may explain why research into the psychological impact of abortion in the immediate post-abortion period often yields negative results,” says Grace.
The Danish study does not consider the long-term impact of abortion. Nor, as Grace points out, does it consider “how the mental issues manifest themselves, or that the mental issues do not always result in a measurable event, such as a woman seeking psychological care.”
Women close to me prove that the Danish study is not only flawed, it is harmful. Following her abortion, one woman allowed herself to float from one man to another. She suffered assorted health problems. She abused alcohol and had little respect for herself. One woman married a few years following her abortion. She gave birth to two children but believed, since she had aborted her first child, it was impossible for her to be a good mom. She resisted the love of her husband and children and, instead, made life difficult for her family. Another woman allowed herself to spiral downward after her abortion. She ran with the wrong crowd, abused drugs and alcohol, and was sexually promiscuous. Pregnant a second time, she again aborted. What did it matter, she asked herself. I’m a miserable excuse for a person. She set herself up for failure in relationships. Years later, after marriage and the birth of three children, peace alluded her. Looking at her living children only reminded her of those to whom she had denied life.
So, yes, abortion does hurt women. The Danish study, terribly flawed, completely disregards real women and men — mothers, fathers, and grandparents, too — who experience a delayed reaction to the violence of abortion. If you are the mother or father of an aborted child, I would like you to call my friend Grace Kern at Word of Hope. She will welcome you, be honest with you, and lead you toward a future of hope in the mercy of Jesus Christ. Please visit www.word-of-hope.org or call 888-217-8679.
(Note: Resources for hope and healing are available from Word of Hope and also Lutherans For Life. Two I have authored are the Bible study, From Heartache to Healing, and brochure “The Secret Pain.”)
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Thank you, Joel Northrup, for standing up both for your beliefs and out of respect for a girl.
Ezerwoman's Blog 
Choices Affect Our Attitude Toward God
Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Commentaries of others, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, Relationships, tagged behavior, child of God, choices, hope, Jesus Christ, love of God, value, wisdom on February 9, 2011| 2 Comments »
In What a Young Woman Ought to Know, Mrs. Mary Wood-Allen, M.D., writes that we are not only body and mind, but spirit (or soul). Whether we’ve thought about this or not, the fact remains. “No failure to recognize God as your Father changes His relationship to you. No conduct of yours can make you any less His child.”
“Well,” you may say, “if that is so, what does it matter, then, what I do? If disobedience or sin cannot make me less God’s child, why should I be good and obedient?” Because… “your conduct changes your attitude toward Him.”
“The most worthy and dignified thing we can do,” wrote Dr. Wood-Allen, “is to recognize ourselves as God’s children and be obedient. It is a wonderful glory to be a child of God . . . even the most ignorant or degraded have . . . divine possibilities.”
My grandmother’s choices and behavior evidenced that she was in a merciful relationship with her Heavenly Father. And, no matter what anyone else thought of her, she knew she had “divine possibilities” because she was a child of God.
This woman physician from the late 1800s continues, “Being children of God puts on us certain obligations towards Him, but it also puts on God certain obligations towards us. ‘What!’ you say: ‘God the Infinite under obligations to man, the finite? The Creator under obligations to the created?’ Oh, yes.”
Human parents are under obligation to care for, protect, educate and give opportunities to their children. In a similar way, God is obligated to do the same for His children. The difference is, He fulfills these obligations perfectly. All our earthly blessings are from Him. Every good thing we have is a gift of love from our Creator and Heavenly Father.
Our life matters to God. And, why wouldn’t it? He created it! He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for it! And, as Dr. Mary Wood-Allen observes, “God takes such minute care of us that if for one second of time He would forget us, we should be annihilated.” What does that say to you? I know what it says to me. And it pulls me down on my knees in humble, speechless gratitude.
But, if God is truly taking care of us, why does He allow failures, hardships and worries? Sometimes, the things we call hard and cruel are actually little tumbles on our way to learning to walk. A trial or difficulty in the school of life may be God’s way of opening our eyes to see that we need Him and can trust Him.
Our choices affect our attitude toward God. The most dignified thing we can do is to recognize ourselves as God’s children and try to do those things that bring glory to Him.
It is a wondrous thing to be called a child of God. It means we are heirs of God’s wisdom, strength, and glory. It means that when we fail to trust and obey Him, we are still God’s child because of what Jesus did for us (Galatians 4:4-7). Only a personal question remains:
As a child of God, how shall I choose to live?
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