She Brings Joy : Year Five

Capture Your Grief, October 2015- All The Rest, Thus Far

Thursday, October 29, 2015
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Capture Your Grief, October 2015- Day 3, Honor

Saturday, October 03, 2015
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Shout Your Abortion

So--- just a note. This is going to be angst ridden and angry. This summer has been particularly terrible for some of us, with the release of the Planned Parenthood videos, and last week was the tipping point. I've pretty much had enough of mentally "accommodating" those who decide to end their pregnancies. And I'll be clear- I'm not trying to claim they need my accommodations to go live their lives. My statement is in mind that I've tried to focus on my personal views, and not make any type of judgement on anyone else.... But this has gone beyond the point of ridiculousness now. The decision of women to end their pregnancies due to a poor prenatal diagnosis did affect my life. Doctors and other medical professionals were merciless when pressuring me to end my pregnancy with Beatrix. If we lived in a society where abortion wasn't expected in cases like ours, we would not have faced the same exertions.

So-- that being said, this will be a bumpy ride. Someone is going to be offended. If you are, I apologize ahead of time.... Or not, because I've gone beyond caring much after last weekend.

In the newest manifestation of pro-abortion rage, last weekend saw the rise of the #Shoutyourabortion hashtag. For a few solid hours it sat nicely at the top of the currently trending list on Facebook, but that spot at the top was eventually lost to items such as #askdonald and #christinaricci.

I was a little disappointed that it fell so quickly. I would have enjoyed sharing my story while it was hot-- being part of the groundswell of women sharing what has seemingly become a right of passage in America. The truth is, however, it wouldn't have been a monumental event for me. I, like thousands of other women, have been shouting my abortion for over a decade.

You know who paid attention to my shouting?

Pro-life groups.

You know who ignored it?

Planned Parenthood, and other pro-choice group out there.

Pro-choice persons and groups don't want to hear about regret. They focus on slanted studies which support their viewpoint, and ignore studies which were done over a longer period of time, have more participants, use control groups, are peer-reviewed, and don't rely on women "self-reporting" their emotional state after abortion. The above-mentioned slanted study does not follow proper scientific protocol in any sense...

It did make it into Time Magazine, which is no surprise. Time magazine also published this gem, which I roundly refuted here. Their stake in this discussion has already been established.

But I digress.

Pro-choice groups don't want to allow even a scintilla of doubt regarding the reality of post-abortion regret. They recognize the power behind a large mass of damaged women. It's why they are disdainful of any woman who publicly acknowledges her sorrow of lost parenthood. They choose to ridicule us and call us names rather than address the real questions we have about our treatment in their clinics and the magnitude of our complicity in destroying our unborn children. They want us to sit down and shut up.

Character assassinations are much easier and more effective in this respect than admitting you may be wrong. This is especially true when you have an army of devotees who are willing to push the limits of civility in order to quiet your opponents.

When we rally and hold up our signs, they attack....again, and again, and yet again.... but it is always justified. Because we are always wrong and they are always correct regardless of the circumstances. They excoriate our experts, whose peer-reviewed research findings are dismissed due to their supposed "agenda". Every one of us is a tool of the patriarchy, a religious fanatic, anti-woman. We can't conceivably be genuine. We aren't real people to them, but caricatures to be dstroyed.

For example many of us regretful, post-abortive women wrote open letters voicing our concern regarding Planned Parenthood's possible tissue harvesting this past summer {including me}.

We were ignored.

A canned response to about how abortion is "a difficult decision" is the closest they will ever come to acknowledging the suffering of thousands of women following their abortions.

Now this.

Shoved in our faces, "Shout Your Abortion", amplifies the underlying attitude of many pro-choice fanatics. The attitude which promotes the idea that we who feel pain regarding our decisions are somehow emotionally unstable. Supposedly we are keeping women down, setting back the clock-- which is an ironic accusation; let's face it, this protest isn't really about current events in legislation. While it is manifesting itself as a response to the recent de-funding votes, this specific type of activism has been happening since before Roe v. Wade. This is the social media equivalent of the old slogan "Abortion on demand and without apology".

We are seen as not intelligent enough to understand how somehow every criticism of abortion is an attack on women. The ignore the fact that we have been shouting out, for decades, about our own experiences and not just repeating a party line.

This morning I ruminated on the obsessive need to validate their choices against the tide of common sense, which would seem to make evident that ending a pregnancy, whether you're pro-life or pro-choice, is a serious event in a woman's life. The only conclusion I can draw in this instance is that the louder they shout, the more it justifies their own decision to ignore our {or even their} pain. When they claim the need to shout, it explicitly implies that someone is attempting to quiet them.... But this just isn't happening.

Women have always been free to share their abortion stories, whether positive or negative. There are a number of post-abortion organizations which remain non-partisan in this respect.

When they make a conscious decision to ignore our pain, they must justify that decision by claiming their post-abortive experience of being shamed is more painful. #Shoutyourabortion isn't directed towards the men who are legislating against abortion "rights", it's a movement to quiet dissidents to the feminist narrative which claims abortion as just another blip on the radar. It's a movement formed solely in order to talk over those who aren't shouting, but quietly sharing their testimonies in post-abortion recovery groups.

Long after these women have abandoned this effort, when they've run into the next social justice deficit which they believe needs their immediate attention, we will still be quietly delivering our testimonies in post-abortion healing groups. Some of us may take our stories to a microphone to encourage others to break their silence in a constructive way. Many of us will write about our experiences. Each of these manifestations of sharing will serve one purpose: to open the door of healing, through acknowledging the gravity of our choices. When we share our stories, they create a safe place for other women to enter and share their stories -- and unlike pro-choice partisans, we will welcome them in peace and comfort, with gentle spirits and hope of healing. Unlike Planned Parenthood, which evidently counsels women who have had a forced abortion to believe that they are not complicit in the coercion, we can share our stories without shouting.

We have nothing to cover-up. No need to hide behind an obnoxious noise. We have the ability to share our stories in an extraordinarily powerful way because we accept the gravity of our decisions and work from a standpoint of solemnity.

I end this with, yet again, a request for a response from Planned Parenthood to acknowledge the pain of numerous women who have ended pregnancies in your clinics. Until then, long after #shoutyourabortion has fallen from our memories, I {and many others} will continue to affirm that abortions do cause pain and suffering regardless of what counselors tell the women who come into their clinics.

When our voices fade there will be a new generation of young women who have been damaged by voluntarily ending a pregnancy, to take up our standard.

I'm certain more than one of them will recall when they participated in this past weekend's tweetfest.

And that's just fine.

We will be waiting for them whether they shouted, whispered, or never spoke at all.... because our work is based in redemption, and not condemnation.

We choose to empower you to find your own voice, and not the voice which you are shamed into using because someone convinced you that you were not capable of caring for your unborn child, and you feel complicit in their destruction.

We choose to share our stories with grace and dignity, in order to lift other women up, and not kick them when they are down.

We do not choose shouts and violence, but love and compassion in the face of great travails. In the end all we will have to show for ourselves is the consideration we freely give to one another.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015
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The Grieving Season

Beatrix Elizabeth

Tuesday, September 15, 2015
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Show Some Love Saturday-Hannah's Heart and Love

Beautiful People

Saturday, September 12, 2015
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My Protest Is Love

Abortion

Tuesday, September 08, 2015
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Why I Did Not Protest Planned Parenthood on August 22

Abortion

Last month thousands of people gathered in hundreds of cities around the country to protest federal funding of Planned Parenthood.

De-funding Planned Parenthood would be a wonderful thing. As a former patient of one of their abortion mills I would love nothing more than to make business very, very difficult for them to conduct.

I didn't protest, but I contemplated doing so.

I saw the photos and newsreels and I felt the same outrage and passion protesters felt. But over the past few weeks I've read a couple of items which have shifted my views about where I belong in this discussion.

This, and This, and This are three of the articles I read regarding the issue. If you read nothing else today, including the remainder of this post, read these.

I decided after careful deliberation that attending protests wasn't where I fit in.

One major reason?

I have found some of the responses to the series of Planned Parenthood videos, from pro-life individuals {not organizations}, to be particularly disquieting. I have read a number of comments stating that women who have ended pregnancies should be given the death penalty. I've read posts referring {positively} to a major conservative reporter's past assertion that women should be hung if they have had an abortion.

{I should clarify again, this is not happening in well established pro-life groups or on pages for large pro-life organizations. Most of them acknowledge the necessity to approach all people involved in an abortion with love. I see more contention in comment threads under viral articles, etc.}

We have come so far in the pro-life movement and a good deal of this has been because we now approach abortion from a humanitarian perspective, both in terms of the loss of a child and the depravity of the actions of those in a position to protect the child. This is the pro-life movement I want to be a part of.

Protesting is a political action and while I am politically pro-life, my pro-life convictions aren't {just} about politics. My ideas about pro-life actions center around changing the way people view one another on an individual basis. It's about encouraging people to understand their own inherent value. It's about me treating other people as if they are valuable.

My faith teaches me to love the least, which in this case isn't just the unborn children involved-- it's the clinic workers, abortionists, and women choosing to end the lives of their children. I don't see love in the words of many pro-life persons who have spent time remarking on the Planned Parenthood scandal.

My faith also teaches me that charity begins at home. It begins with me opening my heart and my home to potential single mothers {or fathers} who may feel compelled to have an abortion due to lack of support. It begins with me exhibiting an attitude of care and consideration towards those who may be suffering.

Charity begins by praying for clinic workers, abortionists, and others involved in the abortion industry. Love means we look the post-abortive mother in the eye, and tell her that we hold no judgement.

There is a difference between saying:

"What you did was wrong, and there are consequences surrounding the choice you made. I'm sorry for your sorrow and your feelings of shame, but I believe those feelings are part of your experience. To pretend like they are a construct of some shaming ritual by religious leaders is disingenuous. It lessens society's acceptance of the grief you feel for the loss of your unborn child. Acknowledging the true nature of your actions and allowing yourself to feel the grief are the first steps towards healing."

And

"You are a cold, heartless woman. I can't believe you would, or could, do that to your baby. I could never do anything that evil. You should be hung."

When in a picket line with contention swirling all around it's easy for negative conversations to happen. It's easy for judgement and anger to take over. It's simple for some messages to get lost.

I don't want my message to get lost.

I don't want my contribution to the conversation to become a speaking point during political protest. I want my contribution to be love in my home. Love given freely to my acquaintances. Love towards my neighbors and strangers alike-- even though I may be violently opposed to the actions of those who I am loving.

So, I didn't protest Planned Parenthood last month. Instead I decided to protest against the entire fallen world:

A world where we have casual conversations about whether cutting open baby's faces is science or not.

A world where I too was complicit in an action which placed inequitable value on a human being who was too weak to defend themselves.

My protest will be love-- the beginning of a conversation where the weary will be given rest. A conversation where the burdened will find relief from their misfortune. A conversation where no mother who I meet will be lacking in support no matter what the circumstances of her child's conception.

Too often we push change out of the realm of personal responsibility. We convince ourselves that someone else can do it better. But if each of us leaves personal responsibility to love one another to someone else.... If we go and trust that our job is finished because we've held up a sign outside a clinic, or written a letter to a legislator, then who are we leaving the real actions of love to?

Who will get their hands dirty with the real faith-work of catching people when they fall?

Someone else doesn't really exist. It's all on us. We each have a vocation in the spectrum of this world altering debate. Some will protest because it's what they have been called to do. Some will work as sidewalk counselors and pregnancy resource center volunteers, or as pro-life physicians helping women make life-affirming decisions when faced with a complicated pregnancy situation. I will continue to spread my sweet Beatrix's story in order to educated families who may be faced with making a difficult decision during pregnancy, but I will also work to help those who are in arms reach-- the young mom who is afraid she will never finish school if she has a baby, the young man who is afraid of what fatherhood means for him, or the older woman who already has children and didn't plan on another.

I invite you to look deeply within yourself and contemplate what your vocation is, in this regard. Protesting is a valuable tool in a democratic society and it should be done-- but don't let your work end there. Because ultimately, we aren't protesting just the loss of life happening inside the clinics but the fact that evil is present in our world at all-- and the only way to overcome evil is through sacrificial love.

Step out of your comfort zone and make a personal connection with someone who may be struggling. I promise {and this is coming from a former teen mom} your support will make a change in someone's life which may be the difference between life and death.

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Wednesday, September 02, 2015
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Weekend Update

Joy

Monday, August 31, 2015
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Show Some Love Saturday-He Knows Your Name

Beautiful People

This Saturday's share is a little different than my normal shares. It's a child-loss organization, but this organization focused on a different type of bereavement.

I am at a loss for words when trying to describe the beautiful work done by those at He Knows Your Name.

(And if I forget to say this explicitly, make sure you go visit their site when you are finished reading this. You will be learning about one of the most beautiful love stories ever told. No one else does anything like this and I am so grateful I found them.)

Going forward, please forgive me for any choppy language. This one is a hard one -- my tender heart has a difficult time with such a heavy subject, especially after the emotional upheaval of the last few weeks.... I've had a difficult time writing about anything lately.

But.

Sometimes we can pull something exquisite out of the heavy stuff, and this is what He Knows Your Name does.

This next paragraph will be a difficult read for loss moms. Just a warning to guard your heart.

Occasionally the story of a dead child who has been abandoned will make the evening news. We read of an innocent child who was dumped in the garbage, like so much trash. I know my own heart breaks every time I hear one of these stories. It seems so unfair that what I would give anything to hold, someone tosses away so lightly.

For example, this earlier this summer, a toddler girl was found abandoned on a beach in Boston... She looked so much like my own M. I looked at the "alive" image which was being circulated, and felt my entire body ache for this lost girl. She is so beautiful. So much promise in such a tiny being. Gone.

He Knows Your Name works to give dignity to these children who are anonymously abandoned. After learning of an abandoned baby they will posthumously, legally adopt them if necessary, or will petition for the right to claim their bodies. They provide a name and burial place for them. They give them beautiful memorial services.

They affirm the dignity of each individual, no matter how "unwanted" they are.

In the big {worldly} scheme of things it may not seem as if what they do makes much difference, but what they caring for the least of these is never a futile endeavor.

No one can change the circumstances of the lives and deaths of these children, but no one deserves as their epitaph “found abandoned". Names are so powerful, so important. Every child deserves a name.

He Knows Your Name recognizes this and honors children with an identity beyond that of "found abandoned". They honor them with names which imply:

"beloved"

"cherished"

"wanted"

"hoped for"

"remembered"

They give these babies the names which they deserve.

He Knows Your Name is a promise which speaks to all of us. That in our most desolate moments He will remember us.

I cannot think of a more beautiful expression of God's love towards the "least of these", than this claiming and re-naming.

"…to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.”

Isaiah 56:5

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