Posted on 09/08/2008 11:29:58 AM PDT by Brookhaven
The very personal and often uncharitable criticism of Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin and her family evident in recent media coverage, and the lack of support from many feminist and child advocacy groups, may have a relationship to the collective grief, pain and guilt from personal involvement in the abortion of an unborn child.
When an issue strikes at a deeply repressed sensitive wound in a person, often the initial reaction is anger.
Every year in the United States, approximately 133,000 pregnant mothers will undergo routine pre-natal tests and receive what is called “poor pre-natal diagnosis,” or PPD. This means that their infant is afflicted with a chromosomal abnormality or a serious defect in a vital organ.
With the increase in genetic testing and fertility treatments there are growing numbers of couples facing these difficult situations. More than 90 percent of these pregnancies end in abortion. Studies indicate that more than 80 percent of prenatal Down syndrome diagnoses end in abortion.
Parents are often influenced by doctors, therapists, friends and family to see these children not as a gift, but rather a burden to be feared and eliminated. After abortion, the fallout from this loss places a tremendous strain on a couple as they struggle to come to terms with the shock and pain of their experience.
Phil Pedlikin, president of the Down Syndrome Association of Northern Virginia, said the coverage of Sarah Palin as the mother of a child with Down syndrome has been very mixed.
"We have found it frustrating that, even though Governor Palin has never suggested it, quite the opposite really, the emphasis of many reports has been on the 'burden' that she faces because her child has Down syndrome. Also, she is sometimes portrayed as a hero because of this additional 'burden.' We are not heroes because we have children with Down syndrome. Our children are the heroes," Mr. Pedlikin said. (Washington Times, September 4, 2008)
Governor Palin has been clear that despite the challenges Trig’s condition will present, she and her husband Todd joyfully celebrate the gift of this precious life to their family.
But this very heartfelt, natural expression of love may be striking at a deeply repressed and painful wound in our culture.
Seeing the Palin family, in a very visible public forum, with an uncompromising and public pro life philosophy arouses deeply repressed feelings in post abortive parents, as well as media members, counselors, health care professionals, politicians and others who promote abortion rights, especially the abortion of children with challenges such as Down syndrome.
These powerful repressed feelings of grief, guilt and shame can be deflected from the source of the wound (i.e., abortion) and projected onto an often uncharitable focus upon the trigger of these painful emotions…the Palin family.
We have also learned that Sarah's 17-year-old daughter Bristol is pregnant and will give birth to her son or daughter. This information has been exploited to attack chastity programs and the alleged glamorization of motherhood at the expense of contraception and abortion rights. But this completely misses a more crucial issue that once again our society struggles to face.
If Bristol Palin had quietly aborted, Sarah Palin would have been spared the politically untimely focus on this very personal family issue. The problem would have quietly gone away.
But Bristol, like countless post abortive women, would have paid a high price to protect her mother from the political heat that her pregnancy brings to the campaign. We know from our work with thousands of women who feel pressured to abort for various reasons that she would surely suffer many of the common post abortion symptoms; depression, promiscuity, drug and alcohol abuse, sleep disorders and relational problems. But she would have suffered in silence; no one would know her secret. No one would acknowledge that she has reason to grieve or have symptoms after abortion.
Sarah Palin would have lost not only her precious grandchild...she likely would have lost her daughter Bristol to the silent ravages of post abortion suffering.
The Palin family’s decision to once again affirm the value of the unborn child, and support a decision to give life confronts the collective grief, guilt and shame of all who have participated in any way in the death of an unborn child.
What we can hope and pray is that Sarah Palin's story does not continue to feed a disgraceful media feeding frenzy fueled by our post-abortive culture and instead becomes a beacon of hope and healing.
The experience of the Palin family offers encouragement to other families facing challenging circumstances to value the gift of a child and to see the blessing and potential they represent, rather than a burden to avoid at all costs.
It is important to make the distinction that to affirm the value of the unborn in no way condemns those who have experienced the pain of abortion. Rather, this presents an opportunity to reach out to all who have been wounded by their participation in abortion with love and compassion.
We must invite our post-abortive culture to leave the dead end road of anger and personal attacks on families like the Palins. Instead, we need to travel the road of reconciliation, healing and peace as we work together to build a culture of life for all Americans from conception to natural death.
If you or someone you love is hurting after abortion, visit Rachel’s Vineyard - Healing The Pain of Abortion, One weekend at a Time www.rachelsvineyard.org.
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I agree completely. Seems that most of the pro-abortion women I've known over the years had lived lifestyles that appear highly likely to result in at least one out-of-wedlock pregnancy. I suspect that many have actually had one or more abortions, and now their pro-abortion advocacy is a way of coping with their nagging guilt.
I would venture to say that some, if not most of the ardent supporters of “choice” are women who are still wrestling with the repressed guilt of having made that “choice”.
[”The lady dost protest too much, methinks.”]
Unaddressed and unconfessed guilt will make you crazy.
The internet is full of support groups for women who aborted and are now emotionally crippled for life.
I feel great pity for them for abortion is something they can never “make right again” or “take back”.
Abortion clinics should be required to present every potential “customer” with a list of the possible/likely mental/emotional “side effects” killing their baby might have.
Grizzled Bear; Mr Silverback; Mrs Don-o; Petronski; markomalley;taxchick
Ping #4 and resultant discussion. Curious as to your views.
Let’s try that again...
Ping #4 and resultant discussion. Curious as to your views.
It could get worse. You could be so into "justification" mode that you encourage a close acquaintance to "choose" the same route, because "there's nothing wrong with it."
Now, you have TWO murders on your conscience.
Then, the acquaintance becomes an activist, due to HER guilt, and encourages hundreds or thousands of others, and you know that as well...
I can’t personally imagine doing that because I would *know* there’d be a chance of a domino effect but that’s probably exactly how we got the “pro choice” movement to begin with....:(
I guess I should have mentioned that the support groups are mainly hosted by Christian organizations.
I reckon that God forgives us a lot easier than we forgive ourselves, sometimes.
Those groups are full of broken women who will never forgive themselves...let alone justify it.
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I know you didn't ping me, but I've been following this discussion, and wanted to weigh in here.
The above bothers me. It implies a lack of responsibility on the part of the woman who has chosen to abort her child. That simply is not the case, and I don't think that telling women that they are not responsible for what they have done is the answer, nor is it morally acceptable. We can forgive people for their sins, but to deny that they have sinned is to deny reality.
When a Catholic goes to confession, the priest doesn't tell him that he has not sinned, but that his sins are forgiven.
I’ve read some stuff from folks that work as post-abortive counselors.
They say that most of the women that turn to Christ and know they are forgiven are still haunted with the personal guilt.
The baby at the heart of the born alive legislation in Illinois had Downs Syndrome. That child of god was aborted but survived. The hospital did not offer medical help.
Obama felt that was the right thing to do because the mother did not want the child.
Pro life or pro choice, Obama clearly has no soul.
You seem not be allowing for a woman’s conscience to be enlightened by God’s grace, for her to repent, confess, be forgiven, and do penance. This can happen in a post-abortive’s woman’s heart at any time ... or not at all, if she is not open to receiving grace.
Although I think you’re right that too much is made about women’s not being responsible for a decision to abort, nonetheless it doesn’t occur to many young women, brought up in a “pro-choice,” and even more, an anti-birth society, that there is anything wrong with abortion ... until it’s too late, for the baby.
> I know you didn’t ping me, but I’ve been following this discussion, and wanted to weigh in here.
Sorry about that — an oversight on my part.
I think you’ve articulated the point rather well. I can’t see a good moral reason why Abortion should somehow be an exception to the “Thou Shalt Not Kill” commandment. And I do not understand why God would absolve absolutely — indeed treat as a victim — any woman who allowed the Child she has been blessed with to be killed, rather than born.
(The shared guilt of her accomplices in this crime — particularly the medical ones and those who should be supporting her to do the right thing — being acknowledged)
As you’ve pointed out, “being Forgiven” and “Not Sinning in the first place” are not the same things. The former merely re-establishes us on an acceptable footing with God when we have Repented of Sin. The latter obviates the need for Forgiveness in the first place, and is where God would prefer us to focus on expending most of our effort.
“they destroyed their child to be because they couldn’t handle it somehow”
I think that instead of being a last resort for a medical emergency (which I personally don’t agree with either), abortion has been dwindled down to nothing more than a form of birth control for a lot of women.
I knew a coworker once who had already had 6 abortions and was on her way to her 7th and wasn’t embarrassed or bothered by talking about it either. I asked her once why she didn’t take the pill. She said “I tried the pill but it made me gain weight”. No regrets, no guilt, no nothing. Just looking for the next party to go to and the next cowboy to jump in bed with.
Tragic but so very much the story with so many young women nowadays. But, in this sexualized society where “anything goes”, it’s not surprising. They can’t see the beauty in the life they are carrying, only the lifestyle burden. No faith, no hope, only self indulgence.
being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving,unmerciful;
All of these are presented as some of the worst sins you can commit, and equally evil in the eys of God. Notice anything you've done on that list? I do. Think you've never commited a sin as bad as murder? Look right in the middle of that list. Murder, listed along with other sins such as pride, boasting, coveting, and spreading rumors about people. All, in the eyes of God, just as bad as murder.
Anytime I'm tempted rain holy hell down on somebody for something they've done, this section of Romans comes to mind. Particulary the last sins listed as being in the same league as murder: "unloving, unforgiving,unmerciful".
> This can happen in a post-abortive’s woman’s heart at any time ... or not at all, if she is not open to receiving grace.
What you say is absolutely true — and if I gave the impression that Abortion was an unforgivable sin, my apologies.
Abortion is only unforgivable if it goes unacknowledged as being Wrong, or even worse yet, claimed as being Right.
Either way, Sinners aren’t “Victims” — because God does not victimize us. They are either Sinners, or they are Forgiven.
****************
Exactly. Without repentance, where is there any assurance that the choice won't be made again? If there's no acknowledgment that something is morally wrong, why not do it again?
Quite so. However, not all sins are committed with full knowledge and full consent of the will. These are required for a mortal sin, along with grave matter, which there's no question abortion is.
Modern young women often have never considered the fact that abortion is a grave sin. It's legal, after all, and practically all the celebrities are "pro-choice." Nor is there full consent of the will under pressure from family, for example, or in a panic because "My parents will kill me!" Of these two issues, I suppose the first is more common, because our societies and most institutions simply don't recognize abortion as a sin.
However, because it is a sin, it psychologically traumatizes the sinner, even if she's not aware of it. Just as you go splat if you jump off a building, even if you don't recognize the law of gravity, you psychologically and spiritually go splat if you kill your baby, even if you didn't know it was wrong, or didn't think you had a better choice.
To conclude (because I have to start cutting up vegetables for supper and some kid wants to check his email), I agree with you and trisham that the process of reconciliation for post-abortive women cannot in any way "fudge" the gravity of the sin or their responsibility for it. One has not repented of sin if one has not taken responsibility for sinning.
> I know we’ll have to disagree on this one, but my attitude on these types of matters is strongly influenced by Romans.
Certainly we can agree on your point on Romans. Speaking personally I don’t believe God runs a sliding scale on Sin: all sin is sin and it is all repugnant to Him.
On the matter of Abortion I think TaxChick’s point is well-made: like all sins Abortion can be repented of and forgiven. But in order to do that it needs to be acknowledged for what it is: a Sin. And people who sin are not Victims, they are Sinners in need of forgiveness.
And there is a process whereby God forgives Sin. But first we have to ask for forgiveness.
I felt (and still feel) that the article unhelpfully paints a false picture: someone who aborts a baby has done “nothing wrong” and is a “helpless victim” who needs no forgiveness because they are sinless.
The only way that could happen is if a pregnant woman were to be kidnapped, taken to an abortion clinic, and her baby aborted against her will. Were such an outrage to happen all who were involved, except that mother, would be guilty of Sin as well as guilty of several State and Federal crimes including conspiracy, kidnapping, and aggravated assault.
I’m unaware of that happening often. If it does, it seldom makes the newspapers.
Anyrate, we may well disagree on the finer points of this subject. But we certainly do agree on that passage in Romans.
Kind regards
*DieHard*
I firmly believe abortion is a sin. However, it is one sin amoung many that people commit. Like any other sin, it should be dealt with firmly, but with love.
The topic of this article was women who had an abortion, understand they have done something wrong, and their reaction to that understanding. Some choose to deny it and publicly insist they haven't don't anything wrong. Some deeply regret their action, but don't know what to do next.
The solution for both (just as it is for any other sinner) is to guide them to the doorway of forgiveness to them, not to slam it in their face. Whether they walk through that doorway (and the consequences of that action or non-action) is something God will handle.
If we shut the doors of forgiveness on anyone that had commited a sin, most churchs would be pretty empty places.
Did you read my posts?
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