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.
Well said, TC.
That’s disgraceful. But I was thinking specifically about women who abort “damaged” fetuses.
I’ve seen it first hand, if a child is somehow damaged in the womb, many OB’s will encourage the mom to get an abortion, some because of liability issues. And they’ve got family and friends all piling on “You can’t deal with this child”. Many of them don’t understand what Down’s really is. They just fear a horribly retarded child.
Then to see this capable woman cuddling her adorable baby on TV, many have to think, my God, I could have done that too. Guilt guilt guilt. I’m weak. Or I’m selfish. Or anger, like I saw on DU. “She should have aborted the tissue!”
I personally know three women who were told to get abortions by their doctors, because of x-rays or pills or such. All three had normal children.
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.
And I agree with you. The truth is everyone that has weighed in on this (including myself) would probably find ourselves in total agreement if found ourselves face to face so we could quickly hash out the fine points.
I just have a real point of emhpasis of showing mercy for those that have sinned and come to realization they have done something wrong, yet don't know what to do about it becuase the either don't know God, or don't know how to forgive themselves even if they have been forgiven by God.
My niece decided not to go through testing. She didn’t even want to know the sex until all us aunties told her we needed to know so we could buy pink (hopefully since we have lots of boys) stuff. And I had to know the name to put on the Christmas stocking.
I so hope that Sarah’s baby will help more women see the light. I can’t imagine how anyone would abort a baby just because of a possible genetic problem when there are so many families who cannot have children and would give anything to take a precious little one to love and care for.
I just have a real point of emhpasis of showing mercy for those that have sinned and come to realization they have done something wrong, yet don't know what to do about it becuase the either don't know God, or don't know how to forgive themselves even if they have been forgiven by God.
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I could not agree more, FRiend. Thanks for posting this article.
Thank you for that verse. There is no scorn one can heap upon a woman who has had an abortion and realized too late what she has done, that is worse than the guilt she heaps upon herself.
The beauty of the Church’s response to these women is not just the forgiveness they assure, but the care they exhibit toward them. Because of this, millions of post abortive women are coming to the church for the forgiveness and the healing. And, they are on the front lines in this fight. They know the subject in a way others do not.
True all too often. I used to date a woman who many years before had had an abortion. Her then fiance and her mother pressured her into having it. The fiance abandoned her afterwards (the scoundrel). It left some pretty severe emotional scars on her.
What's needed is to let them know that it's okay for them to have made a mistake in the past, provided that they are wiser as a result and will help to avoid following in their footsteps. If that message could catch fire, there could be a sea change that would wipe out much of the 'pro-choice' movement.
Ping.
Even on a secular psychological level, most people could probably ease their guilt pretty quickly if they would acknowledge their mistake and work to help prevent others from following in their footsteps.
If a woman were to wear a shirt saying "I regret my abortion", from whom would she receive condemnation? Some 'bible thumpers' would probably condemn such a woman for her past actions, but I suspect most of the condemnation would come from the 'pro-choice' side. I would expect that any time the wearer of such a shirt was approached by someone contemplating an abortion and dissuaded that person from going through with it, she would erase some more of her guilt.
If a woman who aborted her child can be persuaded to join in an effort that will save millions of other babies from the slaughter, what is to be gained by recrimination against her?
Christ offers amnesty to repentant sinners. In a situation like this, why should we not do likewise? We need to open people's eyes up to the fact that the 'pro-choice' people have used their guilt as a yoke against them, and that repentance will set them free.
Incidentally, the only way I can imagine a Constitutional Amendment getting ratified to define the unborn as children would have to explicitly limit its scope to those conceived after its effective date, and make clear that nothing therein shall be construed as having any relevance to unborn children conceived prior to its effective date. While it may not be logical that fetus conceived on Jan 1, 2020 would be a baby and yet one conceived on Dec 31, 2019 would not, such language is the only way to avoid branding millions of people, including the repentant ones, as murderers.
For which son was the fatted calf slain?
It's unclear to what extent the moral accountability belongs with the woman, to what extent it belongs with those who knowingly and willingly blinded her to the truth, and to what extent it belongs with those whose own earlier blindness infected them with a need to spread it.
IMHO, primary moral culpability falls with those soulless people who have no qualms about killing babies and who manipulate the guilt of their victims so as to draw in more. The proper message for those who were deceived in any significant measure, even if they were significantly complicit themselves, is "You were deceived. You should not have allowed yourself to be deceived in such fashion, but the ability to recognize such deceit often only comes through experience. Now you know the truth. There is no longer any excuse for you not to challenge the deceivers. Do that, and you won't have to feel guilty anymore."
Remember that Satan is "a liar, the father of lies, and a murderer from the beginning." Killing is almost always mixed with lies, and the immediate perpetrator is almost certainly both a deceived woman and a deceiver; lied to and liar; misled and misleading others.
When you see that, you can see how she could be both a co-aggressor with the abortionist, and a co-victim with the child.
Men, too, suffer from the slaying of their progeny, especially if they knew of the pregnancy but could not stop the abortion. Grandparents suffer. Even the woman's other children, if they perchance find out about the abortion, suffer.
There's such a thing as Perpetration Induced Traumatic Stress which is beginning to be recognized by researchers. The author of the book I've linked finds that post-abortion women are among the sufferers.
T-C, we need to concert our ‘mom’ skillz for the good of our country...I’m thinking cabinet positions here :)
I’m guessing such a person wearing that message would get as much if not more flak from the pro-aborts
because, as we’ve discussed, it’s ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to them that there be no hint of “wrongness” about abortion.
Such a message would cause their conscience to convict them, and that is exactly what they seek to avoid.
> For which son was the fatted calf slain?
Excellent point, and thankyou for making it. The fatted calf was slain for the Prodigal Son. AFTER he had seen the error of his ways and AFTER he had repented and returned to his Father.
It wasn’t slain whilst he was being Prodigal.
And what happened as a result of his repentance? Did he get his inheritance back, as if nothing had happened and as if no sin had been committed? Did his brother have to divide what remained of the Estate to share with the Prodigal Son?
No — we know what happened because Christ goes to great pains to spell it out. His Father was overjoyed to have him home again. And his brother would still inherit his full inheritance upon the Father’s death — all that remained of his Father’s wealth — it says so.
(Now, it would have been extra-Christian for the brother to share with the Prodigal son anyway fifty-fifty, but that is not a part of the parable as presented).
Lesson learned from this: we can be forgiven for our sins if we repent, but that does not exempt us from the consequences of our sins. Sin has happened, and we wear whatever consequences accrue as a result — even after forgiveness.
Saying “sorry” does not turn back the clock. It doesn’t make us victims and it doesn’t un-Sin the Sin. But it does help to atone for the offense.
(Which raises another interesting point: Forgiveness is scriptural. Forgive-and-forget is not.)
I think it’s interesting to consider Christ’s response to the woman taken in adultry. She was to be executed by stoning — fair enough, that was the just penalty. The Pharisees tried to get Christ into a trap by asking Him what should be done.
If He said “Stone her” then they would have Him on “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” And if He said “Let her go” then they would have Him on “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultry”. A very clever trap — exactly the sort of thing you’d expect from clever lawyers which is what the Pharisees were.
His response as we know was “Let him who is sinless cast the first stone.” Her accusers left, one by one.
And the only Sinless person that remained with the woman was Him.
Now all of that is really dramatic, but isn’t overly interesting. Because the climax to the story is His instruction to that woman.
“Neither do I accuse thee. GO AND SIN NO MORE.”
He didn’t say “you are innocent, you are a victim, you did no wrong”. With this instruction He told her three things:
1) She had sinned and was a Sinner
2) Her sins were forgiven
3) Don’t sin again.
Consequences of her sin? Well, she had been taken in Adultry. She could probably expect her marriage to end. She may have been impregnated as a result of her Adultry: that wasn’t going to un-happen either. Her reputation was in tatters: that would not be easily repaired either.
The only outcome was that she had been Forgiven of the sin of Adultry, that would otherwise have cost her life.
All other consequences remained in situ.
And this is entirely consistent with the lesson taught by the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Thanks for raising that example.
Incidentally, by my reading: Father's house before departure: EDEN. Father's house after return: HEAVEN.
Some other notes (all MHO): Adam and Eve sinned not because they were evil, but because they were human. God could easily have made them into perfect sinless little robots, but He didn't. He wanted his people to freely come to him on right right path. The only way for them to freely go to him would be if they could also stray from the path. And being human, that's what they did.
I'd like to offer analogy I've not seen elsewhere, but which I find very useful. If a person takes a deck of cards and decides to play Klondike Solitaire, the person playing the game is not allowed to play a Jack of Spades on a Six of Clubs. When using real cards (as opposed to a computer), the cards won't physically refuse to be played in such fashion, nor would a person who played in such fashion be invaded by the Solitaire Police. Nonetheless, a person playing Klondike would be unable to play the SJ on the C6 without ceasing to play Klondike Solitaire.
I've often read questions asked about the nature of God's omnipotence and omniscience, and how they can coexist with free will. I would suggest the answer is given in my previous paragraph. God decided, when He created the universe and mankind, that He would let them mostly run freely and limit His interference with them according to certain pre-established rules. Were mankind to deviate too far from His plan, He would be physically capable of rearranging things to His liking, but were he to do even the slightest thing beyond the rules He had initially selected, those rules would become completely meaningless. Either they apply or they don't.
God wants His people to find the right path and choose it freely. He gave people free will, knowing full well that people would stray. His hope is that people find their way back.
Amen. I enjoy your analogy with the cards: it is spot on. I haven’t heard that one before, but I shall certainly remember it because it is a good precise illustration to your point.
And I agree: God could have created robots and didn’t — for the reasons that you gave. He wanted free-will worship, and to get that He did need to allow for the possibility of Sin: by definition. Else it would not be “free will”. And humans being what we are, we all too often exercise that option to sin.
Mrs Don-O’s point about the effects of sin on the Sinner is also well-made (seems like a natural opportunity to discuss that, so I’ve copied her in).
I agree that the outcome of Sin on the Sinner is often injury, and that Sin often hurts and the Sinner often needs to recover from that.
I do not agree that this makes the Sinner a “victim” merely because they were deceived by Satan. Sin is a self-inflicted injury which God is always careful to punish as such. We know this to be true else Eve would not have been cast out of the Garden of Eden.
(Adam sinned knowingly and thus has absolutely no excuse, whereas Eve was tricked by the serpent)
I have not decided whether there is any such thing as “Satan” or “The Devil” beyond it being a metaphorical reference to Mankind’s inherent sin nature. (I’m still on a steep learning curve on religion — plain fact is I haven’t got one. Looking at Catholicism.)
Is there a being known as “Satan”? I am tending to think “no”: I was never afraid of the boogie man and I have always been more than capable of raising merry Hell all by myself without the help of Beelzebub. That’s my nature, and my current thinking is that everyone is similar to that, thus obviating the need for a pitchfork-wielding Boogie Man with pointy horns and a pointy tail. I can sin all by myself, as a matter of free will choice.
Thus, such sins are self-inflicted injuries. I may well need to recover from them, but in so doing I am not a “victim” in any reasonable sense of the word.
Victims are always innocent. Sinners are never innocent.
That is why I reject totally the concept of someone choosing to abort being a victim. They may well be hurt, they may well need to recover, and they may well require assistance and kindness — which, as Christians, we ought to give. But they are not victims because they are not innocent: they are recipients of injuries that they have caused themselves, and those injuries are natural consequences of wrongdoing.
None of that absolves us from behaving decently. Neither does it permit us to call wrong “right”, or to call Sin anything other than what it is: an offense against God.
Anyrate, that’s how I see it...
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