Sarah Palin's Trig-ger: Is Post-Abortion Grief Driving Criticism of Pro-Life Gov?

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.

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.

It wasn't a shirt, but a sign. A few years ago there was a "March for Women's Lives" [= save the women from having babies] in Washington DC. Post-abortive women were asked to come wearing black, holding empty strollers, with signs that said that. The pro-abortionists told me "get help", "get therapy"; "get effed", "get a burka", "go to hell", "I don't regret any of mine", and the winner was "Your mother should have aborted you." They threw condoms at us.

Yet many high-school and college age women looked at us in shock, because it had never occurred to them that anyone COULD regret an abortion - after all, it's just like getting a manicure, right? I believe some will stop and think, if they ever find themselves "in a predicament." Some of us discussed it and said that the abuse was worth that.

One women in her forties did leave the march and came over to me, saying quietly, "So do I." We hugged and cried together for a while. Perhaps she had never heard that it was okay to feel bad about it. I know for a long time I thought there was something wrong with me that I DID - after all, it's just like getting a manicure, right?

I understand the Catholic priest who stood on the next block visibly praying for the maenads took the worst of the abuse - kristinn stood with him.

> Completely untrue.

I am sorry if it offends you or if this sounds heartless: I try to be a compassionate person insofar as I can be, and I try to put that compassion into practise wherever I can.

On the subject of Abortion I see the issue as black-and-white, with a clear Right and a clear Wrong. There is no grey area. At all.

I believe that almost without exception any woman who feels “wounded” after aborting her baby is actually suffering from a self-inflicted injury obtained while participating in an act of pre-meditated violence that led to the death of an innocent human life.

Put in that context I don’t feel much compassion or sympathy, and I don’t feel one bit sorry for not feeling sorry.

Yes, her injury should be treated and she should be helped and her pain eased: to do less than that would be inhumane.

All of my sympathy rests with the dead baby.

> Does New Zealand not have some equivalent of the Silent No More group of women who have acknowledged the pain and guilt they feel after having abortions?

When you say “acknowledged” surely you mean “confessed and repented”, which is what we ought to do when we realize the enormity of our Sins.

“Acknowledging” just doesn’t cut it: “acknowledging” is something you do when you correct a spelling error. Taking an innocent and defenseless human life is an error of somewhat greater magnitude, I would have thought.

I do not know if there is such a group in New Zealand: very probably there is.

My sister and her husband ran a post abortive ministry, as well. There are millions of women who are suffering in silence, because of the lies they have been told. We grew up with the “it is only a blood clot” argument.

But, now, with science surpassing everyone’s wildest dreams, that argument doesn't fly. Now women can see a real ultrasound video of their fully formed, albeit tiny, baby in the Uterus. Now it looks a lot like murder, and confirms what they were trying to push out of their minds.

It is too much for some poor women to handle. Women who were told that it was like getting their teeth pulled...(a line used on “Maude”) Now realize that it was actually more like killing their own precious babies. Some of these women have been unable to carry another baby to term—and have miscarriage after miscarriage, because they are not told that this is a possible side effect of abortion. Some can not get pregnant ever again, because Planned Parenthood lacerated their womb. And others still suffer from breast cancer, another side effect that they were not told about.

Protecting women. That is the lie that abortion supporters tell the electorate. These women do not feel protected. They feel miserable, and unable to tell anyone, since they feel that they did it to themselves. But, most were only children themselves, who were pushed into a life of sin, and misery.

The ministry you spoke of, is an excellent start toward forgiveness and deliverance.

I pray that these women, after finding deliverance and forgiveness, will look at trying to keep other women from having to suffer as they do, by suing the lawmakers, judges and doctors, who stopped bills that would have made informing women of side effects of abortion, and development of their fetus's at the time of abortion.

I remember reading some years back that the post-abortive women who suffer the most guilt are those who comprise the so-called “hard cases”: rape, incest, threats to the mother’s physical health, or the diagnosis of a genetic defect such as Down Syndrome. I don’t know what evidence the writer used to support that claim, but I remember thinking at the time that it seems entirely plausible. These women may be more aware than their counterparts who abort for “social reasons” (a.k.a. convenience) that there really is a child in there, and abortion would not be a choice they would make under more common circumstances. On the other hand, many women who simply decide they do not want a child and would prefer to see their offspring dead than raised by someone else are clearly thinking only of themselves, and with some exceptions seem less likely to develop a conscience after the fact. JMO

“If Bristol Palin had quietly aborted....The problem would have quietly gone away.”

WRONG. Opposition would have found out the way demons see all sin and only sin. The possessed would have know and voiced this to the discomfort of Bristol and those trying to cover the secret abortion. The public would have found out the way a hacker got into Gov. Palin's email. Opposition would called Pro-Life champions hypocrites; but, this is not what has happened.

The defense of the unborn child means that the opposition are left cupping their ears, shutting their eyes, and screaming profanity the way St Stephen's murderers reacted to the Beatific vision.

Such a message would cause their conscience to convict them, and that is exactly what they seek to avoid.

I missed your post earlier. Why would flak from pro-abort people cause the wearer of the shirt pangs of conscience? If the message is simply "I regret my abortion", what's the pro-abort person going to say? If they say the person shouldn't regret the abortion, then they prove themselves to be morally bankrupt. If they say the person should regret their abortion, then they contradict their claim that abortion is fine and dandy. So how could a pro-abort person possibly impugn the morality or conscience of a woman wearing such a shirt?

Thanks for the story. I wish those marches would catch on. You're taking flak because you're very close to (and hitting!) the target.

I believe some will stop and think, if they ever find themselves "in a predicament." Some of us discussed it and said that the abuse was worth that.

Only some thought the abuse was worth that (do you mean that was worth the abuse)? Being attacked by soulless people in that circumstance should be regarded as a mark of honor, especially if the attacks are seen by those who (wrongly) believe the pro-aborts are pro-freedom. Try to tell such a person that the most activist abortion advocates are evil and hateful and they won't believe it. But let such a person see the abortion advocates assaulting women who aren't trying to restrict abortion, or say it's evil, but merely express the truth of their own personal regret, and that person will likely recognize the truth.

The actual March was pro-abortion. We were there as part of “Operation Witness”...

Ah, too bad. IMHO there needs to be a more visible movement.

(still got the t-shirt, but where would I wear it?)

To the mall. In the park. Anywhere and everywhere, within reason (probably not at work or in formal situations). No need to hide.

Obviously you'll have to decide for yourself what role you'll play in spreading the word that if someone has had an abortion, regret is normal. I would suggest being as active as you feel you can manage. The children you save can be advocates on your behalf come Judgment Day. The more, the better.

Someone, however, that doesn’t want to be faced with their guilt, would feel accused and convicted by that message.

Okay, I misunderstood who "they" referred to.

What sort of flak could a wearer of a shirt get that would stick? The pro-abort people claim abortion is nothing to be ashamed of, so they couldn't attack the wearers of such shirts on that basis. And if they want to respond to the wearer of a shirt by saying they don't regret theirs, the wearers of the IRMA shirts could say that they're not trying to attack anyone else's decisions, but merely making a statement of personal regret about their own.

I would really like to see the wearing of "IRMA" shirts become a movement, and I would think it could happen. No overly political message, nor fire and brimstone, nor moralizing, nor anything of the sort. Just four words: "I regret my abortion". Worn to the mall, to the park, or wherever. Indeed, 1,000 people wearing such shirts as they go about their business in cities across the U.S. would probably have a bigger impact than 10,000 such people in a march.

> So you do acknowledge that women who abort are also harmed.

I do. It is a self-inflicted injury. In the process of killing another human being, they have harmed themselves.

It is not unlike a drunk driver who runs over a little girl and smashes into a telephone pole. Certainly the drunk-driver has injuries, and yes they do require treatment.

Sure, if I am the First Aid attendant at the scene I will give the injured drunk driver the best and gentlest treatment I can, and I will avoid causing further trauma so that she has the best chance of recovery as is possible. And I will not leave her side or quit trying to save her life until a more qualified medical officer is attending to her suffering, or until she is stone dead — whichever comes first.

But I reserve my sympathy for the dead little girl.

> You just believe we have it coming.

I take it that you have had an abortion, as you use the word “we”.

“Have it coming?” Well I guess that is one way of saying that there are natural and moral consequences to what you have done.

Is it right that a drunk driver should feel bad for running over a little girl and killing her? Bloody oath it's right. Remorse is good and healthy and a necessary adult response to having done the right thing. It is a natural consequence.

So yes, in that context, women who abort their children and feel remorse “have it coming”.

> Yeah, that's real compassionate.

Ma'am, the Women's Movement for the past 50+ years has been all about women being treated like sentient adults, without diminished rights or diminished responsibilities: being in all respects equal to men.

Do you object to me treating you as an adult? Is “sympathy” really what you want? Do you really want people to say “awwww, you poor thing! You're a VICTIM!”

I have more Respect for women than that.

Compassion? Let's look at what that means: “Deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it.”

Yup, you are entitled to that from me, immediately.

How about sympathy? “an inclination to support or be loyal to or to agree with an opinion.”

You are entitled to that once you feel remorse, as the first step to confession and repentance.

Is “acknowledgment” good enough? Let's go back to the drunk driver analogy... "Yeah, I'm drunk and I busted my ankle and gashed my forehead. It bloody hurts. Yeah, I know I shouldn't drink and drive, and yeah I know it's against the law and yeah I know a little girl's dead... Make it snappy, ay: I'm getting blood all over the place..." THAT is acknowledgment. Good enough?

The pro-aborts that I’ve ever interacted with can never articulate any real reason for being vehemently “pro-choice”, they just scream about “a woman’s right to choose [to kill her baby]”.

The word “regret” would send them into a tizzy. It’s assigning a negative moral connotation to abortion. This would send them into a rage.

Hey, I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. I’m just telling you that the reaction will NOT be sympathetic, because these people do NOT want to be reminded of the evil of the “choice” they made.

They should be.

BTW, there was a thread on FR showing this student “senator” on the UW campus, hissing like a steam engine, ripping the little white crosses out of the ground and saying “you don’t have a right to speak against abortion”. He actually said that women who have had abortion should not be subject to this display.

The thread is gone, as far as I can tell - here’s a link with links to the story and the youtube video.

http://volokh.com/posts/1210270338.shtml

Hey, I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. I’m just telling you that the reaction will NOT be sympathetic, because these people do NOT want to be reminded of the evil of the “choice” they made.

I would expect the immediate reaction would be as you say. On the other hand, to someone afflicted by Liberal Mind Fog Disorder, victims are sacred. If the short said "I regret my abortion. Choose life," then LMFD could direct all the anxiety and hatred toward the last two words. But if the shirt simply says "I regret my abortion" and nothing else, I would expect that the cognitive dissonance would, for many people, not be resolvable without some cracks forming in the LMFD smoke screen.

"How dare that woman suggest that people should regret their abortions. I had my abortion and I don't regret it one bit. How dare she suggest that I should" (some time later, after succumbing mentally exhaustion ) "Why am I getting so worked up? I don't regret my abortion, well, except that I'm feeling pretty miserable. Why is that [bleep]ed woman so cool and collected. Doesn't she know that all this guilt-trip stuff hurts? How can she go through life bright and chipper with a shirt like that to constantly remind her? Why can't things be that easy for me?"

Not sure that would be anyone's actual thought process (probably not that quickly, at any rate), but I would expect that seeing such shirts from time to time would have that effect. Again, very important not to include extraneous messages. Just "I regret my abortion".

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