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Pro-choice op-ed: I choose ‘the right to wail myself to sleep’
LifeSiteNews ^ | 5/3/11 | Kathleen Gilbert

Posted on 05/03/2011 1:05:03 PM PDT by wagglebee

NEW YORK, May 3, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Kassi Underwood’s life after abortion is one that no one would envy.

But in an op-ed for the New York Daily News on Monday, Underwood, a writer based in New York, explained how she still refuses to judge abortion despite enduring immense grief after having ended the life of her baby.

In the piece, entitled “Get your politics off my grief after abortion,” Underwood notes that groups such as the American Psychological Association have claimed that post-abortion syndrome does not exist - but this has not stopped her from feeling acutely the loss of her missing baby.

In an account that echoes the documented grief of countless other post-abortive women, such as those at Silent No More Awareness, Underwood says that three years after her abortion she began to have nightmares about babies, and missed her “potential child” while awake. “It was bewildering that I could feel so mournful about a decision that was supposed to buttress the architecture of my identity,” wrote Underwood.

“It felt traitorous to admit that, far from thinking I had expelled a ‘blob of cells,’ I now wondered who that person I aborted would have been.”

Underwood indicated that the experience of immediate “relief” following the abortion procedure promised by pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute’s analysis of the post-abortive experience was not as simple as might appear to the uninitiated.

“It was the kind of relief I have felt after losing someone to a prolonged battle with cancer: grateful the suffering had ended, but sorry my loved one had to go,” she noted.

Seeking refuge in the pro-choice movement offered little help for Underwood: “Emotions, I learned, could be regarded as a chink in the pro-choice armor,” she said. The writer also complained of a political angle at a Catholic Rachel’s Vineyard retreat she eventually attended, accusing directors of turning retreatants into “political instruments” by urging them to tell Congress how abortion had hurt them.

Underwood says she eventually settled in a movement that encourages women to speak about abortion, but without judging whether the procedure is morally right or wrong.

“Here’s a right I’d march for: the right to wail myself to sleep, to yearn for my long gone baby, yet to know that I needed to delay parenthood,” Underwood concluded. “Transcending heartache is possible as long as I keep my story unabridged - and out of the political sphere.”


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: abortion; moralabsolutes; postabortivewomen; prolife
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To: maggie3; Salvation; Dr. Brian Kopp; trisham; DJ MacWoW; little jeremiah; Coleus; narses; ...
So quick to judge we all are to fit things into our political agendas and religious ideals without taking a moment to ponder that she may be saying what it is we all seek. We miss the point again and again.

I notice you joined FR just YESTERDAY and this is your ONLY POST, so you may have missed the part about Free Republic being a PRO-LIFE forum.

Yes, I do have a political agenda and religious beliefs. To that end, I don't give a damn what the pro-abortion crowd thinks. They have murdered 53 MILLION INNOCENT AMERICANS and anyone who supports that should burn in Hell.

So, there's my point, hopefully you won't miss it.

41 posted on 05/04/2011 8:33:16 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee

They keep trying to sugar-coat death.

Gloves off, wagglebee, good post.


42 posted on 05/04/2011 8:39:50 AM PDT by TheOldLady (Almost as evil as the Freeper Criminal Mastermind)
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To: TheOldLady
Gloves off, wagglebee, good post.

I long ago gave up any pretense of being nice to the trolls.

43 posted on 05/04/2011 8:42:59 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: maggie3

You just signed up to tell us how wrong we are, so please don’t call yourself “we” as if you’re one of us. We are unapologetically pro-life, and we don’t need your guidance into moral relativism.


44 posted on 05/04/2011 8:43:58 AM PDT by BykrBayb (Somewhere, my flower is there. ~ Þ)
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To: wagglebee

She’s gone.


45 posted on 05/04/2011 8:45:17 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: trisham
That didn't take long.
46 posted on 05/04/2011 8:54:54 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee

Thank goodness.


47 posted on 05/04/2011 9:05:02 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: All
Pinged from Terri Dailies


48 posted on 05/08/2011 12:14:46 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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