Comments From Women After Post-Abortion Healing

Post-abortion healing is a complicated issue because of the religious, social and political issue surrounding it. Women from a religious or spiritual background wonder if God will forgive them. Many women wonder if they can forgive themselves. Men are angry and grieving because they are not allowed to have any influence in whether or not their partner can abort their child.

I can't count the number of women I've worked with after they have had an abortion. For a few, our work began soon after the abortion. For others it was 40+ years later. For all of them, we worked on a spiritual level. After the initial processing of feelings, further talking does little good.

Here are a few of the comments I've heard.

From one woman with two living children and who had had two miscarriage and two abortions: "I've never felt more motherly in my life."
Another woman sobbed desperately as she said, "If I had to do it over again, I would. The situation was horrible."
One reflected a few weeks after the healing session, "I feel more connected at church... like God is really there."
"I feel loved."
"I wanted to have him back as soon as I did it (the abortion)."
Several weeks later, "I can't believe how much better I feel. I didn't even know it still bothered me after all these years."
"Do you think she (the baby) really forgives me?"

For most women, there are three people she needs forgiveness from: the baby, God, herself. The spiritual healing I use is a guided imagery in which the parent, usually the mother, receives healing, forgiveness and love from both her Higher Power and from the baby she aborted. Accepting this forgiveness and love, and forgiving herself, is often a process.

Because there are tremendous extremes in the abortion debate, with much feeling on both sides, women are having a difficult time finding a safe place to work through their feelings. If they mention their inner conflict to friends who are pro-choice, they often feel shamed because they can't accept it as "no big deal." With friends, family or religious people, they fear being shamed and vilified for their actions.

Abortion is a private decision which affects all of society. When there is no avenue to work through any feelings of guilt, shame and depression, the results are relationship problems, physical issues from the suppressed feelings and job and family issues due to depression.

Our society as a whole has little compassion for those struggling. There are individuals who are loving and caring. To find them, a woman has to navigate a sea of judgmental vitriol to find them.

As a society, we need to accept that, no matter what our political or spiritual beliefs about abortion, there are women and men who are desperately struggling with the consequences of their actions. They need our care and assistance.