Abortion grief and abortion guilt are major unspoken cons of abortion

Abortion grief and abortion guilt are major unspoken cons of abortion that are rarely addressed when the abortion debate rages and pro-abortion arguments are advanced.

When you go through an abortion, the first emotional response you usually have is a sense of relief… but it doesn’t last forever. Somewhere along life’s journey, you feel myriad other emotions, most of which are quite unpleasant. Among other post-abortion cons, abortion grief and abortion guilt are some major after-effects.

Daily Nation – the leading local Kenyan newspaper, was bold enough this last week to publish a story on 11 March 2017, that tells the “other side of the story” that often remains untold.

Yes, relief is there initially after an abortion. What comes next, no one wants to discuss. So let’s discuss it! Let’s tell the WHOLE story, not just the convenient, politically correct one.

As a counselor, I hear over and over again the same story – I was pushed by my parents/boyfriend/girlfriends/work/joblessness, etc. to abort my pregnancy. I really didn’t want to do it. Stop! If you really didn’t want to do it, then why did you?

Was anyone listening to you, really listening? Was anyone genuinely caring about you and interested in hearing you out?

One serious issue a post-abortive woman faces is isolation. She believes she has no one to talk with, before or afterward. It is too shameful; a secret she must hide.

If she had given birth and the baby died a few days later, there would be a widespread outpouring of sympathy for her loss. It’s a huge tragedy to lose a child, even a newborn.

But with abortion, no one grieves with the woman over her unspoken loss. She bears the pain of abortion grief and abortion guilt alone, in silence, until it bubbles up to the surface and erupts in a flood of emotion that seems totally unwarranted.

The worst thing a pregnant girl can do is try to talk with her parents when they are leaders in the local church. The one place where sinners are invited to come, sit at the feet of Jesus and confess their sins is the one place a pregnant girl dares not go. Or at least that is her perception.

Unfortunately, more often than not, she is correct. So where does she go? To the abortion clinic to flush her sin down the drain pipe.

She’ll talk with Jesus later … if at all.

Can we do something about this? Or shall we remain silent about abortion grief and abortion guilt and let people suffer in the deep recesses of their hearts?

No matter the cause of an unexpected pregnancy, a young lady will suffer if we don’t stop condemning her for the situation she is in. The woman caught in adultery was brought to Jesus to be stoned to death, according to the Jewish Law (Gospel of John Chapter 8).

But, where was the man? A woman can’t be caught in adultery alone, can she? We play the same role as those accusers in the Bible when we condemn a girl for getting pregnant.

We do nothing about the reason she got there in the first place, be it peer pressure, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, incest, etc. The shame cannot be borne by her alone. We must share it with her in her grief and guilt, walk with her, and help her heal.