Abortion Affects Women: New Counter

I attended Right to Life's AGM on Wednesday night. The guest speaker that evening was Carolina from Post Abortion Trauma Healing Service (PATHS). It was an incredibly informative presentation. I gained a much fuller understanding of what abortion really does to women, and it really impacted me.

• Abortion is part of the spectrum of pregnancy loss, but it is hardly ever recognised: grief is very often supressed.
• Women don't set out to kill their babies - the abortion choice is often made under extreme pressure, and within a very short time-frame.
• A battle goes on inside: the heart says "don't do it", but the mind says "it's the only thing I can do".
• They thought it was a "choice", but it wasn't really:  there are a multitude of outside pressures and influences which affect a woman's choice.

Cycling home after the meeting, I realised that the very popular abortion counter could be adapted into a new counter which focuses on the number of women who have been affected by an abortion since you opened this webpage. It is important not to sidestep the issue and ignore what abortion does to pre-born babies. But at the same time, there are an equal number of women out there who are going through a stressful - or often traumatic; physically or mentally damaging experience.

Let's get the message out there that abortion is not the simple, safe procedure that it is often made out to be. Abortion does affect women, and often leaves them with intense feelings of guilt and sorrow, with the knowledge that they have been a part of the killing of the life that was growing inside them.

:'(