A discussion on the Modesto Bee, California

Recently a friend of mine, a very much Catholic Out Loud woman, told me that there was a blog on the Modesto Bee that was discussing abortion. She said that there was an opportunity to write on it in support of life, versus abortion.

I have never been one not to speak out and up, so I have gone to the Modesto Bee and have written out my story - the story that involves, not one lost baby but two. One to miscarriage and one to abortion. Here is my story -

I pray that my two children's story may be the impetus for those who are abortion minded to think their position over and to change their minds.I also pray for the babies of my brothers and sisters who were never born alive - for this is their story, too.

A few commentsCatholicOutLoud Says:

I am a post abortive woman. IF my child had lived, he would have been 38 years old this September.

The notion of a seed being only a seed, and a zygote not being alive...let us look at the actual facts of seed. When you plant a seed into the dirt (oh, okay, water, if you need to get picky and hydoplant), it 'wakes' up. The seed, when watered, slowly sheds it hard surface and sprouts. The seed is not visible to a person looking at the dirt that covers it, but make no mistake, it has sprouted and 'is alive'. If you were to dig up the seed, you would see that it had begun to grow and that it is indeed alive. Only when it breaks through the surface of the dirt does one see the seedling. But to say that it is not alive until it breaks through the dirt is not correct. (this was in response to one of the blog writers saying that a zygote is like a seed and it is nothing, it is not alive)

A human being's beginnings are also hidden from the naked eye.

When I was seventeen years old, I became pregnant. I had a miscarriage with my first conceived baby, who was two months alive. I was admitted to the hospital and while there, I was told to put a pan under my private area when I voided, because the baby would pass and they needed to have the baby. Being an obedient young woman, I did exactly that. I passed my baby into a emissis (sp) basin and that evening, I was taken to the OR and had a D & C done. The hospital, and this was in 1969, did not do abortions then. IF they had, they would have done the D & C before I passed the baby.

Forward a couple of months later - I became pregnant again. Again, I was not married and again this pregnancy was not expected, although I don't know why I did not expect it, I was having unprotected sex.

I was forced to have an abortion. This time, my baby, who still could not be seen by the naked eye, was sixteen weeks alive. I had felt a fluttering in my womb - yes, the baby was alive and was moving and able to make his presence known. My breasts had encourged with milk in preparation for the birth of the baby EVEN though one could not see the baby.
I was taken to a clinic - it was clean, the "doctors" (I put that in parenthesis as a doctor's oath is 'first, do not harm') injected a solution into my womb, and that solution killed by baby by burning him to death.

NOW - if the baby was not alive, then why did it need to be killed?

I labored for many hours that day, after having been sent home to do so. In the evening, I was taken back to the clinic and put under general anesthesia. The baby was removed from me.
When I awoke the following morning, every part of my body ached. My baby was gone. I have no idea what they did with my baby's remains.

For years afterwards, I denied that I had lost a baby to abortion. I knew I had lost a baby to a miscarriage, but the rhetoric and "pro-abortion" talk forced me to think that what I had done, aborted my baby, was normal, good and indeed the best thing a non married 18 year old girl could have done.

Well, dear readers, I want you to know that it was NOT the best thing a non married eighteeen year old girl could have done. And, that it was not a good thing was evidenced by my behavior.
1) promiscuity
2) alcohol and drug abuse
3) self hatred
4) suicidal thoughts
5) anger
6) risk taking
Those were just some of the behaviors I had.

About fifteen years after my abortion, I saw fetal models in a museum in New York. I was astounded! I tried to wrap my head around the fact that what I had carried in my womb was a baby - not some fetal material, not a clump of cells, but a real live baby.

It took me many more years to come to grips with the fact that my baby had been poisoned to death in my womb - burned by the saline solution and I had not protected him.
I screamed inwardly as I tried to comprehend WHY I had not protected my baby. WHY had I permitted my parents to force me to abort my baby. WHY had I not been strong enough to say NO!

Those of you who say that life begins at birth - you may believe that until the day you die. You are wrong. You are very wrong.

Those of you who have helped others have abortions - you are wrong. Abortion is the deliberate taking of a human life. There is no way that it is good for the mother or father of the baby.
Those of you who say that the baby is not a baby in the first trimester - please tell me what it is? Remember the seedling?

Our nation has bought into a lie that has killed nearly 50,000,000 children and injured just as many mothers and fathers.

I will tell you that just as a rose is a rose is a rose, a baby is a baby is a baby, no matter how young, no matter how small.

I miss my two children. I ask you, gentle readers, to consider - when I had my miscarriage in September of 1969, why was the baby called a baby by the hospital staff? Why didn't they abort the baby? Why did they wait for me to pass the baby first?

When my abortion occured, it was only seven months later. What made my second baby not a baby? What made it okay to kill my second baby?

I am but one woman, but my story is similar to fifty million women across the United States.

Abortion is a word that is not spoken in polite company. Abortion is shrouded in whispers and it is not until the American public starts speaking out against abortion and the horrors of it that we will be able to heal from this holocaust that plagues our nation.

The day of my miscarriage, my parents lost their second grandchild. (a sibling of mine aborted their child before I became pregnant) I lost a baby. The day of my abortion, my parents lost their third grandchild and I lost a baby. My siblings are less well off as they have lost at least three nieces/nephews. There are family members missing in our family due to abortion and miscarriage.

Think, dear reader - think what you say when you find out a woman has had a miscarriage. If you are a humane, sympathetic person, you generally say "I am sorry"

Think now when you say when you hear that a woman has had an abortion -

SILENCE!!!!


Why? Because somehow in our twisted thinking, we have come to think that abortion is a "choice" a "right".

It is not right to kill another human being. It is not right that a human being is killed because it is tiny and cannot be seen by the naked eye. The choice that we hear in this nation of ours is the "choice" to kill our off spring.

We can do better America! "It is poverty to kill a child so you may live as you wish" Blessed Mother Teresa of Kolkota