In August 2019, I wrote a blog titled " Pro-abortion Desperation in Missouri " about the last Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Missouri losing its license because of numerous health and safety violations but continued to operate only because of several temporary injunctions by a judge .
The clinic finally closed only after the Supreme Court's June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision returned abortion law to the states .
Unfortunately, the pro-abortion choice response to that decision has resulted in terrible turmoil and animosity.
Now the attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers and churches with few arrests and prosecution of peaceful pro-life demonstrators are continuing unabated .
To try to portray abortion as a positive empowerment for women, Planned Parenthood has tried the " Share Your Story " and " Shout Your Abortion - Normalizing abortion and elevating safe paths to access, regardless of legality " campaigns to increase abortion support and activism. (The National Association of Pro-life Nurses countered with " Shout out Your Adoption! ", pointing out that "Adoption is a wonderful act of love and one of the best alternatives to abortion.")
Now Planned Parenthood has another strategy for increasing abortion support and activism originally published in MS Magazine on 4/12/2022 and titled " A Firsthand View of the Crisis Ahead for Abortion Rights - and What We Should Do About It "
The article states:
"Since it seems we can no longer rely on the courts to protect these rights, our only solution is to pass a new federal law that will protect abortion rights in all 50 states. The Senate's recent failure to pass the Women's Health Protection Act makes it clear that we will need a greater pro-choice majority than we have today to pass this new legislation.
This will not happen in one election cycle, and it will take a commitment of time, energy and resources beyond that which we have been expending to date. We have to get all the voters who support reproductive rights registered and encourage them to vote. We have to elect representatives at all levels of government who will protect our reproductive rights that are currently under attack. (Emphasis in original)
And as a nurse, I have seen the mental and/or physical trauma after abortion in both friends and patients.
For example, one friend felt she had to have an abortion because the doctor said her unborn baby had little or no brain, which may not have even been true according to the doctor I knew who read the ultrasound. That doctor was devastated to learn that an abortion was done.
Knowing that I was pro-life, my friend said she didn't want to talk about the traumatic 28 hour induced abortion but, after 5 years, she called me and said she needed to know how the hospital disposed of the body. She also revealed that she secretly hung an ornament for that baby on the Christmas tree every year.
And I wrote a November 2016 blog " Why Talk About Abortion " about one of my elderly hospice patients who told me that she was afraid to die because of a secret abortion she had 60 years ago because she believed that abortion was an "unforgivable sin" and she would go to hell. She also felt her now swollen belly due to her terminal condition was God punishing her for the abortion.
My heart went out to this woman who was suffering so much, more emotionally than even physically.
We talked for a long time and in a later visit about God's love and forgiveness. I told her about Project Rachel , a healing ministry for women ( and even men ) wounded by abortion. I gave her the phone number and offered to be with her to meet a counselor or priest, but she insisted that my talking with her was enough to help. I felt it wasn't, but she seemed to achieve a level of peace and she even started smiling!
Rose died comfortably and apparently in her sleep about a week later.
Serrin M. Foster of Feminists for Life in her 2018 National Review article " Women Deserve Better than Abortion: The Ultimate Exploitation of Women " perhaps said it best:
"The reality is that there is no such thing as a safe abortion. Few unborn human beings escape a violent death, but what is underreported is the mortality of healthy pregnant women killed during or as a result of abortion.
When we know how much a woman grieves from reproductive loss through miscarriage or stillbirth, who would choose abortion? According to the Guttmacher Institute, those who have abortions come primarily from the poorest among us (75 percent), women of color (61 percent), women pursuing post-secondary degrees that would lift them out of poverty (66 percent), and mothers who already have dependents (59 percent). Half of all abortions are performed on a woman who has already had one or more abortions, proving that abortion solves nothing. Abortion isn't empowering, and it's not something to celebrate. Abortion is a symptom of, not a solution to, the problems faced overwhelmingly by women who don't have what they need and deserve. Abortion is a reflection that we have not met the needs of women. Women deserve better."
And ALL of us deserve a better and more peaceful society!