Special Report: Silent No More. My Story of Why I Regret My Abortion

During Lent this year, I attended a Rachel's Vineyard post abortion healing retreat in Corpus Christi, Texas. A loving and compassionate team of women led me and several other women on an incredible 3-day journey of healing and reconciliation. I wept tears that felt so fresh but so very old. At that moment, I knew that there were not millions of motherless babies in Heaven but that all of the aborted babies were with Our Blessed Mother.

ROCKPORT, TX (Catholic Online) - I was in my early 20's and abortion had just become legal. It was not as socially acceptable then as it is now. Finding a doctor who would perform the procedure was difficult. I was newly married and we had a 2-year-old daughter. I had no good reason to not want my second child. I was selfish and prideful. I had been away from my Catholic faith for many years.

I felt the consequences of my abortion even before I climbed up on the abortionist's table. Days before the abortion, I closed within my heart any of the natural maternal emotions I had for my baby. I denied that the child in my womb was human, or really even mine. Many women remember the day and month they aborted their baby. I, however, erased the date from my mind even before the doctor took my child's life. Before my baby died, it had never existed. How could I love or miss someone who never was? After the procedure, my heart and soul were plunged into darkness.
 
By rejecting the love God wanted to give me through my child, I ultimately closed myself off from receiving or giving love. By extinguishing God's gift of life, I destroyed any semblance of peace and natural love in my heart. All my relationships became void of any meaningful connection.  I struggled with feelings of isolation and coldness. I pulled away from our only daughter who was 2 years old at the time. I felt no longer able to give her a mother's love. I know now that my turning away from her at such a tender age hurt her profoundly. Abortion is not a solitary act. When I chose abortion, I chose also to hurt my entire family. My daughter did not understand why her Mommy did not love her anymore. In a fit of depression, I chose sterilization for myself a few years later.

Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life once said that you could not destroy the child without destroying the mother. The shame and the guilt would remain locked in my heart I thought forever.  I believed that I did not have the right to grieve because I had voluntarily chosen to end the life of something that was a part of me. It was easier to become numb because I thought it would not hurt me if I could stay away from the memory.

In the years that followed, there began to grow in my heart a deep longing for wholeness and belonging. Even within my family, I felt isolated and unable to connect emotionally.   I became aware that God was gently leading me back to Himself. However, the idea that I needed spiritual healing never entered my mind. The identity of my baby remained a faint shadow in the recesses of my memory.

My husband and I eventually returned to the Catholic Church and at one of the Masses, I heard a homily about doing volunteer work at crisis pregnancy centers.  I began working as a Birthright volunteer. It was my way of dealing with my feelings of guilt and shame that were beginning to surface. I genuinely tried to help other women choose life for themselves and their babies. I believe my initial healing began then.

When our daughter was a senior in high school, she became pregnant.  Her Dad and I told her we would help her with whatever she decided. We offered to help her give the child up for adoption or help her raise the baby so she could go on to college. The only option not up for discussion was abortion.

I confessed to her that I had killed her brother or sister and that I did not want her to suffer as I had. I could not change her mind. I sadly recognized the stubbornness and lack of moral direction in our daughter that I had when I was younger.  I recalled a passage from the Old Testament that reads, "The sins of the fathers will be visited on the sons."  I felt responsible for this abortion also.

The night before her abortion, I begged God for forgiveness for the first time for my abortion. I prayed that night for my baby and the grandchild I thought I would never see.

During the abortion procedure, God did indeed rest His loving hand on my daughter and her baby. As the abortionist inserted his killing tool into the womb of my daughter, our loving God prevented him from touching the baby. There is no earthly explanation as to why the doctor missed the baby. He was not even aware that he had. The Planned Parenthood center in Houston, Texas wrote in her medical records that the abortion was complete. The miracle was not discovered until a month later when my daughter found out she was still pregnant. My granddaughter survived a first trimester abortion. 

In the days that followed, we saw our little granddaughter on an ultrasound and heard her heartbeat. The technician knew who was responsible for the botched abortion attempt and with tears in her eyes she said, "This little one is meant to be." Our daughter's due date was December 25.

When our granddaughter was born, we as a family experienced the profound gifts of resurrection and life, as we looked upon a child we thought had died.

To say that my life changed after this miracle is an understatement. His grace began to pour into my soul and I began to know how much He longed to heal me of my pain due to my own abortion.

In the fall of 2009, I was asked to be the director of our parish Women's A.C.T.S retreat. I knew going into it that it would be physically and spiritually very taxing. What I did not expect was that the Lord would begin a healing process in me that would change me forever.

In October of that same year, I went on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje.  I encountered the healing touch of Jesus through the hands of a priest during a healing service. Jesus reached into my heart and with His wounded hand touched my pain and grief. Like a window washed clean, His light flooded into the dark places in my heart. All the shame and guilt disappeared as He pressed it to His Sacred Heart. I experienced His Love as if I was the only person on earth.

I wept tears that felt so fresh but so very old. At that moment, I knew that there were not millions of motherless babies in Heaven but that all of the aborted babies were with Our Blessed Mother and she was loving them as her own until we would be reunited.

During Lent this year, I attended a Rachel's Vineyard post abortion healing retreat in Corpus Christi, Texas. A loving and compassionate team of women led me and several other women on an incredible 3-day journey of healing and reconciliation. Together we shared our stories and claimed our babies. We grieved together, some for the first time, for our lost children. We named them and we symbolically held them for a night. In a lovely ceremony, we had them baptized and then gave them back to God.  Jesus took our pain into Himself and then filled that void with His love and mercy.

According to recent statistics, 43% of all women in the United States have had at least one abortion and 48 % of those go on to have multiple abortions.

I believe there are many women and men living with the same pain as I did. They deserve to know that help is available for them to find peace and healing.  I appeal to those of you who know someone, either a man or a woman, who suffers from post abortion trauma to please tell them that there is confidential help and healing available.

For over 30 years, we were the voice that has not been heard in the abortion debate but we are Silent No More.

Remember there are always two lives destroyed when an abortion is performed, the baby and its mother.
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Patricia Pulliam is a regional coordinator for Silent No More.  She resides in the beautiful Gulf-coast town of Rockport, Texas.

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