My Experience with Abortion.

She walked through the church doors and I had to pick up my jaw. She was gorgeous. I was proud in the most non-Christian fashion that she had come on the night I was to preach, I was sure to impress here with my skills of rhetoric and reason. After the service, we went to eat, just us, score. We were waiting for our food, having good conversation, when she looks at me and says, "Hayden, I'm pregnant." I am too stunned to speak. My mind races. I know it's not my kid, but I am just so blown off course by this confession. My heart immediately goes out to her, I can't imagine what that feels like. Forget the sin, and making sure she feels bad about it "enough". I'm sure she feels terrible. I don't know what do, and frankly anything I might have said is forgotten in that mist, except for me asking if she would keep the child. She told me she would, and I was glad for that, and a bit surprised as well-had I been in her shoes I would have chosen abortion. We ate, relaxed a little over some coffee and then I took her home. I drove home in a daze. The only redeeming factor was that the child would live.

Six weeks later, I got the text that told me she had changed her mind. She just couldn't face it. I couldn't blame her, but her change in position mortified me. She told me of her appointment at Planned Parenthood, and several thoughts came to mind. 1. Maybe I can talk her out of this if I am there in person. 2. Someone should be with her if her father and the daddy won't be, after all, I wouldn't want my daughter going there at all, but if she did I would rather he go with me with her than alone. So I told her I would be there in the morning to meet her and drive her there. Now some may disagree with what I did, but I have to defend myself-I don't agree with what she did, but none the less she is still my friend and I do support her. God has been with me countless times when I was doing things contrary to His nature. So the next morning we meet, and she climbs into the truck. She is tired from stress of the secret and lack of sleep. I slowly begin to lay the case against abortion as well as I was able to, and as sensitively as I was able to. I remember small tears from her otherwise stone face as I made my case. And I felt like a jerk, but I had to say something. Finally we arrived at the clinic. My intestines seemed to jerk up into my chest cavity, and immediately drop back down again. I was nervous. What if someone saw me and thought what would obvious to them, yet still untrue? We continued to walk through the cold air, and were confronted by well meaning Catholic ladies holding pictures of Mary. They blocked our way and I strode out to the fore in case anything was tried. Inward I was so thankful for this last chance defense, but I doubt it was effective in most cases. Finally we were inside. The security was tight, with metal detectors and an armed guard on duty. She signed in and we went to the waiting room. I will now quote the notes I took on my iPhone there. I post it almost as it was written, correcting only the most glaring errors.

"Heart in my throat, the loudest quiet room I've ever been in. Panicked regret for some, rest and ease on others; veterans with battles belted. No one speaks, the only dialogue provided by a tv, false dialogue, false hope, choices made and recesnded.partially.that twinkle in your eye is about to die, not yet a person, but human still, hope dying that would have brimmed over like sun over the morning windowsill. She goes back, no second look. Her heart is already torn, in pieces. She attacks herself with her own words. True hopes true dreams, drowned out by silent screams, of the living of the dying of the dead.
All sorts of people here, from all walks of life, a sort of sadness hangs in this room. No expectancy, no joy even in relief. Nervous weakness overwhelms me, I feel it in my hand and clench them like a child would, but I feel no strength in in them. I tried and I failed.
She just went back, evertging in me us screaming right now, everything. Arguments are gone out of the window, I just want to see her come back through the doors to tell me she didn't go through with it, that life will have a chance. 3 women outside hold pictures of the blessed virgin, I wish she were here. My heart is racing in my chest, I can feel blood pulsing through my neck, I mildly hallucinate and in my minds eye see blood painted on the lobby, of mothers, of zygotes, sealed and treated by guilt and tears. I didn't think it would be like this I didn't want it to end like this. I wanted to save a life, maybe two. I failed. I hurt, I hurt inside, phantom pain from a phantom limb I never bore, but one I viewed for a brief moment, like a face glimpsed in water before ripples obscure it. I hurt. For a child that isn't mine, that I never knew, and will never knowing
Can't believe it's affecting me this way, it wasn't my baby nor was the women one Iove, but I'd can't get the thought out of my mind that one little pill erased a life. It's one kid that will never see the sun, never see the stars never eat milk and cookies or watch Saturday morning cartoons. He will never ask lifes big questions, she will never fall in love for the first time; everything that could have been was snuffed out."

The worst part perhaps was how she was afterward. Everything seemed fine. She was normal. We went and ate chicken and she assured me she was fine. I thought she must be evil for this lack of conscience, but later, on further reflection I saw that it was just posturing to support herself after making a terrible decision, denial is a powerful way to avoid confronting yourself-sometimes we don't have the strength to do this right after something so harsh. She later confirmed my suspicion. I mourned for that child as if it has been mine. I couldn't explain this to myself. Really what was there to feel? I had no connection to that little one, he or she wasn't my blood, and I had never seen them or experienced them. But I wept and screamed on my back home, switching from rage to sorrow. Why was I so affected when she was able to wear a brave face? The simplest thoughts controlled my mind, "The child will never eat milk and cookies, never watch saturday cartoons or run through the house screaming. Never feel the sun on their skin." I felt immense sorrow, choking up when I shared it with a mentor.

Tonight a friend posted a video of Gianna Jessen speaking. She is a Christian recording artist and pro-life activist who was born alive during a saline abortion. What she said brought all this back to me and I had to get it out. I guess this is my sort of self therapy.

"If abortion is merely about women's rights, I ask you, what were mine?" Gianna Jessen, Saline Abortion Survivor

"A person is a person no matter how small." -Dr. Suess