Anonymous
(You can read Part 1 of this article by clicking on “A Father's Post-Abortion Testimony” in the upper left-hand corner of this page.)
The first part of my story was written at about two years from the event. This is written almost exactly four years later.
Following the abortion and her telling me, she left town for about six months to take a job in a distant city. Then she returned and I left town, mostly for career reasons, but I don't think either one of us could stand to live in the same city — she for her reasons, I for mine. I tried several times by letter to communicate to her the misery and sorrow I was feeling, but her responses were mostly uncaring and exculpatory. She even wrote at one point that she felt “stronger, more confident” for having had the abortion. I suppose Hitler felt that way after conquering Poland, but does that make it right?
In her one or two responses, the most obnoxious part was that the rhetoric she used was dismal, heartless Cosmo girl propaganda. And I thought her an intelligent woman. I think now she used such language to distance herself from the reality. These were lies she was telling me, but they were also lies she was telling herself. After several attempts I realized we were completely at odds over the issue and would be for some time. She is living with a man in a distant city now and we no longer communicate, but I cling to the hope that someday, somehow we will be reconciled.
For myself, not a day goes by that I don't think about it. I have told only four persons, two of whom live far away and the other two can be relied upon to keep it secret. One of the latter, a close friend, suspected that something serious was wrong and pried the truth from me by degrees. The first big clue was when I went with her to a hospital maternity ward to visit her sister and new niece. When a nurse held the infant up in the nursery, I turned sheet- white.
I can view the situation with more equanimity, but I still have violent emotional reactions. For instance, a television news program recently showed a woman strapped to an operating table awaiting her “procedure.” Some ghastly older woman came in and smiled at her a phony “everything will be just fine soon, Deary” smile… as the witch must have smiled at Hansel and Gretel. In the few seconds it took me to leap out of the chair and turn off the TV I thought, “I'd like to wipe that smile off her face with a baseball bat.” One can smile and smile and be a villain.
Meanwhile, I contribute to the pro-life cause. I wonder whether I should join Operation Rescue but I am afraid I would lose my temper and discredit the movement.
Also, my trust in women and in people in general has been rocked. I have not been able to sustain any kind of relationship with a woman since and doubt that I shall ever be able to trust a woman enough to marry her. I doubt, too, whether my own reaction to marriage and children will be adequate. Don't I already have a first child?
There is so much more I could say, the strange reactions one gets to news of friends getting married and having children. The sensation of looking at an infant nephew and wondering, “Would my son have looked like this?” My girlfriend's abortion turned the world upside down and there has been no justice to turn it right side up.
(This article courtesy of Priests for Life.)
