From our friends at Pro-Life Action Ministries. Original video found at: youtube.com/
This video is shocking, we know, but sadly, a reality that we need to face in our culture. We first heard about this young survivor and their mother earlier this year, and reached out to her to let her know that she’s not alone in experiencing a failed abortion and that support, including connections with other women who have experienced a failed abortion and parented their child, is available through The Abortion Survivors Network.
Connecting by email, phone, even via Zoom is a great support and opportunity for those impacted by failed abortions. There is something so transformational about finding safe people, a safe place, to share about your experience and receive help in walking out this journey that is overlooked and even dismissed in our society as being counter to the narrative that abortion is a choice and a right. Do you know what’s even better than connecting online or by phone?
Meeting someone face to face, of course! Sitting knee to knee, looking into someone’s eyes who has been hurt by abortion and affirming who they are and what they’ve experienced. Although this failed abortion happened in the Minneapolis area four years ago, the Founder and Director of The Abortion Survivors Network, Melissa, was blessed to meet the mother featured in this video in September of 2021 at a fundraising event for Pro-Life Action Ministries. Imagine Melissa’s suprirse when a radiant young woman who had captured her attention during the evening took the stage that night to share how her life, her child’s life, had been forever changed by the work of Pro-Life Action Ministries outside of the Planned Parenthood. That night, she not only shared her story of having the abortion that should have taken her son’s life, but how the support of the sidewalk counselors changed her life, not just after the failed abortion, but decades earlier, when her mom almost had an abortion with her and Pro-Life Action Ministries positively impacted her life! Amazing!!
We hear stories like this so often. Abortion impacts generations, and it follows a generational pattern until there is healing and silence and shame break the silence surrounding abortion.
That September night in Minneapolis, a powerful exchange took place after the event. This brave mother, who chose life for her son a second time after the abortion failed, got to meet a woman who is very much like her son.
She got to hear from Melissa that she’s not alone in her experience of having an abortion fail. She got to hear that she can be connected with other women who have been in her shoes. She got to hear that there is support available to her if she’d like to process her thoughts and feelings that are still a rollercoaster somedays- punctuated with joy, gratitude, yet also fear of what the future may hold for her child healthwise, concern over whether he will someday “hate her,” for the abortion attempt, uncertainty over how, when, what she will tell him as he grows up. She got to hear that we have a team of professionals, including a clinical social worker, who can help her navigate the journey of sharing her son’s story with him in an age-appropriate way.
This mother received a huge dose of hope that night, seeing how one abortion survivor has not only survived, but thrived as she overcame obstacles in her life. This brave mother also received the gift of hope, knowing that not only is she not alone as a woman who experienced a failed abortion, but her child is also not alone as a survivor. Imagine the burden women carry, believing that somehow they and their child are utterly alone in this type of experience! Our world needs to support women and children after failed abortions, not shame them into silence and submission.
As Melissa has shared, hugging this mother that night is one of those experiences she will never forget. There’s something incredibly powerful and redemptive about a child who survived a failed abortion being able to show love and compassion for a mother who had the abortion. When Melissa hugged her, it’s like she was hugging her own birthmother, Ruth.
There’s something unforgettable about being able to look this mother in the eye and say, “We’re here for your son throughout his lifetime. We’re here for you. You don’t have to go through this alone.”
As the world looks ahead to the Supreme Court taking up both the Texas Heartbeat bill and the Mississippi (Dobbs) case, one thing remains known to us here at The Abortion Survivors Network: abortion survivors and families who have been impacted by failed abortions exist. They deserve healing, relationships that stregthen them. They deserve to be equipped and empowered with education and skill development that enable them to find and use their voice.
And remember, the next time someone tries to say that abortion survivors don’t exist or don’t happen anymore in our world today…..this mother and her now four-year-old son would say otherwise.
