Abortion Grief Quotes

Well, my dear sisters, the gospel is the good news that can free us from guilt. We know that Jesus experienced the totality of mortal existence in Gethsemane. It's our faith that he experienced everything- absolutely everything. Sometimes we don't think through the implications of that belief. We talk in great generalities about the sins of all humankind, about the suffering of the entire human family. But we don't experience pain in generalities. We experience it individually. That means he knows what it felt like when your mother died of cancer- how it was for your mother, how it still is for you. He knows what it felt like to lose the student body election. He knows that moment when the brakes locked and the car started to skid. He experienced the slave ship sailing from Ghana toward Virginia. He experienced the gas chambers at Dachau. He experienced Napalm in Vietnam. He knows about drug addiction and alcoholism. Let me go further. There is nothing you have experienced as a woman that he does not also know and recognize. On a profound level, he understands the hunger to hold your baby that sustains you through pregnancy. He understands both the physical pain of giving birth and the immense joy. He knows about PMS and cramps and menopause. He understands about rape and infertility and abortion. His last recorded words to his disciples were, "And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." (Matthew 28:20) He understands your mother-pain when your five-year-old leaves for kindergarten, when a bully picks on your fifth-grader, when your daughter calls to say that the new baby has Down syndrome. He knows your mother-rage when a trusted babysitter sexually abuses your two-year-old, when someone gives your thirteen-year-old drugs, when someone seduces your seventeen-year-old. He knows the pain you live with when you come home to a quiet apartment where the only children are visitors, when you hear that your former husband and his new wife were sealed in the temple last week, when your fiftieth wedding anniversary rolls around and your husband has been dead for two years. He knows all that. He's been there. He's been lower than all that. He's not waiting for us to be perfect. Perfect people don't need a Savior. He came to save his people in their imperfections. He is the Lord of the living, and the living make mistakes. He's not embarrassed by us, angry at us, or shocked. He wants us in our brokenness, in our unhappiness, in our guilt and our grief. You know that people who live above a certain latitude and experience very long winter nights can become depressed and even suicidal, because something in our bodies requires whole spectrum light for a certain number of hours a day. Our spiritual requirement for light is just as desperate and as deep as our physical need for light. Jesus is the light of the world. We know that this world is a dark place sometimes, but we need not walk in darkness. The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, and the people who walk in darkness can have a bright companion. We need him, and He is ready to come to us, if we'll open the door and let him.

But I can cite ten other reasons for not being a father." "First of all, I don't like motherhood," said Jakub, and he broke off pensively. "Our century has already unmasked all myths. Childhood has long ceased to be an age of innocence. Freud discovered infant sexuality and told us all about Oedipus. Only Jocasta remains untouchable; no one dares tear off her veil. Motherhood is the last and greatest taboo, the one that harbors the most grievous curse. There is no stronger bond than the one that shackles mother to child. This bond cripples the child's soul forever and prepares for the mother, when her son has grown up, the most cruel of all the griefs of love. I say that motherhood is a curse, and I refuse to contribute to it." "Another reason I don't want to add to the number of mothers," said Jakub with some embarrassment, "is that I love the female body, and I am disgusted by the thought of my beloved's breast becoming a milk-bag." "The doctor here will certainly confirm that physicians and nurses treat women hospitalized after an aborted pregnancy more harshly than those who have given birth, and show some contempt toward them even though they themselves will, at least once in their lives, need a similar operation. But for them it's a reflex stronger than any kind of thought, because the cult of procreation is an imperative of nature. That's why it's useless to look for the slightest rational argument in natalist propaganda. Do you perhaps think it's the voice of Jesus you're hearing in the natalist morality of the church? Do you think it's the voice of Marx you're hearing in the natalist propaganda of the Communist state? Impelled merely by the desire to perpetuate the species, mankind will end up smothering itself on its small planet. But the natalist propaganda mill grinds on, and the public is moved to tears by pictures of nursing mothers and infants making faces. It disgusts me. It chills me to think that, along with millions of other enthusiasts, I could be bending over a cradle with a silly smile." "And of course I also have to ask myself what sort of world I'd be sending my child into. School soon takes him away to stuff his head with the falsehoods I've fought in vain against all my life. Should I see my son become a conformist fool? Or should I instill my own ideas into him and see him suffer because he'll be dragged into the same conflicts I was?" "And of course I also have to think of myself. In this country children pay for their parents' disobedience, and parents for their children's disobedience. How many young people have been denied education because their parents fell into disgrace? And how many parents have chosen permanent cowardice for the sole purpose of preventing harm to their children? Anyone who wants to preserve at least some freedom here shouldn't have children," Jakub said, and fell into silence. "The last reason carries so much weight that it counts for five," said Jakub. "Having a child is to show an absolute accord with mankind. If I have a child, it's as though I'm saying: I was born and have tasted life and declare it so good that it merits being duplicated." "And you have not found life to be good?" asked Bertlef. Jakub tried to be precise, and said cautiously: "All I know is that I could never say with complete conviction: Man is a wonderful being and I want to reproduce him.

Human beings were not designed to abort children. They were designed to fulfill a desire to give birth; therefore, the damage which abortion does cannot be repaired by psychological or psychiatric measures (although these measures can help) but by God Himself. Only He can repair the damage to the sacred sanctuary where He encounters the creature of His desire. The healing of abortion grief comes when there is an encounter between the sinner and God. When this reconciliation is facilitated then solidarity with God and neighbor (including the aborted infant) is reestablished and reintegration into the human and heavenly family is achieved.

I like to believe that all the babies whom died in the womb are with mothers who died giving birth. There's a sentimental notion about this kind of perspective - a feeling of peace admist deep grief.

The common pro-choice refrain was “most women feel relief “—and nothing else—and pro-choice advocates rejected the idea of a “postabortion syndrome” (characterized by stress, anxiety, and depression) that had been coined by pro-life organizations. It was assumed that anyone who talked about abortion feelings, especially difficult ones like sadness or grief, had been bamboozled by pro-life extremists.

In Gethsemane, Jesus experienced the pains of a person dying of cancer. He experienced what it is like to be a queer kid who is constantly bullied. He experienced the birthing pains of every mother who ever lived or would live. He experienced the embarrassment of a gay boy having an erection at the sight of his school crush in the locker room. He experienced conversion therapy. He experienced rejection. He experienced the brutal physical and psychological attacks that trans women endure. He experienced the acid poured on a woman’s face for her defiance to the patriarchs. He experienced the fear, grief, and sorrow of every parent who has buried their child. He experienced sex slavery. He experienced his first period. He experienced menstruation, not simply from a vagina but from every pore of his body. He experienced rape. He experienced catcalls. He experienced hunger. He experienced disease. He experienced an ectopic pregnancy. He experienced an abortion. He experienced a miscarriage and stillbirth. He experienced the Holocaust. He experienced war – both the killing and being killed. He experienced internment camps. He experienced depression, anxiety, and suicide. He experienced sleeping on the street with the homeless. He experienced the slave master’s whip on his back and the noose around his neck. He knew the fear of every black mother who kissed her son before he left the house, praying he would return home safely. He experienced the effects of unrighteous dominion, corrupt politicians, and all manner of injustice. He experienced the migrant mother with no food or diapers for her baby as she desperately walked north in search of a better life. He experienced having his child taken away from him at the border due to “legal complications.” He experienced it all – every death, every cut, every tear, every pain, every sorrow, every bit of suffering imaginable and beyond imagination. He experienced an onslaught of suffering, which was so great that it took a god to bear it. He experienced death and came through the other side to show us the way.