I don’t doubt some women do feel intense pain and distress after getting an abortion, just as surely as some murderers in prison repent and feel grief when contemplating their crimes. That doesn’t make either of them a “victim” of their own crimes. They’re not victims, they’re just people with minimally well-formed consciences and functioning memories who are guilty of the heinous sin of murder. People don’t stop being moral agents just because they don’t possess a Y chromosome.
Men and women are both, often, victims of abortion.
Today’s society has told them “abortion is a right”. To fall into belief that it is true - a person is a victim of the false teaching of society.
Sometimes misguided friends, family, the baby’s father - think it will be best for the mother based on society’s false teaching that abortion is an answer. This misinformed person has become a “victim” of the false teaching of society. They really think they are helping the mother. The mother becomes a victim.
Religious groups (many Protestant denominations) tell their members it is a decision between the mother and God and support her destroying her child. The members of that denomination who believe abortion is okay - are victims of false teachings under the name of God and religion.
The scared, frightened, young mother who looks with frantic about how she will face her family, or finish school, or feed her child - is a victim of our society who tells her that aborting the baby will “cure” her problem. We need to be ever ready to assist mothers and fathers to let them know there are pregnancy centers who can help find the solutions - encouragement that she does not need to abort, that there is another choice - life.
The mother who is forced by the father or her parents to abort - is a victim of the power the person places over her. The incest victim becomes victimized again when forced to abort her child to cover up their crime against her of incest.
The mother who conceived her child through rape is told she should abort the “monster’s baby”. Many good and loving, pro-life people will fall for this false teaching. Mothers often need more counseling for the trauma they suffer from aborting their child than for the trauma they suffered from the rapist. They were over powered by and harmed by the rapist. Then the mother realizes she over powered her innocent child and harmed her baby through abortion. Those who accept that mothers of children conceived through rape should abort their children - are victims of our society’s false teaching.
The mother at the abortion clinic who is told this is not a baby, just a blob of tissue - is a victim of the abortion industry.
The mother who is told by her doctor that her baby will die and so will she - who aborts with sorrow in her heart because she was told she “had to abort” by someone she trusted - her doctor - is a victim.
The abortion clinic workers who truly think they are helping mothers - are victims of the evils of abortion and society’s false teaching.
The frightened mother wanting desperately to leave the abortion table, but who feels over powered by the coldness, cruelness of the abortionist - is a victim of the abortionist.
When a post-abortive woman hears someone speak about mothers who abort with harsh words -murderer, etc., they often will despise themselves even more. They fear others will find out their horrible secret. The pain they place upon themselves is far more than any words someone might call them. Abortion is evil and evil is happy to have as many victims as possible.
We all need to be ready to help post-abortive parents find help through programs such as Project Rachel, a confidential healing program which is offered in many dioceses or other programs and websites.
When a mother goes into the abortion clinic - one heart stops and the other heart breaks. Both are victims. I believe the sweet child from Heaven prays for the conversion of her mother’s and father’s hearts and for the healing of both parents.
May there be no more babies dying from abortion and no more mothers and fathers grieving for a lifetime from abortion.
