Post-Abortion Stories. The Hurt Never Goes Away. How Can Killing Your Child Ever Be Rationalized?

I cry tears of guilt over abortion I had 15 years ago

By BEL MOONEY

Last updated at 10:57 13 November 2007

Dear Bel,

I am nearly 42, married to a man I met when I was 15.

We have two wonderful daughters I totally love.

Both are happy ? one is going to university, one has bought a house with her boyfriend.

I have a mum and dad who adore me; we have a nice life, go on lovely holidays etc.

So why, on a Saturday night, am I writing an e-mail to a total stranger?

Maybe I want someone to tell me we all make mistakes ? but mine has lasted 15 years...

On the January 28, 1992, I had an abortion and since that day I have been on a mission of selfdestruction. I had just gone back to work when I found out I was pregnant again and knew we couldn't cope.

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Bel Mooney gives advice on abortion

So I went to the doctors then the hospital and sorted 'it' out. After that, I came home and my life utterly went downhill.

I have constantly put my husband through hell with stuff that I have done, and yet each time he forgives me and tells me he loves me.

How can he, with what I have done? Even after all this time, every September (when the child would have been born) I go into such a depression.

I killed my child, my daughters' sibling, my mum and dad's grandchild. Who truly would ever forgive me?

I am not a bad person, just one who made such a catastrophic mistake ? which has affected every single day of my life since January 1992.

Sitting here, with tears running down my face, I just wish someone would tell me I am not the horrible person I think I am.

Forgive me for boring you when so many people are suffering.

The debate about abortion has been in the headlines again; the issue will never go away.

Yet the rights and wrongs of motives and of time limits do not concern me here.

Your letter is about grief and guilt; you have written hoping to find some healing.

But I also have two other letters on my desk, written from different circumstances yet both full of an anguish you would understand.

This suffering is far from 'boring', it is all too real.

Estelle, 31, writes that her fiveyear love affair broke up and, devastated, she too began to act selfdestructively.

Ten months ago she started a relationship with a 26- year-old guy who dumped her cruelly when she fell pregnant.

She could not face being 'a single mother in a small market town' so took the 'abortion pill' at six weeks. Now she is very unhappy: "My question to you is, how can I ever get over this and reconcile myself to what I did? ? I fear this will haunt me for ever and the pain will never diminish."

Estelle fears she will not find a man to settle down with and have children, but Caroline writes to me from the perspective of a mother of two (16 and seven) who became pregnant at 41.

Against abortion, she continued with the unwanted pregnancy, which then became very much wanted.

But a scan put her 'in a high risk category for having a baby with Down's Syndrome' and so she elected to have an invasive test, knowing there was a tiny chance of miscarriage.

All was well; she learnt she was carrying a boy; but five weeks later she began to bleed and 'a scan revealed the baby had died in the womb'.

Caroline was devastated, and still is. "Three years on I am still grieving ? if only I had not decided on the test, to put my pregnancy at risk ? I know I don't deserve any sympathy because I made the decision ? I know I am paying the price for my selfishness, but I so want to be happy again.

"My life is ruined and I'm scared I'm ruining everyone's life around me."

Three very different stories, yet each with terrible remorse and unresolved mourning at its core.

Each of you takes full responsibility for the 'wrong' decision. Caroline is finding family life as difficult as you are, Katie, whilst Estelle despairs of ever achieving a stable family life at all.

In each case the loss of an unborn child has become the invisible cloud which blocks out the sun, or a granite weight on the soul.

I cannot answer this without being personal and honest. At the end of 1980 I had a (very early) termination, for medical reasons and also because I was the mother of an 11-month-old baby who needed constant hospital treatment.

I felt no guilt; I agreed with my doctor (and husband) that it was the right thing to do.

In 1975, I'd had a stillborn son ? a sorrow I carry until this day, and November 26 would have been his 32nd birthday. Two years after my abortion, I was pregnant again, and miscarried.

I'm telling you all this so that you ? and Estelle and Caroline ? know that I do not write from some safe, lofty distance.

I understand the anguish of these decisions, the memory of which never goes away.

Pain is one thing: part of the human condition.

Yet the kind of guilt which corrodes the edges of life, damaging all other relationships ? no, that we must deal with.

You, Katie, are hurting yourself and your husband every day ? and Caroline is the same.

You each say you are a terrible person, when you are not.

Estelle is talking herself into such a pattern of negative guilt she is likely to infect future relationships before they begin.

Somehow or other, the little ghosts must be laid to rest, given the peace they require, in order that their mothers can go on with life.

There is a whole passage about this in my last novel The Invasion Of Sand, invoking an aboriginal belief that the dead have to be set free, in order for the living to begin life afresh.

We cannot cling on to them.

They need to be released. What can I do but confide something which gave me the deepest consolation? Who knows what might help you when nothing has up to this day? This goes beyond mere reason.

In some parts of Africa and Australia there are similar tribal beliefs in the idea of the Spirit Child.

It's as if each unborn baby is a soul plucked from the universe, to inhabit the body of a woman.

In some cases that baby is not meant to be born, and so, if something goes wrong, the baby's soul just goes back to the earth, the water, the air, the fire.

And then the spirit child waits peacefully for the right time ? when it will be born properly. Another mother, another life.

This is what I would do, if I were your best friend. I would go and buy a very pretty little painted box, and invite you to write down the name you would have called the baby on a piece of paper, putting it in the box, perhaps with some flowers too.

Then I would suggest you light two candles, one each side, and tell the baby what you felt ? using Christian prayers too, if you wish ? and say a heartfelt goodbye.

Then take the box and bury or burn it somewhere beautiful, blessing the small soul as it goes on its journey.

And after this ritual I would ask you to turn your face towards the light and live at peace with yourself, as your baby would wish.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-491425/I-tears-guilt-abortion-I-15-years-ago.html#ixzz32CZSPyzD
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