The Real Losers: Women Who Sit in Silence

The buzz on the blogs is that the pro-choicers are losing the battle to the pro-lifers. Once again this confirms my mantra. In the midst of all the dialogue and political rheteroic and debate, women sit silent afraid to talk about their abortions.

The real people getting hurt, dismissed and minimized are the women who know the most about the issue. They sit silently with no where to go with their disenfranchised grief.

The blah blah continues while women cry in their closets. It is time to stop the debate for lets say two days or so and let women have their voices. Come on people! We can do better for our women. Pro-con...whatever... It's all a bunch of words to the woman who suffers in her disenfranchised grief bed.

Thirty Years of Tears

Just yesterday I had a woman on my couch (literally) who wept and wept about the abortion she had 30 years ago. She was only 16 at the time of the "vpt". She had never talked about the abortion, much less cried in front of anyone. This wasn’t anything about the legalities of abortion. This was one woman’s heart that needed to let out the grief she had felt so long.

We’ve taken the issue of “choice” off the streets and out of the back-alley. It is now time to let those who have made the choice grieve their loss without the spotlight of political or religious dialogue. Women who’ve made the choice shouldn’t have to risk rejection, condemnation, misunderstanding or disapproval just because at a later point in time they are searching for resolution to their loss.

April 19, 1985

She was sitting in the big granny rocker that's in the corner of my counseling room. I guessed her age to be 10 years younger than she actually was. She was delightful in demeanor but in her eyes were a sadness that compelled me to look closer.

I never cease to be amazed at women's stories. I am also reminded frequently at how many details of the "vpt" day that come to mind when "the story" gets told. She remembered "that day" very well. Her "vpt" day was April 19, 1985. She described the weather, the doctor's office, the doctor's face, the feel of her husband's hand as he stood beside her and squeezed it. Tears were flowing and her voice shook. So much emotion there that had never been expressed! Her tone turned to anger as she talked about the reasons why. It softened as she went into the "what-if's" and the "I wonders." "I wonder what my child would have looked like. Would it be a girl, one like my precious 25 year old daughter...the light of my life.?"

I could go on recounting the story. The important thing is that someone was there to hear her story. Someone was there to listen with compassion and hand her a kleenex to wipe the tear falling down her cheek. It is so good to tell our stories. This is the beginning of finding our way home ...to comfort and to peace. ~Selah.

Legal Right to Cry

I didn’t realize until I began studying grief in my chaplaincy program that there are several types of grief. What I was feeling and what other women with a history of “vpt” are experiencing is something called disenfranchised grief. The word disenfranchised means to “deprive of a legal right, or of some privilege or immunity.”[1]

Isn’t it interesting that we are given the right to legal termination of a pregnancy but we are not given the right to grieve the loss of the pregnancy when the time comes for us to do so. As someone who made a choice in a difficult situation, I know the pain of “not being allowed to grieve” my loss. The grief is there but we do not give ourselves permission to “go there.” Imagine that getting license to cry could actually be a privilege!

[1] Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary http://www.merriam-webster.com/