This post was written and initially shared on Facebook by Emily Sullivan, an Eastern PA Catholic Homeschoolers mom. Many thanks to Emily for allowing us to share her beautiful, poignant words.
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To all the women out there shouting your abortion, let me whisper some words of apology.
I'm sorry that I wasn't there as a friend when you took the pregnancy test to tell you that your life wouldn't be over if you choose life for your baby. I'm sorry that someone along the way told you the lie that the little person growing inside of you with a beating heart, hair on their tiny head, and unique finger prints, who was already swallowing and kicking was just a "clump of cells. "
I'm sorry that so many of you will for years be haunted by the regret and depression that characterizes Post Abortion Syndrome, more widely acknowledged by psychologists in the UK & Australia then here. I've lost a baby and know very acutely the sense of sadness and longing for my child that I never got to hold. It is always a horror when your womb becomes a coffin.
I'm sorry for any man who has loved getting access to your body, but has resented the way your body works. "I love your body....except when it creates a new life.....then, not so much." You deserved a man who truly cherishes all of you, including your ability to create and nurture a child whose life can then bless the world with their gifts and talents. I'm sorry we act like a crisis pregnancy is all the women's fault with no thought to the man's responsibilities. I'm sorry that fathers don't tell their daughters that they are irreplaceable and precious, that more men prey on women then protect them and that we've come to think that sex can ever be safe and casual. It is many things but "safe" it is not.
I'm so sorry young women and old women, conservative women and liberal women, religious women, smart women, women in dingy apartments and women in palatial high rises, women who can barely read and women with PhDs, women on welfare and women well off.... I'm sorry that we live in a culture that so often degrades your dignity and the dignity of tiny babies who had no say in how or by whom they were conceived.
I wish I could tell all of you I'm sorry for the world we live in where "porn is the norm" and motherhood is seen as a threat to your identity, your ambitions your value as a member of society rather then as a gift that can transform your life for the better and blesses your life with love and joy. No one on their death bed regrets having a son or daughter who hand they can hold as they depart this fleeting life.
I'm so terribly sorry. But most of all I'm sorry I wasn't standing with my husband and little girls right before you walked into the clinic with a sign...a sign that said "Do you need a family right now? Come live in our home and if you don't want your baby, we do! We want them in our lives to love and nurture and if you don't want a baby right now to enrich your life, we want them to enrich ours!"
I'm sorry I wasn't there as a sister on that Saturday morning or Tuesday evening and I'm sorry the millions of my friends in the pro-life movement weren't there for you as well, on that day and for years afterwards with kind words and encouragement and resources and welcoming homes and food and everything else that would have made it safe to make a difference decision for you and your child.
For all of this and so much more, my most heartfelt apologies.
In Sincerity and solidarity as a woman,
Emily Sullivan
#ShoutYourAbortion
#ShoutBackSomeLove
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