Jivin J’s Life Links 5-3-11
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
- At the New York Daily News, Kassi Underwood (pictured below left) writes about her post-abortion experience:
At first, I sought refuge in the pro-choice movement. In finding a community, I was coping. Our communication, however, sounded a little more like war rhetoric than sharing in a common bond. I heard myself sounding like a bumper sticker. “Fight for choice!” I hollered, as if war has ever been the answer…. Pro-lifers have long hyped “post-abortion syndrome,” a condition the American Psychological Association continues to refute. As recently as January, a Danish research team reconfirmed that there is no evidence of an increased rate of mental illness after the procedure.
- But 3 years after my abortion, I started having nightmares about babies. Awake, I missed my potential child. It was bewildering that I could feel so mournful about a decision that was supposed to buttress the architecture of my identity.
- A MN a truck driver has been indicted for the deaths of 2 women and an 8-week unborn child after he drove into the backs of cars stopped by traffic on the freeway:Prosecutors disclosed Monday that the trucker was reaching down to his cab floor for an energy drink and when he looked up, he saw traffic had stopped for construction and couldn’t brake in time.He also wasn’t wearing his corrective lenses, authorities said….
MN law recognizes the killing of a fetus at any stage of prenatal development as homicide. It does not address the controversial issue of when a fetus is capable of living outside the womb.
- Another man is on trial for allegedly attacking his pregnant girlfriend whose children he didn’t want to support:… [H]ad Shawn Walker-Johnson had his way, Julie Hardy would not be preparing to celebrate her first Mother’s Day on Sunday.What Walker-Johnson wanted, Asst. D.A. Priya DeSouza said in an opening statement in his trial on assault charges, was for Hardy, his girlfriend, to give up the twin boys she was pregnant with and which he was father to, either though adoption, abortion, or a forced miscarriage….
… [I]n a pre-trial hearing out of the jury’s presence, Hardy said that… just after she learned she was pregnant, Walker-Johnson virtually dragged her to the Planned Parenthood office in Coatesville to force her to get an abortion.
It felt traitorous to admit that, far from thinking I had expelled a “blob of cells,” I now wondered who that person I aborted would have been. Mental illness or not, having the blues seemed to insult my foremothers…. I shut up about my feelings because I valued my community, but my community was unsupportive – suspicious, even – of my gloom.
I then attended, of all things, a Catholic retreat called Rachel’s Vineyard, one of the few services for people who need to address their terminations. An alumna “leery of religious concepts” had reassured me with her fulsome brochure blurb, but at the retreat, politics again prevailed, this time from the other side.[Photo via shewrites.com]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Kassi,
I am so sorry to read that was your takeaway from a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat!! There is nothing in my manual that states anything of the sort! My experience and that of thousands of others who have attended would have me believe otherwise. It is scripture rich and spirit filled. One of the safest places I have ever been.
But Aspen is where you will get to define what your “baby” means to you, right? I mean if you don’t think of her as your baby then all is well. Totally and completely up to you of course regardless of the truth. She can be your nothing experience when the timing for her just wasn’t right for you.
@Carla – I checked out the pro-voice websites and it seems that all of the articles are written by women involved in the PC movement. I don’t see prolifers represented at all. After all, part of their message is that “abortion is normal.” Uh, okay. Once again, the message is: ITS ALL ABOUT ME!
Absolutely, phillymiss!!
If it makes you feel bad about yourself, it must be political, religious, right-wing, extremist, zealot, anti-feminism, angry white male rhetoric. It’s most definitely not that you’re feeling bad because you murdered your child, now is it. No, let’s continue to not address truth and reality and instead try to find feel-good philosophies that distort the truth and feed the me-me-me mentality, and postpone the day of truth, when all those sugar-coated philosophies you’ve built will crumble into dust.
Just curious about MN law – it’s homicide to “kill a fetus at any stage of development” so what convoluted gymnastics must be in place to allow abortion? Is not abortion the killing of a “fetus”?
I can only shake my head and pray, come quickly, Lord!
Just so you know Kassi is talking about Operation Outcry and the declarations one can CHOOSE to fill out about how abortion has hurt her. THAT is NOT the main focus of a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat!
http://www.operationoutcry.org/
At the end of the weekend many women want to know HOW to get more involved in the movement. Local Pregnancy Care Centers, speaking with Silent No More, local prolife chapters, Operation Outcry etc. We offer those resources.
I can’t help but wonder if abortion DIDN’T hurt Kassi then why attend a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat designed specifically for women wanting abortion recovery???? Perhaps to write an article about it?
Those nightmares don’t go away be pretending you don’t have them every night.
If it makes you feel bad about yourself, it must be political, religious, right-wing, extremist, zealot, anti-feminism, angry white male rhetoric.
Yes, everyone who has posted on this thread so far is definitely an angry white male!
Jen, I think that Kassi wanted to be told that even though her abortion was painful, it was “normal” and in the end it was the right thing for her. The baby’s life doesn’t really matter, it’s how YOU feel about terminating it.
That article about the potential forced abortion is practically in my backyard! How did I miss this on my local news? But of course abortion is all about women be empowered! Men don’t use it to get out of their responsibilities and keep using women as sex toys. Never.