I received a call from a father struggling to know how to help his daughter Gina.
"What's the problem?" I asked. "Well," he stammered, "my daughter, Gina, is dating this guy who is verbally and physically abusive. He is ruining her life."
His tone changed to a hushed whisper as he said, "I love her so much but I'm losing her." He was silent for a moment, then his voice cracked as he pleaded, "Please, can you do something? Can you help her see what a creep he is? Gina won't listen to me anymore."
I informed Mr. Davis I couldn't break them up, but I could help Gina examine her relationship and sort out her feelings about this man. Then I asked if anything else had happened between Gina and her boyfriend. Mr. Davis hesitated: The question itself was a threat.
Finally he answered, "Well, there is something but it should really come from her. I think she should be the one to tell you. After all, it's her life and I don't want her to think I was talking behind her back."
"Did your daughter have an abortion?" I asked in a matter-of-fact tone.
The word was said: Abortion.
It was met with silence.
[Click here to subscribe to Pregnancy Help News!]
I met his daughter that night. Gina was 20, with long blond hair and sad blue eyes.
Regarding the abortion, she explained, "My dad made me have it. He told me I could not live with them if I didn't. He knew it might make me hate him but he was willing to take that risk. 'You'll get over it,' he said.”
Gina told me she was not raised to believe in “choice.” In high school she wrote a pro-life paper and a year later found herself aborting her child. Her eyes welled with tears as she confided that she had never told anyone about the abortion she had as a freshman in college.
The memory surfaced like a tidal wave of grief, her story coming out in between sobs and gasps for air: "I came home from college on a Friday to tell them about the pregnancy and what we were planning to do. My dad hit the roof. He wanted to know what he ever did to deserve this. Dad took my boyfriend into the kitchen to have a man-to-man talk. They would not let me in. Dad tried to pressure him to convince me that abortion was the best thing."
With much difficulty, she continued her story:
"Two days later I was up on a table, my feet in stirrups. I cried the whole way there. My mom took me. I kept telling her I did not want this: 'Please, no! Don't make me do this, don't make me do this.' No one listened.
“When a counselor asked me if I was sure, I shrugged my shoulders. I could hardly speak. They did it: They killed my baby."
Overcome with heartache, Gina began to moan. Bent over, embracing her womb, she couldn't believe she had actually had an abortion.
After a long, tearful pause, Gina continued:
"Just as quickly as it had happened, everyone seemed to forget about it. My parents never talked about it. They were furious when they found out I was still seeing Joe. They never let up on their negative comments about him. Things were not so good between Joe and me either. We were always fighting. I was so depressed and did not know how to handle my feelings. I was too ashamed to talk about the abortion with my friends and my parents made me promise not to tell anyone."
Now, a year or so after the abortion, it was important that her parents enter the therapy process with Gina in order to validate her loss and accept their responsibility. I knew both parents would attempt to justify and defend their actions as they struggled with their daughter's experience.
This resistance or inability to confront and admit emotional or spiritual pain is called denial. In this phase of treatment, denial is a powerful temptation.
Gina's mom came first.
She listened to her daughter and expressed sorrow. The pained expression on the mother’s face persisted along with the inevitable “But.”
"I know you are hurting but we thought we were doing the best thing,” she said during our session. “I realize this is hard but you must get on with your life. You wanted the baby but how would you ever pay for it? But how would you finish school?"
They could not accept the pregnancy when it happened and now they couldn't accept her grief. She felt utterly rejected by them.
Gina told me her father had no idea what she had gone through after the abortion, how much she had sacrificed in order to please him. It was important for her to tell him, so Mr. Davis was invited for a session.
The night before our meeting he called me.
"My stomach has been upset all week since I heard about this meeting," said the concerned father. "I want to do what is best for Gina.”
Then his tone became more formal and forceful:
"I just want you to know that this is not a moral issue to me. Gina had to have that abortion! I still think we made the right decision. If I had it to do again, I would choose the same thing. I know this is not what she wants to hear. Should I lie about it to make her feel better? Is that what I should do? Tell her I made a mistake? I cannot do that!"
I explained, "Mr. Davis, I know you love your daughter very much. I know that she loves you or she never would have consented to have an abortion. The fact remains that your daughter lost something. What she lost was a child. Her baby, your grandchild.
"Gina thinks about it every day. She cries about it every night. The event is far from over for her. You need to hear how the abortion has affected her."
He didn’t respond.
I continued: "When someone dies, the worst thing someone can say is 'It was for the best; it's better this way.' This does nothing to comfort and console. It only makes the person angry because you are not appreciating the loss or grief that is being experienced. Worse for Gina is that you do not recognize the life that she is missing. Gina misses her baby, a child you have not been able to acknowledge."
Eventually Mr. Davis agreed he would try to listen and that maybe he had something to learn. I really couldn't hope for more than that sliver of an open door.
When Mr. Davis came in the next morning he made a surprising statement: "I had no right to make that choice."
He had wrestled with various points in our conversation all night and came to a realization that he was able to admit for the first time: The abortion had not been Gina's choice.
The session was very intense.
Gina expressed feelings of anger, hurt and rejection. She also shared her grief about her aborted baby.
It was the first time her parents listened without defending or rationalizing what had happened.
Gina took personal responsibility for having allowed the abortion to occur and asked her parents to do the same. Therapy helped these parents begin to see how they had forced Gina to choose between them and the baby
His voice broke with anguish as Mr. Davis cried, "Oh, my baby, my sweet baby, my Gina. I am so sorry. I was so wrong."
He pressed his face against her cheek and the tears finally came. They both wept, clenched in a tight embrace.
All the anger, bitterness, pent-up emotions and grief gave way. He begged Gina for forgiveness and told her she would have been an incredible mother.
In one beautiful moment her motherhood had been validated and Gina wept with relief.
Editor's note: April is Abortion Recovery Awareness Month. This Pregnancy Help News guest column is an excerpt from Forbidden Grief: The Unspoken Pain of Abortion, by Theresa Burke with David Reardon. Theresa Burke, Ph.D., is the founder of Rachel’s Vineyard and a pastoral associate of Priests for Life. She is the co-author of Forbidden Grief and Rivers of Blood, Oceans of Mercy. Heartbeat International manages Pregnancy Help News. Abortion recovery resources are available HERE.
