Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards, in a recent Time article, said it’s time to talk about abortion.

We agree. Let’s talk.

In fact, the pro-life movement has been talking about abortion since before Roe v. Wade, all the time inviting the American public to talk about it with us.

The ironic fact is that Ms. Richards and the rest of the abortion lobby have spent the last 40-plus years not wanting to talk about abortion.  They have not wanted to describe it, look at it, or even mention the word. They have spoken about reproductive rights, privacy, and choice, but not about abortion.

Actually, in spite of what Ms. Richards writes, they still don’t really want to talk about abortion itself.

For instance, have any of Cecile Richards’s speeches or comments described an abortion procedure? Has she explained the commonly used D&E procedure by quoting Warren Hern’s textbook Abortion Practice, where he describes it as dismemberment and decapitation?  No, she hasn’t.

Not only do abortion supporters still not want to talk about the procedure itself, they also still don’t want to talk about the target of abortion.

Kansas recently enacted a law protecting unborn children from dismemberment abortion. In the Senate debate, the only two Senators to speak up against the measure were Marci Francisco (D-Lawrence) and David Haley (D-Kansas City).  One might think they rose to speak about the law being debated, and what it would prohibit. But neither spoke about the actual activity the law would prohibit. Not a word.

So again, “pro-choicers” pretend to talk about abortion, but don’t.

Unless we start the dialogue on abortion by talking about abortion itself, we are only having a pretend discussion.  The national debate not only will never be resolved, it won’t even begin.

Talking also involves listening, and the experiences of those who have lost children to abortion deserve an attentive hearing. The voices of the women, men, siblings and others who are part of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign are more and more widespread across America and around the world. Alveda King is a spokeswoman for the Campaign, and she talks about abortion wherever she goes.

“We have been fueled by the fire of ‘women’s rights,’ so long that we have become deaf to the outcry of the real victims whose rights are being trampled upon — the babies and the mothers,” Dr. King said. “A mother has a right to know the serious consequences and repercussions of making a decision to abort her child. Then too, what about the rights of each baby who is artificially breached before coming to term in his or her mother’s womb, only to have her skull punctured, and feel the life run out of her before she takes her first breath of freedom?”

That might be too much truth to bear for abortion supporters and profiteers. In her article, Ms. Richards mentioned that the rapper Nikki Minaj recently spoke out about her abortion as a teenager, but Ms. Richards decided not to include all of what the “pro-choice” recording artist said. Here’s a reminder.

“It was the hardest thing I have ever gone through,” Ms.  Minaj stated. “It has haunted me all my life.”

She is not alone in her thoughts.

The actress Ellen Burstyn: “I think it’s a very traumatic experience, not necessarily at the time, but later. It doesn’t go away,” and “I don’t recommend abortion to anybody, I don’t think it’s a good thing to do.”

Stephen Tyler, on watching the second-trimester saline abortion of his son with then-fiancee Julia Holcomb, who is now part of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, stated, “It was a big crisis. It’s a major thing when you’re growing something with a woman, but they convinced us that it would never work out and would ruin our lives. . . . You go to the doctor and they put the needle in her belly and they squeeze the stuff in and you watch. And it comes out dead. I was pretty devastated. In my mind, I’m going, Jesus, what have I done?”

Stevie Nicks said this about her four abortions: “To give up four babies is to give up a lot that would be here now. So that bothers me, a lot, and really breaks my heart.”

Sharon Osbourne said, “I had an abortion at 17 and it was the worst thing I ever did . . . I would never recommend it to anyone because it comes back to haunt you. When I tried to have children, I lost three — I think it was because something had happened to my cervix during the abortion.”

So yes, we need to talk.  We need a dialogue – the kind that tells the truth about what abortion is and what it does.

Cecile, are you ready?

Father Frank Pavone is the National Director of Priests for Life.

Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards, in a recent Time article, said it’s time to talk about abortion.

We agree. Let’s talk.

In fact, the pro-life movement has been talking about abortion since before Roe v. Wade, all the time inviting the American public to talk about it with us.

The ironic fact is that Ms. Richards and the rest of the abortion lobby have spent the last 40-plus years not wanting to talk about abortion.  They have not wanted to describe it, look at it, or even mention the word. They have spoken about reproductive rights, privacy, and choice, but not about abortion.

Actually, in spite of what Ms. Richards writes, they still don’t really want to talk about abortion itself.

For instance, have any of Cecile Richards’s speeches or comments described an abortion procedure? Has she explained the commonly used D&E procedure by quoting Warren Hern’s textbook Abortion Practice, where he describes it as dismemberment and decapitation?  No, she hasn’t.

Not only do abortion supporters still not want to talk about the procedure itself, they also still don’t want to talk about the target of abortion.

Kansas recently enacted a law protecting unborn children from dismemberment abortion. In the Senate debate, the only two Senators to speak up against the measure were Marci Francisco (D-Lawrence) and David Haley (D-Kansas City).  One might think they rose to speak about the law being debated, and what it would prohibit. But neither spoke about the actual activity the law would prohibit. Not a word.

So again, “pro-choicers” pretend to talk about abortion, but don’t.

Unless we start the dialogue on abortion by talking about abortion itself, we are only having a pretend discussion.  The national debate not only will never be resolved, it won’t even begin.

Talking also involves listening, and the experiences of those who have lost children to abortion deserve an attentive hearing. The voices of the women, men, siblings and others who are part of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign are more and more widespread across America and around the world. Alveda King is a spokeswoman for the Campaign, and she talks about abortion wherever she goes.

“We have been fueled by the fire of ‘women’s rights,’ so long that we have become deaf to the outcry of the real victims whose rights are being trampled upon — the babies and the mothers,” Dr. King said. “A mother has a right to know the serious consequences and repercussions of making a decision to abort her child. Then too, what about the rights of each baby who is artificially breached before coming to term in his or her mother’s womb, only to have her skull punctured, and feel the life run out of her before she takes her first breath of freedom?”

That might be too much truth to bear for abortion supporters and profiteers. In her article, Ms. Richards mentioned that the rapper Nikki Minaj recently spoke out about her abortion as a teenager, but Ms. Richards decided not to include all of what the “pro-choice” recording artist said. Here’s a reminder.

“It was the hardest thing I have ever gone through,” Ms.  Minaj stated. “It has haunted me all my life.”

She is not alone in her thoughts.

The actress Ellen Burstyn: “I think it’s a very traumatic experience, not necessarily at the time, but later. It doesn’t go away,” and “I don’t recommend abortion to anybody, I don’t think it’s a good thing to do.”

Stephen Tyler, on watching the second-trimester saline abortion of his son with then-fiancee Julia Holcomb, who is now part of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, stated, “It was a big crisis. It’s a major thing when you’re growing something with a woman, but they convinced us that it would never work out and would ruin our lives. . . . You go to the doctor and they put the needle in her belly and they squeeze the stuff in and you watch. And it comes out dead. I was pretty devastated. In my mind, I’m going, Jesus, what have I done?”

Stevie Nicks said this about her four abortions: “To give up four babies is to give up a lot that would be here now. So that bothers me, a lot, and really breaks my heart.”

Sharon Osbourne said, “I had an abortion at 17 and it was the worst thing I ever did . . . I would never recommend it to anyone because it comes back to haunt you. When I tried to have children, I lost three — I think it was because something had happened to my cervix during the abortion.”

So yes, we need to talk.  We need a dialogue – the kind that tells the truth about what abortion is and what it does.

Cecile, are you ready?

Father Frank Pavone is the National Director of Priests for Life.