Abortion worker regrets abortion: ‘My arms ached for the child I would never hold’
Laurie Duffield helped commit abortions. She never had any moral qualms about her job. She felt pity for the women coming in for abortions, but never saw herself in their shoes. But then she had an abortion herself, and everything changed. Duffield writes:
Having worked for a physician for 14 years who performed abortions, I looked at these girls with pity, thinking I’d never be one of them. Now I was standing in their shoes. The short-term effect of my abortion experience was far more devastating than I anticipated. I bought the lie that says once the “procedure” is done, all would be back to normal. Instead, I felt an overwhelming sense of loss. My arms ached for the child I would never hold. I kept focusing on the remains of my child and remembering the tissue results on the pathology report reading “Products of Conception.” It had always been another woman’s problem. Now it was mine.
As the days became months, I thought time would heal my wound, my shame, but it didn’t.
She enrolled in a post-abortion healing program, and found some comfort in it:
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I confided in a friend who referred me to post-abortion program in 1994. Finally, my very controlled self lost control, and I wept for my loss and my family’s loss. Through the class, God’s word introduced me to my child. I was able to acknowledge my sin, to say hello to my daughter, and asked her to forgive me for what her father and I had done.
Feelings of depression, grief, and guilt after abortions are so common that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of post-abortion support groups in the United States and abroad. Silent No More, a pro-life group that encourages women to tell their abortion stories, has over 2,000 testimonies from women who regret their abortions.
Source: Wendy Williams, Ann Caldwell Empty Arms: More Than 60 Life-Giving Stories of Hope from the Devastation of Abortion (Chattanooga, Tennessee: Living Ink Books, 2005) 37 – 38
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