The lives that are really at stake in our nation’s battle over abortion

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this guest post are solely those of the guest author. Live Action News has made minor edits for clarity.

It’s hard to take seriously much of what Vice President Kamala Harris says, especially when it comes to “reproductive health.” As a woman who has been at the forefront of the issue for decades, it amazes me how little people truly know — and the bias and lies of the media.

In her recent interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” VP Harris claimed that clinics across the country are closing because of ‘bans’ on abortion, leaving women without health care access for Pap smears, cancer screening and HIV screening. It does not take much effort to conclude that if these facilities are closing due to ‘abortion bans,’ then abortion had to be their primary money-making business — and we all know all those legitimate screenings can be obtained at real health care facilities. Abortion is not health care – it is the killing of an unborn baby in the womb.

As someone who experienced a coerced abortion myself over 50 years ago and is still suffering from its consequences, I get pretty tired of hearing the mantra that claims the denial of abortion hurts women, while there is a continued denial of the pain that countless numbers of us experience because of abortion.

As the director of Lumina, a healing ministry for those impacted by abortion, and co-developer of Entering Canaan, I have met thousands of women over the years whose lives have not gone back to “normal” as promised by the pro-abortion advocates. Instead, they find their lives never the same — suffering from a gamut of symptoms, from depression and anxiety to nightmares, unresolved grief, shame, and guilt (to name just a few).

 Most of these women live in silent suffering, afraid to let others know because of fear of judgment or feeling crazy because they do not feel the relief they were told to expect after their abortions.

READ: Church realizes through tragic circumstance the importance of post-abortion ministry

Many of them also suffer in their marriages because they find intimacy difficult, and other living children often feel guilty for being alive when learning of a sibling’s death by abortion. They sometimes wonder, “Would my name be the same if that baby was born?”,” Would I even be here?”, “Was I wanted?” The damage is deep, and yet we hear not a word from abortion advocates or the media.

In the same interview, “reproductive rights” advocate and sexual abuse survivor Hadley Duvall, whose abuse by her stepfather caused her to become pregnant and then miscarry, tells us that women who are of reproductive age have their lives at stake during this election. Duvall is campaigning with Jill Biden, and claims she “needed” abortion. She would feel differently if she ever had one, and was dealing with both the trauma of the abuse and the abortion.

How did we come to this? From ‘safe’ and ‘rare’ to questioning our ability to exist without abortion, as if our lives are not worth anything if we cannot kill our unborn children?  

What Duvall fails to mention are those who like her are sexually abused and brought for abortion without any intervention — allowing the abuse to continue, sometimes for years. Or those who are trafficked and taken for abortions, freeing their predators to continue the abuse.

When I had my abortion, it was pre-Roe v. Wade; abortion was legal in New York, much like the situation we find ourselves in now after Roe‘s reversal. The overturning of Roe did not make abortion illegal; it gave it back to the states to decide. In fact, in the two years since the reversal of Roe, abortions have increased. 

The Guttmacher Institute reported 1,037,000 abortions in 2023, the highest they have been in 10 years, and with the increase of at-home chemical abortion and the lack of reporting in some states, we can safely assume the number is even higher.

We have a very wounded world on both sides of the issue, and the voices missing from the debate are theirs. As we battle over the legality of abortion in our streets, we are stepping over the countless numbers of people lying there, bleeding emotionally, psychologically, and sometimes physically from abortion’s aftermath. Until we can heal our nation, neither side is going to win. Millions more babies will die, and women will be exploited and injured. I’d say those are the real lives that are at stake.

Bio: Theresa Bonopartis is Director of Lumina/Hope & Healing After Abortion and Co-developer of Entering Canaan.

The DOJ put a pro-life grandmother in jail for protesting the killing of preborn children. Please take 30-seconds to TELL CONGRESS: STOP THE DOJ FROM TARGETING PRO-LIFE AMERICANS.