This week, in the midst of newly released undercover videos of Planned Parenthood, a friend reminded me of how the news is affecting people who’ve experienced abortion.
These videos show the terrible reality of what happens in abortion centers: preborn babies are crushed and torn apart and their body parts are harvested. These videos are hard enough for me to watch. I can’t imagine how difficult they must be for women and men whose babies were aborted.
Karen Perez, who had an abortion just after she was married, told a Texas news channel that the past few weeks have been very difficult for her as she watched the Planned Parenthood scandal unfold.
“These videos are just opening up a lot of memories for a lot of women. For me, it’s memories that I never imagined I’d see,” Perez said.
Perez said she originally believed the lie that her preborn baby wasn’t a baby yet.
“It was just a blob of tissue. And I believed that, I believed that it was just a blob of tissue,” Perez said, “until five years later when we had a child — we had three more children — and I saw the ultrasound, and I saw the little hands and the little feet.”
Today, Perez helps other women like herself find healing from the pain and regret of their abortions. Watch the full story here.
Theresa Burke, Ph.D., founder of the post-abortion healing ministry Rachel’s Vineyard, recently wrote a column in response to the horrific undercover videos, calling for our society to help families grieve the loss of their preborn babies to abortion.
“I know the women and men I serve never bargained for the assaultive flashbacks and nightmares they suffer as fragments of trauma shear into their consciousness,” Burke wrote. “The images that constitute their waking and sleeping hours are like fortress prisons of guarded depression, anxiety, avoidance, numbing behaviors, and grief. This is what I have witnessed from a lifetime of listening to stories of abortion from all over the world, as women and men, grandparents and siblings grieve the members of their family who are not here anymore.”
If you know someone who is hurting after an abortion, tell them about Rachel’s Vineyard, a confidential, caring post-abortion healing program for women and men. Learn more at RachelsVineyard.org.