“Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the magi.
Then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “A voice was heard in Ramah, Weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; And she refused to be comforted, Because they were no more.” (Matthew 2:16-18).
Part One of this three-part series on Post Abortion Stress for Abortion Recovery Awareness Month, posted yesterday (4/16/13), we focused on how Post Abortion Stress hurts women who have had abortions. We looked at PAS symptoms, the hope and help for healing, and how to find help, along with providing helpful links.
While the greatest damage from PAS is to the women who have had abortions, terrible damage can also be done to the many others who participated in any way in those abortions, including:
--Husbands, boyfriends, friends, fathers, mothers, siblings of the
aborting mother, siblings of the children aborted, and other family members;
--School, church or other teachers, counselors, coaches and staff
members who helped the mother get the abortion, including those who paid for
the abortion;
--Anyone who in any way forced the mother to abort their child;
--Anyone who may have tried to talk the mother out of the abortion and
“failed”;
--Abortion clinic or hospital doctors, nurses and other staff who
performed or participated by work and by presence in aborting the mother’s
unborn child;
--All kinds of people who were in any way involved in a mother’s
abortion.
Abortion participants don’t experience all of the symptoms
the aborting mothers have to deal with, but they can face many of them,
including in particular survivor guilt. This is known as Post Abortion Survivor
Syndrome (PASS). According to one website, psychiatry distinguishes ten kinds
of abortion survivors:
1. Statistical survivors in a country where they legally
should have been aborted.
2. Those who have survived the advice to abort.
3. Sibling survivors.
4. Those whose parents told them they should have aborted
them.
5. Disabled survivors.
6. The survivors after the abortion of one or more siblings,
as in test tube fertilization with embryo transfer.
7. Abortion procedure survivors
8. Dead survivors, born after aborted siblings to briefly
survive abortions but then die, scarring their abortive mothers and abortion
participants.
9. Survivors by circumstances that did not allow them to be
aborted.
10. Survivors because of parents who waited too long and
lost the chance to abort them.
I am a sibling survivor. In 1999 my mother told me that she
had aborted a sibling not many years after I was born. I am also a survivor by
circumstance. An abortion was not easy to come by in the 1950’s, even in New
York City, and my father was Roman Catholic. Otherwise, as I found out from
family members, I would have been aborted myself.
My sibling was not born into circumstances that would insure
his or her survival, so my sibling was aborted. Since 1999, I have had to live
with the death of a sibling at the hands of my own mother, our mother.
Even though there was absolutely nothing I could have done
to prevent the abortion, even though I didn’t even know about it, I still felt
guilty that I was not able to stop my mother from aborting my sibling.
Also, I missed my sibling and felt robbed of the life I
could have had with my sister or brother. Indeed, I still miss my sibling and
grieve the loss of the brother or sister I was never allowed to meet or get to
know.
The next few years were difficult due to PTSD brought to the
surface in part by 9/11, as the terrorist attacks were only miles away from
where I was born. Over the years I was getting the help I needed. But only in
the last few weeks have I realized that part of what I was living with was Post
Abortion Survivor Syndrome. My involvement in the pro-life movement is helping me cope
as I help others.
But sadly, I am not alone in my struggle with PASS.
Kevin from California prodded his girlfriend into getting an
abortion and spent years with increasing regret and often thinking about his long-gone
girlfriend and his aborted daughter. Years later, through social media, they
helped each other find forgiveness and healing, but they still grieve the loss of
their daughter.
Lara in Alberta, Canada, chose not to have an abortion but
did not try to talk her sister out of having one. She still regrets this
decision but is finding healing through pro-life involvement.
Susan from Missouri tried unsuccessfully to talk her friend
out of having an abortion, and she has turned to God for help in overcoming her
grief.
The stories of Kevin, Lara, Susan and many others can be
found through the testimony directory at Silent No More Awareness:
PASS has many of the same or similar symptoms as PAS.
According to Dr. Philip Ney, who first uncovered and wrote about PASS in 1979:
“Other symptoms include pervasive anxiety, fear of the future, sense of impending doom, self injury, obsessive thinking, poor self identity, low self esteem, self destructive behavior, fear of becoming psychotic and dissociation.”
Abortion survivors have very similar symptoms to those survive military combat zones, only sometimes worse. This is not surprising, since they have just survived a different type of combat zone. Rather than a war zone in which people survive guns and bombs, the abortion survivor has survived the weapons of abortion, in the combat zone of his or her own family, in a society that has become a culture of death.
Conservatively, 40 to 50 percent of the world’s population are sibling abortion survivors. Approximately 50% of young North Americans are sibling abortion survivors. Including other abortion survivors besides siblings, it is clear that well over half of the population of North America and of the world are abortion survivors.
http://www.lifeissues.org/PAS/index.html
There is a good possibility that you are an abortion survivor. If not, you probably know somebody who is an abortion survivor.
If you are an abortion survivor, or know someone who is, please look at the previous blog entry “Post Abortion Stress and Post Abortive Women: Abortion Recovery Awareness Month, Part One”. Check the symptoms of PAS, along with the symptoms of PASS mentioned earlier in this post. Follow the links and find help for recovery, whether for yourself or an abortion survivor you know. Choose a path of healing and work hard at it, for there is healing through the hurt.
Here is another Silent No More Awareness link, to help you find abortion after care programs in your area:
http://www.silentnomoreawareness.org/search/index.aspx
Abortion survivors mourn and weep for the children along with the mothers who aborted them. Though the aborted children were not their children, their pain may be great and they may refuse in their grief and guilt to be comforted.
Thus says the Lord, “A voice
is heard in Ramah, Lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children; She refuses to be
comforted for her children,
Because they are no more.” (Matthew 2:18, Jeremiah 31:15).
“Thus says the Lord, “Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears; For your work will be rewarded,” declares the Lord, “And they will return from the land of the enemy. “There is hope for your future,” declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 31:16, 17).
