I didn't go to Austin, Texas because I am a political mover and shaker. When I found out I was making the trip all I knew was that I had very personal reasons for wanting House Bill 2 to pass, and nobody was more surprised to find herself in the overcrowded press room of Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst than I was.
The point of HB2 is to insure better health care for women seeking abortions. The bill, which does not remove a woman's right to choose abortion, does take into account the pain a fetus can suffer during an abortion beyond the 20th week of gestation(1) and it limits abortions to that time frame for humane reasons.
I went to Austin to tell my story so women who believe what I believed when I had my abortions can make a more informed decision. I want them to know what the abortion clinic doctors don't tell their patients and that the care I got was cruel, not kind or caring. Women deserve better.
I am a Christian, but even if I wasn't that would not change what I have to say about abortion. I am in the minority of women who choose on their own, without the influence of a friend, a parent, a boyfriend, a husband, or a sexual molester, to have an abortion. Literally 63% of women say they would not have had their abortion(2) if their boyfriend or husband had not threatened to leave them or if they had not been pushed, forced and even had their own lives threatened if they failed to do so. The truth is, abortion is far more often the "unchoice" than the "choice" prochoice advocates promote.
My question is this: Is the law that makes abortion legal really a law that is for women, or does it simplify things for the men who impregnated us? I want to add here that I am not a man hater or basher. I know many men who are deeply wounded by the abortions they were unable to prevent and many who suffer because they participated in or influenced the mother of their child to abort and later regretted it. I am saying that documented studies support the fact that most babies are aborted because someone other than the mother of the child wants the "problem" to go away.
I am grateful to Allen E. Parker of The Justice Foundation for helping to make this and other hidden facts about abortion known. He has collected the court-admissible testimonies of thousands of women who speak out about how their abortions hurt them both emotionally and physically. Like them, I have a passion to help women avoid the life-changing devastation that I suffered after my abortions and I am grateful that Allen made it possible for me to share my story at the press conference Governor Perry asked for on Monday, July 1, 2013. Here is what I shared:
"My name is Julie Ziglar Norman. Before my father, motivational speaker and author, Zig Ziglar died he encouraged me to publicly tell the truth about how abortion devastated me and hurt my living child and family.
I was a divorced mother of a four year old when I had my first unplanned pregnancy. I wanted an abortion because I was afraid I could not support two children and I didn't want to bring shame on my family. From the time I was fourteen I had secretly been getting free birth control from free clinics and our public hospital. I was taught that a fetus was not a baby and that abortion was another option if my birth control efforts failed. Abortion was legal and I wanted one.
I made the decision alone and I went to the clinic alone. The receptionist took half the cash I'd been asked to bring and told me to give the other half to the doctor.
When I entered his office, the doctor, whom I'd never met before and whom I never saw again, held out his hand and thumbed his fingers like so. When I handed him the money he shook it at me and said "I love stupid women like you."
He did not ask me why I wanted an abortion or if I understood the procedure. He did not go over the option of adoption or ask why I felt I could not have the baby. He did not tell me that I would possibly suffer from debilitating depression, that I might have suicidal thoughts, that I would begin to withdraw my time and affection from the child I already had or that I would begin immediately to use alcohol to deal with the negative emotions, the suppressed grief and the shame and regret I felt but could not admit.
How could I have been so wrong about something I thought I wanted? I want women to know that while the law seduces us with what appears to be a solution to our problem pregnancy, the heart of motherhood and the language of our hormones scream out in the most primal way again the travesty of abortion … and we are left to pull ourselves out of the pit of emotional devastation, wondering why nobody told us the truth."
I wholeheartedly believed a fetus was not a baby. I didn't think I could make enough money to support another child. I was glad abortion was an option and that I had a way out of bringing a very public shame on my father's good name. I didn't give a moment's thought to the idea that the fetus might be a baby. I kept my first and my second abortion a secret.
What I did not anticipate was that my heart knew my babies were babies and my body knew those babies had lived…and died…and though I would not, could not acknowledge the pain of it, the regret of it or even the grief of it, I grieved at a level that defies all that I thought I believed. Motherhood is a mysterious, inborn, natural compulsion to protect and nurture your offspring and my choice had violated what no law can regulate. The consequences were mine, and my babies’.
Unacknowledged loss manifested itself in the ways I described in my 2-minute talk: unrelenting depression, suicidal thoughts, alcohol abuse, the inability to work, a distancing from my daughter, an aversion to babies, the inability to later feel connected to my grandchildren, and the list goes on. Of course it was completely lost on me that there was any connection between the emotional mess I was and the abortions I had. As I said, how could something I believed in, supported and thought I wanted for myself have caused me so much pain?
Until I was invited in 2005 to attend a post-abortion counseling session and Bible study at a Pregnancy Resource Center, I was unaware that the dysfunctional symptoms I had been living with were classic symptoms of post-abortion syndrome, a form of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
By the time my group completed the counseling and Bible study, I had, as strange as this may sound, made peace with my unborn children. I had come to know them by name and I felt the same rich depth of love for Winnie Beth and Robert Curtis that I feel for my four living children. I knew at the deepest level of my being the totality of the forgiveness God made possible for me through His Son Jesus Christ and I found that I was free, totally free, of the burden of the choice I had made. Yes, I deeply regret my decision and I know I always will. But today I am free from the secret, I am free from post-abortion symptoms and I can, from a place of genuine love and concern, tell women the truth that abortion hurts the women who have them.
1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith /wp/2013/06/21/pain-capable-unborn-child-protection-act-one-baby-step-for-humanity/
2. http://afterabortion
.org/2013/forced-abortion-sedation/ **
**Also, download the "Forced Abortion Fact Sheet" at the bottom of the webpage**
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