By Sarah Terzo
Georgette Forney told the following story about her abortion in testimony before the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space, and Transportation, March 3, 2004.
Quoted from Healing through God’s Grace after Abortion:
“In 1994, I was with a small group of women, and we were sharing our struggles with one another. One young woman expressed how she had been struggling to bond with her newborn son. She said that she had an abortion in college and felt it was why she couldn’t bond with her baby. She said she was going through abortion recovery counseling. I told her I had an abortion when I was 16, and it was no big deal. I said she simply needed to get over it.
About six months later something strange happened, which forced me to recall that conversation. I was in my basement cleaning out boxes, and I found my yearbook from my junior year in high school. I picked it up and thought I’d take a quick stroll down memory lane.
But something strange happened. Instead of opening the book and seeing the kid’s faces, I felt my baby in my arms. I knew instantly it was my child that I had aborted. I knew she was a little girl. I could feel her little bum in my right hand and her back and neck in my left. And I knew that I had missed out on parenting a wonderful person who would’ve brought a lot of joy into my life.
For the first time in 19 years, as I felt my baby’s presence in my arms, I realized the full impact of my abortion. And I began to weep. As I left I remember the conversation from six months earlier, and I immediately called that woman. I was crying, and I said I needed help. She came over immediately and sat with me while I wept and began grieving for my aborted baby.”
Jennifer O’Neill, Healing through God’s Grace after Abortion (Deerfield Beach, Florida: Faith Communications, 2005), pp. 140 – 141.
Editor’s note. This appeared at Clinic Quotes and is reposted with permission.