What Stirs Your Pro-Life Heart? Béatrice Comes Full Circle

It all started twenty years ago with a broken condom. My boyfriend, whom I barely knew, acted “professionally” and instructed me to take the morning after pill. I hesitated: what if I didn’t take it? I realized that I liked the idea of being pregnant but I did as I was told.

The pill didn’t work... I was pregnant! My heart was filled with joy. Like most pregnant women I suppose, I fell in love with my baby. I discovered that day that I was Pro-Life.

My boyfriend didn’t share my happiness and told me to “get rid of that”. Like most men in uncommitted relationships, I suppose, he was Pro-Choice. I didn’t want an abortion but I took the RU486 pill as I was told. I rationalized the decision: poor baby was rejected by her dad but we would have other babies later to replace this one.

The abortion was traumatic and left me with depression and self-hatred and the relationship didn’t last. One day, my ex-boyfriend saw my little sister holding my hand. To my surprise, he said that he regretted the abortion, that we should have a daughter just like her but we had killed her.

That was too much for me to take. I loved our child, yet I ended her fragile, precious life to please the one who got me pregnant. Now he was saying that WE made a mistake? I was overwhelmed with contradictory emotions. I had to do something to block them… so I became Pro-Choice.

For the next thirteen years, I lived the Pro-Choice lie. I repeated to myself that abortion was a necessary evil, that the unborn is just a clump of cells. Those lies were in contradiction with my instincts and I swore to myself that, while it was OK to support it for others, I would never have an abortion again.

I found myself in an abusive relationship and pregnant. I didn’t want an abortion, I just wanted the man out of my life. But I was scared for the child, and the devil whispered in my ear that abortion was the only solution to protect my son from his abusive father. So I stained my soul again and I continued to lie to myself to be able to survive. Who was I kidding? I gave death to my children instead of life and I didn’t want to live anymore.

When I met my future husband (the first Pro-Lifer I have ever encountered), I was broken and fierce, anti-God and anti-life but he loved me anyways. With his support, I found the courage to face the truth: two children had died by my “choice” and I needed to grieve and deal with my emotions.

I have learned to forgive myself, those involved and to love again. I was restored and I came full circle. I gave birth to four children. I know that I’m where I’m supposed to be, the woman God intended me to be.

Behind a prickly post-choice woman, there is often a wound that needs to be healed, there is a lie that cries for truth, there is darkness that craves light. Being Pro-Life means not only supporting pregnant women but also listening to women who had an abortion and point to that healing, to that truth, to that light.

+   +   +

This guest post was written by Béatrice Fedor who blogs at www.400wordsforwomen.com and speaks up for the Silent No More Awareness Campaign. It is one of a series of guest posts, written by women who answered my question: What stirs your pro-LIFE heart?