A Life-Saving Experience

Thank you for asking people to speak out about this issue. I believe that the only way we can remove the stigma surrounding abortion is to let people share their stories in public and have an open, honest dialogue.

Abortion was a life-saving experience for me. I had just turned 20 years old in 1979, when I found out that I was pregnant. I was already living in an emotional prison with my family in Portugal, and having a child at that time would have robbed me of any chance to free myself. My child wouldn’t have fared any better: He or she would have lived a life of poverty with an emotionally unavailable mother.

Abortion was illegal then, and my whole family was against it. If they had found out about my condition, there’s no doubt in my mind they would have forced me to carry my pregnancy to term by any means possible, including locking me up or giving me drugs.

Fortunately, I found a midwife who was willing to give me the abortion I needed, although I got a bad infection from the procedure and had to go to the Emergency Room. Shortly thereafter, I moved away from my family and liberated myself from the traumatic emotional bonds that tied me to them.

The moment I found out that I was pregnant, I knew in my heart that abortion was the best choice for me. I was very comfortable with my decision, and I’m still confident that I did absolutely the best thing by not bringing an innocent new being into my set of circumstances.

The way I look at it, abortion is a private choice between a woman and her conscience that has very little impact on society. On the other hand, violence and abuse against unwanted children create a huge burden on humanity. If more people thought about this, I think they’d see that people who are against abortion are actually supporting cruelty against children.

The only bad feelings I had about my abortion was that it was illegal. No woman should have to go underground to decide what’s right for her. I still feel angry that I had to hide from everyone. I strongly believe that abortion should be available to every woman who wants one, and that politicians and religious fanatics have no business controlling women or putting us down.

Thank you for your attention,

Sylvie Shene

read more: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-924935

My story A Life-Saving Experience was one of the stories on CNN with the most comments and shares.

I guess the truths in the comments was too much to bear for the CNN staff that must be run by a hypocrite pro-lifer, that was hoping for stories of women regretting their abortions, so they could push their pro-life agenda, but when they got a story of a woman  sure of her abortion and stood up to the pro-lifers lies with facts, they decided to give up on the show about abortion and they deleted the very enlightened comments on the abortion stories.

I had the gut feeling that CNN might one day delete all the comments and I saved most of them that I shared in my blog CNN Deleted all the Comments on the Abortions Stories on their Site
https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2016/02/cnn-deleted-all-comments-on-abortions.html

Today 5-14-2019 I noticed it that CNN has deleted in their website all the abortions stories, first, they deleted the comments on the abortion stories and now they deleted also the stories! CNN and most news stations suck!

These words by Alice Miller are so true. “… Rather than take the risk, they prefer to forgo information that might be of life-death importance for coming generations. So in order not to have to call their own parents into question for a single moment, they cling to outdated, destructive opinions. …Clearly, the prospect of confronting one’s own personal history, in this case, is an alarming experience. And, as always, the fear of facts is stilled by a fascination with intellectual terms and abstractions aimed at concealing and masking the truth—the truth of facts that appear so threatening… At every attempt to share the new discoveries I made with the public, I ran up against the most determined resistance on the part of the media. It is true I can go on publishing these discoveries in my books because my publishers are already aware of the growing interest in this topic. But there are other people who have important things to say, and they are dependent on the press. They and their readers rely on essential information not being torpedoed. All too often, however, the media buttress the wall of silence against which all those who have begun to confront their own childhood rebound.”