My story, A Life-Saving Experience, was one of the stories on CNN with the most comments and shares. You can also read my story,
A Life-Saving Experience, here on my blog.
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 will share with everyone here NOW.
Today, 5-14-2019, I noticed that CNN has deleted from their website all the abortion stories. First, they deleted the comments on the abortion stories, and now they have also deleted 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 So, in order not to have to call their own parents into question for a single moment, they cling to outdated, destructive opinions.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.”
KyukiYoshida: Sylvie is absolutely right, having a pregnancy and child in poor conditions, when you aren't ready or unable for it, is, in fact, soul-murdering. I got pregnant at 18 and had my child a few weeks after I turned 19. My family and manipulative (ex)boyfriend (fiancé at the time) had conned and scared me out of abortion. My daughter is now 17 months old, and I am 20. It took me months to come to terms with her and accept her. I fell into bouts of depression, hopelessness, lack of motivation, and lack of caring. I often spent time wondering if things would have been better if I had aborted anyway. Yes, I love her, but ever since she was born, I've been filled with nothing but extreme guilt and self-loathing, because here I have this child, whom I love, with no money, that I cannot properly care for, whilst I'm still fighting past traumatic experiences of my own. If I had an abortion, I would be resented as a murderer, now, I am resented as a terrible mother, because I have no college education, and little to no income, because there are no jobs available for me. People express all the time what a worthless parent I am. Bringing a life into this world before you're ready, and then being made to feel guilty, worthless, and that you failed as a parent, is more soul-shattering than being a "murderer" any day.
Sylvie: KyukiYoshida, thank you for your comment. I don’t come across people with courage like yours very often, who are willing to admit their true feelings. Most people falsify their true feelings and, like robots, go into the world expressing feelings they don’t have to be accepted by the people around them, so they don’t have to face and feel their own fears of being alone. Your family and ex-boyfriend manipulating you to carry a pregnancy to term and give birth to a new being you were not ready for was a reenactment of their own childhood drama; they unconsciously and compulsively did to you what once was done to them. I have no doubt they were themselves a product of an unplanned pregnancy. Pro-lifers are driven by the dead hand of their own repression to do to others what once was done to them when they were defenseless little children; they suffer and make sure others suffer too, and unconsciously they want others to have the same fate as them. The reason you had a hard time accepting your daughter once she was born was because when you were born, your mother was not able to accept you either, and now you reenacted with your daughter what you experienced as a baby, but it was repressed.
These guilt feelings you are feeling were transferred into you by your mother and are being triggered by the birth of your daughter. The fact that you can admit your true feelings is the first step to resolving these painful feelings and not passing them down to your daughter, that is not one bit responsible for what happened to you when you were a defenseless child, just like you were not responsible for your mother’s plight when you were little. It’s not the trauma itself that causes long-term harm. Still, the repressed feelings related to the trauma that drive people unconsciously and compulsively to reenact their painful childhood drama endlessly with others, especially with their own children. Feeling guilty for what happened to you will not help you and your daughter now. The most important thing you can do is to develop compassion for the child you once were that suffered so much because of the unresolved traumas of your own mother and feel compassion for your daughter that also had to go through the same experience you once did of not being wanted and accepted when she first arrived on this planet and help her express her own pain and anger and not repress it. Do not punish her like your mother once did, and in this way pass to her the shame and guilt feelings that your mother once passed to you. I hope you are able to liberate yourself and your daughter from the painful, vicious circle you were born into. I wish you much courage and strength. Visit my website, sylvieshene.com, and Alice Miller’s website, alice-miller.com. You will find valuable information there to help you resolve your own repression, so your daughter will not repeat the same tragedy when she grows up.
KyukiYoshida : Thank you, Sylvie, you are ridiculously smart and helpful. Unfortunately, you are right, my parents had me when they barely knew each other, my mother never wanted children, and my father wanted a son. My whole life has been a spiral of abuse, which only got worse with the birth of my much-wanted sister. Then I became a housemaid for the entire family. Bullies, abusive parents, abusive boyfriends, walking through life never feeling wanted or loved. I now have severe social anxieties and emotional problems, although I have recently reconnected and have a better relationship with my mom and dad, a boyfriend, and a few friends, the wounds are still there. I don't look at her and wish I could wish her away or wish I had gotten an abortion anymore, I do love her very much. I do, however, look at her and wish things could be better, and hate myself. As I said, I hate myself, not her. I want myself to be the only one hurting and not her, and I do my best to make sure of that. Because I know that she loves and needs me, and I love and need her too, she helps heal me and gives me a reason to wake up in the morning and be the best person I can. Unwanted at the beginning, she is, in fact, wanted now; it is myself I who feel is unwanted.
Sylvie: Dear Kyuki Yoshida, I apologize for the delay in responding to your last comment. Thank you for writing and the very nice compliment! You are pretty smart yourself! I am so impressed by how you can see behind the masks some of the pro-lifers wear, able to recognize their pretty lies and hypocrisy. I congratulate you! It means your daughter will grow up with genuine truth and not with lies masquerading as the illusion of love, aided by hypocrisy. Your pain was once my pain. I, too, felt like a burden to everyone around me for most of my life, and I, too, never felt wanted or loved. I also used to suffer from anxiety that caused me to live for many, many years in isolation, all alone. Of course, I prefer to see young parents having children after they have faced, felt, and resolved their own repression, but the good news is that you still have a lot of years to liberate yourself and your daughter before your daughter becomes a teenager and an adult. Because once they are teenagers and adults, it’s too late for parents to help their child, even if they become the most enlightened parents on the planet. Once they are teenagers or adults, these wounds are in their hands to heal. No one can force them to face, feel their childhood injuries; if they don’t want to, they will endlessly go through life unconsciously and compulsively reenacting the tragedy of their own childhood everywhere they go, unless they find the courage to face and consciously feel the tragedy of their own childhood, the compulsion to repeat stops.
You have a very good chance to liberate yourself and your daughter, because she is still so young, and prevent your daughter from unconsciously and compulsively repeating this tragedy when she grows up. By reading the honesty in your comments, I have no doubt you will be able to do it. I hope you find people who will support you on your journey to liberation. Hating yourself for what was done to you by ignorant parents when you were a defenseless little girl it will not help you or your daughter and will keep you both stuck in the emotional prison of your childhood. This hate you feel is very much justified because is caused by the injuries you suffered at the hands of your parents when you were a defenseless little girl, but directing this hate towards yourself is making you the scapegoat. Hate cannot ever be resolved by scapegoating. To free yourself of this hate, you must understand it and consciously acknowledge it within the context of your own childhood. Once you understand and recognize your anger within the context of your childhood, this anger will begin to diminish, and you will become free to truly love yourself and your daughter. Otherwise, this hate will be transferred to your daughter aggressively or passively and will continue into the next generation. This hatred belongs in the past, not in the future. When you start feeling hate towards yourself, tell yourself: this hate I feel towards me is the repressed hate of the little girl I once was that was very angry for the injustice done to her at the hands of ignorant adults when I was defenseless little girl and her hate is very much justified and because I was too young and all alone to cope with these painful feelings without a true enlightened witness to help me then, the child in me had no choice, but to repress. Now the adult in you can become your own enlightened witness and help rescue the child within you, still suffering, and consciously finally feel the pain and anger of the child you once were, directed at the real culprits, your parents.
I wish you much courage, strength, and much success in your journey to liberation.
KyukiYoshida: @sylvieS Thank you so much for your comments and support. I've been living in pain in silence for years. You're actually the first person I've really been able to come out to, perhaps it also helps that I'm able to write under an alias. I'd also like to add, I don't understand why so many "pro-lifers" keep shoving adoption as the best choice in our faces, and how "infertile couples would give everything to raise your child". I've spent the last month or so reading stories and blogs from infertile women and talking to them, and it seems that most of these women would rather empty their entire bank account on IVF than adopt. Out of all the blogs and people I looked into, only 3 of them had adopted or were considering adoption. And if you look at national statistics, the rate of adoption is significantly lower than the rate at which children are put into the system. Many newborns, as they age, are bounced around between foster homes, and as they get older, their chances dwindle. Chances are already slim for children in America, as many adoptive parents prefer international children over American-born children. So, looking at these odds, how could adoption possibly be the best choice when there's a good chance that they will never find a stable home? I also find it hypocritical that these "pro-life" people who rage about raising or adopting are the same people who want to cut government and work benefits for single and working mothers, and want to prevent same-sex couples and transgender people from adopting.
KyukiYoshida: Oh, I'd also like to add to the hypocrisy by pointing out that after you have the child and decide to keep it, pro-life people insult and condemn you for being a single or working mother, and then shame you for receiving assistance, or outside help from friends and even family. They shame you for leaving your infant with, let's say, grandma, so you can go to college or work to make a living for your child. And then, if you choose adoption, they shame you for "abandoning" your child or having a child you couldn't take care of. They are completely oblivious to rape and ectopic pregnancies and like to victim blame the whole way, and they dare suggest that 13-15-year-old girls who were raped by fathers or strangers, or put through child prostitution, should "accept responsibility" and raise the children. And it's amazing how they stand aghast when they find out you weren't able to breastfeed due to medical reasons, that your boyfriend isn't the biological father, or that you dare take time for education and receive food stamps and take birth control.
Sylvie: KyukiYoshida, to reach and be a support to young girls and women is the reason I share my story with the public, and your comments give me the strength to stand up to the robots disguised as pro-lifers masquerading as their illusion of love for the unborn, using religion as the straitjacket to keep poor, vulnerable women down. I, too, like you, lived for many years in pain and in silence, because there was no one safe I could share myself with, no one should be living in pain and in silence, and I am glad the sharing of my story made you feel safe to break your silence and share your own pain.
You are right, the hypocrisy of the pro-lifers is epic and has no bounds. And what is most sad is that most of them are not even conscious of their hypocrisy and refuse to look at facts and truth to see the high risks of adoption that, if the adoption trauma goes unresolved, will affect every generation until the end of time. A feeling and a seeing conscious woman would never take a risk and allow herself to be manipulated or coerced to carry a pregnancy to term and give birth to a new being to give up for adoption. Pro-lifers suffer and unconsciously want to make sure others suffer too; they want others to have the same fate as them.
Did you notice how the pro-lifer below was so annoyed about the fact that I have achieved freedom! He wanted me to continue to be miserable with a child in an emotional prison, and what bothers him is that I broke free. It’s so sad to read most of the stories of the women who regret their abortions. These women’s emotional problems have nothing to do with their abortion. Still, the fact that they were abused in their childhood and their abortion gets the blame, and the religious fanatics exploit them to push their hidden agenda to keep vulnerable women trapped.
These women suffer from what I like to call the classic case of the prodigal son complex. Like the story of the prodigal son, these women rebelled and tried to go into the world and make it on their own, but because of the unresolved traumas from their own childhoods, they got into all kinds of trouble like addiction, abusive relationships and when it became too hard to cope alone they looked for help with their painful emotions and they fail victims all over again of religion that takes hold of the invisible reins of guilt and shame installed by their own parents or caregivers when they were defenseless little children and the abortion is the hook pro-lifers use to project their own unresolved guilt and shame to take hold and bring them back "home" to “god” “the father figure” but like the prodigal son first they must ask for forgiveness and repent like little children do with their parents and that’s how religious cult leaders exploit vulnerable people to join their religious cults with the invisible reins of fear, shame, and guilt and keep them dependent little children stuck in their childhood emotional prisons reenacting their childhood drama for eternity with very little or no chance of ever escaping. Very sad.
wolfmom21fl: I had an abortion when I was 16. At that time, abortion had JUST become legal under Roe v. Wade. I was a kid who had enough sense to know that being homeless and pregnant was a recipe for disaster. I had the abortion because I knew there was no way I could raise a child. I too, ended up in the hospital for several days because of an infection due to the procedure, even tho I obtained a legal one. I never had any regrets about having the procedure done and still don't to this day. Thank you for sharing your experience and for the opportunity to share my own.
Mari1217: A woman is the owner of her destiny; no one else should be, especially if those who are desperately trying to obstruct your views are not doing anything to uplift you in your moments of tribulation. There are way more children who are being abused, abandoned, and neglected, and who linger in an orphanage or jump from one foster home to another, than children who are being adopted by the same people who proclaim they want to protect children.
These people that are readily pointing out the "atrocities" of abortion are the same ones that are trying to eliminate Medicaid, Food Stamps, reduce funds for education, yet we have to believe they care for children... they don't.
They blindly follow what a preacher, host on a radio station, or a TV channel tells them to follow. If they are so religious, they would not interfere because it is in the scriptures that even God gave mankind free will, which is what these people are trying to negate you.
You did the right thing, for yourself and for that being. Makes no sense to bring a child into this world to suffer when you know that is the future you will be able to offer. Never should a woman clandestinely go to a butcher to have an abortion. IF the Religious Right doesn't like it, it's simple: They should not have one.
Thank you for sharing your story, takes guts to do so in the current climate.
Sylvie: Mari1217, thank you for your comment and support. Yes, I agree; every woman should be the owner of her destiny. It was not easy, but I was able to free myself from those who wanted to dictate my life, and I have been the owner of my destiny!
Wolfmom21fl, thank you for sharing your experience. Since I became open about my abortion, almost every woman I talk with admits to having an abortion sometime in their life. And nearly all of them feel it was the best decision for them at the time and don’t have any regrets. Hopefully, my going public will help others gather the courage to share their own stories, and the stigma from abortion will be removed once and for all. These religious fanatics take advantage of emotionally disturbed women and try to convince them that their problems were caused by the abortion. Still, abortion has nothing to do with it; their emotional problems already existed long before they had an abortion.
davismm: Sylvie, you said: "These religious fanatics take advantage of emotionally disturbed women and try to convince them that their problems were caused by the abortion, but abortion has nothing to do with it, their emotional problems already existed long before they had an abortion."
Often women find themselves in situations, as you did, where their OWN existence is threatened to cause emotional duress. I see the biased attitude or approach not only extends to potential cruelty to children but also to women as well, to keep the "little women in line". Adding an unexpected (not necessarily unwanted) pregnancy can make it life-threatening proportions.
Sylvie: Kennacoconut and Davismm, thank you for the encouraging comments. “Often women find themselves in situations as you did, where their OWN existence is threatened to cause emotional duress. I find the biased attitude or approach not only extends to potential cruelty to children but also to women as well, to keep the "little women in line". Adding an unexpected (not necessarily unwanted) pregnancy can make it life-threatening proportions.” Your words could not be more valid. It’s nice to find out that there are others out there who are not emotionally blind and able to see the facts, and unfortunately, the very sad truth.
Sylvie: My best translation with the help of Google Translate of Fernanda’s comment below:
“Sylvie, thank you for all you're doing to remove the stigma from abortion.
I was 19 years old, and I got pregnant because I started having sex with my boyfriend, and we did not take precautions. I was young and had no sex education from my parents because I belonged to a conservative family, and sex was a taboo subject. Due to my immaturity, I thought I would not get pregnant. But I got pregnant and I decided to have an abortion at the time, 22 years ago, abortion was illegal in Portugal. It was the hardest decision of my life, but an aunt of mine convinced me to do it, and I felt I had no physical or psychological conditions, nor the real support from anyone to help me, and I went to a clinic that did abortions in Porto. I was very weak and I lost a lot of blood, and within a week, I had to take three general anesthetics, when returning to the clinic, not knowing what was happening to me, but no one would answer my questions. It had a devastating effect on me, and I only thought about suicide. And I went to the bridge D.Luís to kill myself, but I did not dare to jump. Silently, I was made to feel guilty by my family for what I had done.
I felt so ashamed that for years and years, I condemned myself. I suffered so much. Ten years passed, and I got pregnant again. I was happy thinking that would alleviate the shame and guilt I carried with me all these years, and this time I carried the pregnancy to term and gave birth to my son. After my son was born, I lay him on my bed and stood to look at him, thinking, 'What am I going to do with this package?' I began to feel trapped and powerless over my new role as a mother. With the birth of my son, I discovered that my instincts to take care of my child were destroyed by the abuse I suffered in my childhood, and I was not prepared to be a mother. I became aware that a child is forever. I did not have milk and could not breastfeed my baby, and the feelings of guilt for not being a good mother came back stronger than ever. I thought having a child would fix my problems, but what an illusion. It’s very sad to say that my son was not the result of my love for my husband, but from feelings of guilt and a marriage planned to take revenge because I blamed my husband for the abortion ten years ago. It wasn't until 2003, when my husband's aunt, who lives in the United States, came to Portugal, that I became conscious and was able to see clearly, putting all my feelings in the right context. I had severe emotional problems, because of trauma suffered in my childhood, but I was not conscious of nor did I suspect that they existed, because they were repressed profoundly. Due to the stigma of abortion in our society, I became very vulnerable to people for transference or projecting their unresolved shame and guilt feelings from their own traumas suffered in their own childhood into me, adding to my own shame and guilt that started by the traumas I suffered in my childhood. Today, I see clearly that my abortion was not the cause of my emotional problems. But the traumas suffered in my childhood and the projections or transference of people’s feelings around me almost drove me to suicide. Now what hurts me most is that I brought a child into this world out of guilt and not from love, and unconsciously, I transferred my fears, shame, and guilt to my son. Every child born should be planned in love and not by feelings of guilt and pressure from society to carry a pregnancy to term. Today in Portugal, abortion is legal, and now that I have become a more conscious person without the toxic shame that kept me from living for many years, I voted yes in the referendum a few years ago in favor of abortion. I know that we can avoid a lot of suffering if we are free to make our choices without fear or shame.”
Sylvie: Fernanda, thank you for sharing your story with us; the more people become conscious and understand the real roots of their painful feelings, the more we can remove the stigma from abortion. It takes courage to become real, and I congratulate you for the courage you have shown us.
Sylvie: Peter, thank you for your comment, and I feel honored that you joined CNN just to comment on my story. You must be feeling threatened by me to come here trying to project into me your unresolved shame and guilt, but it will not work with me, because I will give you your projections right back to you. If someone is sick and needs a psychiatrist, you are. No matter what you say, I did not kill a baby; there was no baby inside of me. All it was was a fertilized egg, and a fertilized egg is nothing but a fertilized egg, no matter what anyone says. Facts are something people like you are not interested in. People who delegate their own responsibility to a god or higher powers always ignore the facts; they don’t care about truth and facts. So I know very well people like you will never be able to open their eyes to see and feel, and I am not sharing my story for people like you; their eyes have been cemented together with the aid of hypocrisy and religion. Still, I am sharing my story to help vulnerable women and be a support to them in making the best choices for them and their families and not let themselves be manipulated and coerced by shame and guilt feelings projected into them by unconscious people like you masquerading with the illusion of love for the unborn to carry pregnancies to term and give birth to children they are not ready for. How do you know what my unborn child wanted? I know without a doubt he or she would be happy to be aborted to give me a chance at freedom and be glad, just like I would have preferred that my mother had aborted me, and that was real love and peace in this world, and my mother was happy and free, enjoying life.
People like you want to protect unborn life, but discard the ones already born. The pro-lifers' hypocrisy is epic. Pro-lifers say having an abortion is murder and mutilates our soul, I see it the other way around: carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth to a new being that we are not able to take care of and protect, THAT, would be mutilating my soul and would be soul-murdering, and would have robbed me the chance at freedom and I talk from experience, knowledge is experience, everything else is just information and my experience has taught me that most information out there is misleading information and lies. I know without a doubt if I had to carry a pregnancy to term when I was not ready, my soul would have been mutilated and would have been soul murder by bringing a new being into an abusive, vicious circle, and my soul would not have become whole and free like it is today. I was able to liberate a soul instead of contributing two more mutilated, lost, and confused souls into this world and continuing the painful vicious circle. Pro-lifers fight so hard for the unborn because unconsciously and compulsively, they want an endless supply of innocent, powerless beings to use, exploit, and project their disowned parts. Carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth to a new being we are not ready to nurture, take care of, and protect, THAT, is soul murdering and contributes to the destruction of the world. Pro-lifers are soul murderers and destroyers of life that is already born under the disguise of being pro-life.
Sylvie: It pisses me off when people preach to me about adoption. So you think carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth to a new being, and then giving it away for adoption, is a good solution. When I know without a doubt that most people desire to have children comes from their unconscious need to have an available object to use as their poisonous container or scapegoat, no way in hell would I carry a pregnancy to term and give birth to a new being and then give it away for someone to use it as their poisonous container and have this new being spend her entire life in a labyrinth looking for a way out, that’s not living and the birth mother will be wounded for the rest of her life also for carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth to a new being and then give it away like it’s kitten or a puppy, babies are not kittens or puppies. Any conscious feeling human being knows the consequence of these traumas in people’s lives and for society at large and would never support adoption unless is already a child here that is in need to be adopted -- adopting should be to fulfill the needs of a child, not to fulfill the desire of adults of wanting children to unconsciously use as their poisonous container, not ever a conscious woman carries a pregnancy to term and give birth to a new being to give it up for adoption. ”Poisonous Pedagogy. The pedagogical conviction that one must bring a child into line from the outset has its origin in the need to split off the disquieting parts of the inner self and project them onto an available object. The child’s great plasticity flexibility, defenselessness, and availability made it the ideal object for this projection. The enemy within can, at last, be hunted down on the outside. Peace advocates are becoming increasingly aware of the role played by these mechanisms, but until it is clearly recognized that they can be traced back to methods of child raising, little can be done to oppose them. For children who have grown up being assailed for qualities, the parents hate in themselves can hardly wait to assign these qualities to someone else so they can once again regard themselves as good, “moral,” noble, and altruistic. Such projections can easily become part of any Weltanschauung.” Alice Miller
A life worth giving birth to is genuinely free to live. Pro-life people are not pro-life, they are pro-birth. Still, after birth they don’t give a f about the person anymore and unconsciously enjoy seeing people live in an emotional prison, they live in an emotional prison and unconsciously they want others to have the same fate as them, it’s like they want as more people as possible to be born, so they can kill their souls and have the most people as possible to grow up without souls becoming great robots to continue their evil work on earth, this is the root to all the evil we see in the world and how psychopaths/sociopaths are created. Pro-lifers want people to be born so they can kill their souls, it's like they want an endless supply of new beings to exploit and use as their poisonous container or scapegoats, they are soul murderers disguised as pro-lifers. Nothing in this world ever is what it seems.
“…unwanted children are usually mistreated. But there exist, as a rule, also a huge amount of people who were "wanted" indeed, but only for playing the role of the victims that their parents needed to be able to take revenge on. They were wanted to give their parents what the parents never had gotten from their own parents: love, adoration, attention, and so many other things. Otherwise, why would so many people have five or more children when they have no time for them? Why do they adopt children if their body refuses to give them what they apparently "want? The never acknowledged, never felt pain of their childhood calls for being avenged. They go to church, they pray, they honor their parents, forgive them everything – and they mistreat their children at home, often in a very cruel way, AS IF THIS WERE THE MOST NATURAL THING, because they learned this so early. Their children learn this perverted behavior, also very early, and will later do the same; and so this perverse behavior continues for millennia. Unless people are willing to SEE the perversion of their parents and are ready to consciously refuse to imitate it.
You are not being "sickeningly sarcastic," you only dared to speak out the truth that most people are afraid of seeing or talking about.” Alice Miller
Sylvie: Maybe intellectually, you don’t want to support cruelty to children, but unconsciously and compulsively, you are very much contributing to cruelty to children.
Sylvie: @KyukiYoshida, I have not had time to reply to your last post, but as soon I have some time I will.
Skulander: Great article, great thoughts! Thank you so much for sharing. Your story shows why abortions are needed and must remain legal.
I've also strongly felt that anti-choice views are many forms of abuse. Abuse to children, since it leads to more unwanted children living in more homes without love, care, and emotional support.
But also, the abuse of women. Their views are often all about controlling women's bodies and lives, with zero concerns for their needs and desires, which, really, is extremely shocking to me. In the end, what they care about is not so much the fetus, but imposing their views at all costs. Their arguments are wrong on so many counts and need to be exposed more.
In the end, though, you pointed out the crux of the matter: people can debate abortion day and night. But at the end of the day, this remains a personal decision that only the pregnant woman is entitled to make. Religion, clerics, and politicians have no business meddling in this decision-making process.
Sylvie: MillRun and Skulander, thank you for your support. It’s sad and annoying when people’s repression gets triggered by their experience with abortion. Then, they want to ban abortion and take away other women’s reproductive freedom, because of their dissociated feelings. Their abortion triggered the repressed emotions of the small child they once were. Now the abortion gets the blame, but it’s not the cause; it’s just the trigger. Like some women after giving birth fall into a deep depression, what the professionals call “postpartum depression”, but giving birth is not the cause of depression, it’s just the trigger. Should we go around telling people not to carry a pregnancy to term and give birth to new beings because it can trigger “postpartum depression?” Of course not!
These people can’t handle dealing with, facing, and feeling their repression alone, so they become vulnerable to cult leaders who make them feel guilty and exploit them to go around like robots, trying to transfer their unresolved guilt feelings from unresolved childhood trauma into others. Women who had or chose abortion make for them perfect scapegoats, because of the stigma surrounding abortion, and this is why I want to do all I can to remove the stigma on abortion. They will have to look for another scapegoat to transfer their guilt, shame, and anger, and leave poor, vulnerable women alone.
initaog: Sylvie, thank you for such a touching, honest, real story of your experience! "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." - WELL SAID!
Sylvie: Thank you for your support, initaog! One of my missions in life is to do all I can to help remove the stigma from abortion. In this world, nothing ever is what it seems. Pro-lifers, in reality, are against life. By being against abortion, they are unconsciously or consciously supporting cruelty against children and actively contributing to the creation of unwanted children. When people bring children into this world that is not ready to nurture, protect, and love, but instead are neglected, abused, and humiliated, as a result of their disowned and unresolved injuries, they will insidiously become overtly or covertly, with the aid of hypocrisy, a danger to society.
The comments below are from a comment I made in the article: Time to normalize abortion, contraception worldwide.
Sylvie Imelda Shene: Abortion and contraception are the best ways to slow down all maladies in our society. One of my missions in life is to help remove the stigma from abortion, and this is why I went public with my story. You can read my abortion story in the link below:
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-924935
I could not agree more: "The time has come for those in America who have had abortions to start coming out of their closets in order to stand with those who will be needing abortions because of the Zika virus.
It’s time to normalize contraception and abortion worldwide and put an end to the draconian church persecution of those who, in good faith and conscience, practice contraception and abortion. It’s time for all “good” Americans to stop tolerating religious leaders and politicians who continue to oppose women’s reproductive rights."
. This is nothing less than the fight for women's lives, for the most vital of medical and life needs.
Abortion encapsulates most profoundly all of a woman's rights in the most fundamental way. For no rights are possible without the right to bodily integrity and thus to body autonomy, which makes possible the practical right to physical self-defense. The immutable facts that a fetus grows within and feeds upon a woman's body and is thus not an individual person, together with pregnancy and gestation necessarily entailing a threat to a woman's very life--especially if she does not want it--mean that abortion is self-defense. It is, therefore, absolutely not murder, as the so-called "pro-lifers" are so wont to parrot to everyone, over and over again.
In addition to body integrity and its resultant right to physical body autonomy, which is the right to self-defense, a woman's right plan her own life long-range and thus to exert full control over her own fertility is also essential for her own right to her life; and for the general concept of a right to life to have any meaning.
This is nothing less than the struggle for the absolutely vital and utterly indispensable acknowledgment of the personhood and full humanity of women.
Thank you for telling your story, Sylvie! More women speaking up as you have is needed to raise consciousness and increase awareness of all that is at stake in the fight for abortion rights.
Sylvie Imelda shene: M David, thank you for your very thoughtful and encouraging comment. I completely agree with every word you wrote. You might also like reading the comments that CNN deleted on my abortion story in the link below:
http://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2016/02/cnn-deleted-all-comments-on-abortions.html?m=1
The comments below are comments I made in the stories of other women on CNN:
Congratulations on having the courage to share your story.
One of my missions in life is to help remove the stigma from abortion and put it where it belongs, because if should be stigma somewhere, it should be on the people that unconsciously and compulsively coerce, manipulate vulnerable women to bring new life into this world that are in no position to take care of and protect emotionally and physically and because of these unresolved childhood wounds when they grow up to put all life on this planet in danger.
I agree entirely with the words Alice Miller wrote in her book “Breaking Down the Walls of Silence.” She says: “Church bells have never been rung to proclaim the mistreatment of children sinful. They weren’t rung as Hitler organized the mass deportation of Jews throughout Europe, or as Stalin presided over the extermination of millions. And they didn’t ring as Ceaușescu terrorized his nation, using its children as apprentice “Securitate” men, who would later open fire on real children. But now they did ring, for a full fifteen minutes, so that even more unwanted and later tortured children could be born into the world!
In disbelief, one asks oneself: Is it possible that the people behind such actions really are so clueless? Do they not know that no less than one hundred percent of all seriously abused children are unwanted? Do they not know what that can lead to? Do they not know that mistreatment is a parent’s way of taking revenge on the children they never wanted? Shouldn’t the authorities do everything in their power, in the light of this information, to see to it that the only children who are born are wanted, planned for, and loved? If they did, then we could put an end to the creation and continuation of evil in our world. To force the role of a mother on a woman who does not wish to be a mother is an offense not just against her, but against the whole human community, because the child she is bringing into the world is likely to take criminal revenge for its birth, as do the many (mis)leaders threatening our lives. All the wars we ever had were the deeds of once-unwanted, heinously mistreated children. It is the right to lived life that we must protect wherever and whenever it is threatened. And it should never be sacrificed to an abstract idea.
Not everyone is capable of thinking in real, concrete terms. Many seek refuge in religious beliefs. In their weakness, they place their trust in “relics,” awaiting salvation at the hands of one stronger than themselves. Anyone who claims to be a strong and knowledgeable authority for such people, and to be acting on their behalf, has the duty to be conscious of the appropriate facts. If they aren’t, if they ignore or neglect that duty, claiming instead that their palpable lack of information and their abstract conceptions of “life” are sanctioned by God and practiced in the name of humanity, they are acting against life by misusing the weakness and trust of the faithful and dangerously confusing them. The injunction against abortion goes even further: Consciously or unconsciously, it represents support for cruelty against children and active complicity in the creation of unwanted existences, existences that can easily become a liability for the community at large.
When I see the passion with which Catholic priests - men childless by choice - fight against abortion, I can’t help but ask what it is that motivates them. Is it a desire to prove that unlived life, as perhaps their own destinies suggest, is more important and more valuable than lived life? Was that, perhaps, how the parents of those passionately committed to stopping abortion thought, though they expressed it in different ways? Or is it a case of seeing to it that others share the same fate as oneself? Both are possible. Both are dangerous when people are driven to blind and destructive actions by the dead hand of their own repression.
It is, in fact, not surprising to find that those who are both victims and apologists for the use of violence and severity against children are often those who most passionately proclaim their love of the unborn child, i.e., the kernel of life. Abortion can, indeed, be seen as the most powerful symbol of the psychic annihilation and mutilation practiced since time immemorial on children. But to combat this evil merely at the symbolic level deflects us from the reality we should not evade for a moment longer: the reality of the abused and humiliated child, which, as a result of its disavowed and unresolved injuries, will insidiously become, either openly or aided by hypocrisy, a danger to society.
It is above all the children already born that have a right to life - a right to coexistence with adults in a world in which, with or without the help of the church, violence against children has been unequivocally outlawed. Until such legislation exists, talk of “the right to life” remains not only a mockery of humanity but a contribution to its destruction.”
Sylvie: Congratulations on having the courage to share your story.
The pro-lifers see a fertilized egg (zygote) as a person, whatever, but that is not reality. The reality is that a fertilized egg is nothing but a fertilized egg (Zygotes).
"Unwanted children are usually mistreated. But there exist, as a rule, also a huge amount of people who were "wanted" indeed, but only for playing the role of the victims that their parents needed to be able to take revenge on. They were wanted to give their parents what the parents never had gotten from their own parents: love, adoration, attention, and so many other things. Otherwise, why would so many people have five or more children when they have no time for them? Why do they adopt children if their body refuses to give them what they apparently "want?"
The never acknowledged, never felt pain of their childhood calls for being avenged. They go to church, they pray, they honor their parents, forgive them everything – and they mistreat their children at home, often in a very cruel way, AS IF THIS WERE THE MOST NATURAL THING, because they learned this so early. Their children learn this perverted behavior, also very early, and will later do the same; and so this perverse behavior continues for millennia. Unless people are willing to SEE the perversion of their parents and are ready to consciously refuse to imitate it.
Very few people dared to speak out the truth that most people are afraid of seeing or talking about.” Alice Miller
This is why I would never bring a child into the world and give it up for adoption for others to use for their projections. Sorry, you cannot have my unborn children for you to use. Pro-lifers need to stay out of women's uteruses, go be a dictator somewhere else.
“The Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu knew nothing of the way he suffered as a child from having been pent up in one room with ten brothers and sisters in a state of extreme neglect. As an adult living in the monomaniacal opulence of luxurious palaces, he repressed all explicit memory of it. But implicit (body) memories of his childhood suffering remained, and they incited him to take vengeance on a whole nation. Like his own mother, the women in this dictatorship were not allowed to have abortions. Like his own parents, most couples in Romania were forced to have more children than they wanted or were able to take care of. As a result, Romanian orphanages were full to bursting with youngsters displaying severe behavioral disorders and disabilities caused by extreme neglect. Who needed all those children? No one. Only the dictator himself, whose unconscious memories spurred him to commit atrocities and whose mental barriers prevented him from recognizing them as atrocities.” Taken from the book “The Truth Will Set You Free” by Alice Miller
“It is, in fact, not surprising to find that those who are both victims and apologists for the use of violence and severity against children are often those who most passionately proclaim their love of the unborn child, i.e., the kernel of life. Abortion can, indeed, be seen as the most powerful symbol of the psychic annihilation and mutilation practiced since time immemorial on children. But to combat this evil merely at the symbolic level deflects us from the reality we should not evade for a moment longer: the reality of the abused and humiliated child, which, as a result of its disavowed and unresolved injuries, will insidiously become, either openly or aided by hypocrisy, a danger to society.
It is above all the children already born that have a right to life - a right to coexistence with adults in a world in which, with or without the help of the church, violence against children has been unequivocally outlawed. Until such legislation exists, talk of “the right to life” remains not only a mockery of humanity but a contribution to its destruction.” From the book “Breaking Down the Wall of Silence” by Alice Miller
Sylvie: Pro-lifers say having an abortion is murder and mutilates our soul, I see it the other way around: carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth to a new being that we are not able to take care of and protect, THAT, would be mutilating my soul and would be soul-murdering, and would have robbed me the chance at freedom and I talk from experience, knowledge is experience, everything else is just information and my experience has taught me that most information out there is misleading information and lies. I know without a doubt if I had to carry a pregnancy to term when I was not ready, my soul would have been mutilated and would have been soul murder by bringing a new being into an abusive, vicious circle, and my soul would not have become whole and free like it is today. I was able to liberate a soul instead of contributing two more mutilated, lost and confused souls into this world and continue the painful vicious circle. Pro-lifers fight so hard for the unborn beings because unconsciously and compulsively, they want an endless supply of innocent, powerless beings to use, exploit, and project their disowned parts. Carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth to a new being we are not ready to nurture, take care of, and protect, THAT, is soul murdering and contributes to the destruction of the world. Pro-lifers are soul murderers and destroyers of life that is already born.
Sylvie: If a psychopath in among us must be Kim trying to project herself into me, she is like a robot that is going to every story of every woman that chose abortion in her life, trying to shame and make them feel guilty, projecting her own unresolved shame and guilt that she has been carrying from her own childhood and women that choose abortion makes them the perfect target or scapegoat for her, because in our society still so much stigma surrounding abortion.
Sylvie: I am sorry you were pressured into doing something you didn't want to do, because no one should be pressured into doing anything they don’t want to do. I sympathize with you, but I also sympathize with your husband, who did not want to be a father. Just like a woman should not be forced into motherhood, men also should not be forced into fatherhood. Having a child should be a conscious decision made together by both partners involved. I do understand birth control sometimes fails, and that’s why I am in favor of abortion when all else fails, because every child born should be planned, wanted, and loved by their mother and father. As children, we were defenseless children and victims of the ignorance of the adults around us, but the beauty of being an autonomous adult is that we can walk away from anyone who tries to force their will on us. It seems you have not broken free from playing the role of a child, and like a child, you remain a victim. Your abortion triggered the repressed emotions of the small child you once were. Now the abortion gets the blame, but it’s not the cause; it’s just the trigger. Like some women after giving birth, fall into a deep depression, which the professionals call postpartum depression, but giving birth is not the cause of depression, it’s just the trigger. When your husband pressured you into having an abortion, if you were a mature, conscious, and autonomous woman, you could have stood up to your husband and told him: I understand you don’t want to be a father, and I will not force you into it. I am an independent woman, and I will go ahead and have this child and raise it by myself.
Sylvie: It annoys me when people’s repression gets triggered by their experience with abortion, and then they want to ban abortion and take other women’s reproductive freedom, because of their dissociated feelings. Your abortion triggered the repressed emotions of the small child you once were. Now the abortion gets the blame, but it’s not the cause; it’s just the trigger. Like some women after giving birth fall into a deep depression, what the professionals call “postpartum depression”, but giving birth is not the cause of depression, it’s just the trigger. Should we go around telling people not to carry a pregnancy to term and give birth to new beings because it can trigger “postpartum depression?” Of course not!
Sylvie: Thank you for sharing your story. No young woman should have to go through so many obstacles to exercising her right to body autonomy. And I am sorry you had to go through this. I, too, would have chosen suicide if I could not have had an abortion, because nothing could have forced me to bring a new being into this world, I was not in a position to care for and protect. From when I was a little girl, I always said to myself: the pain stops in me, and if I had to kill myself to stop the pain from being passed on into the next generation, I would have killed myself. Kim is the only person here that is skeptical, because like a robot is going to every story of every woman that chose abortion in her life trying to shame and make them feel guilty, projecting his own unresolved shame and guilt that have been carrying from his own childhood and women that choose abortion makes them the perfect target or scapegoat for him, because in our society still so much stigma surrounding abortion. One of my missions in life is to help remove the stigma from abortion and put it where it belongs, because if it should be stigma somewhere it should be on the people that unconsciously and compulsively coerce, manipulate vulnerable women to bring new life into this world that is in no position to take care of and protect emotionally and physically and because of these unresolved childhood wounds when they grow up to put all life on this planet in danger.
Yes, great post and I completely agree…
It makes me sad when people’s repression gets triggered by their experience with abortion. Then, they want to ban abortion and take away other women’s reproductive freedom, because of their dissociated feelings. The abortion triggered the repressed emotions of the small child they once were. Now the abortion gets the blame, but it’s not the cause; it’s just the trigger. Like some women after giving birth fall into a deep depression, what the professionals call “postpartum depression”, but giving birth is not the cause of depression, it’s just the trigger. Should we go around telling people not to carry a pregnancy to term and give birth to new beings because it can trigger “postpartum depression?” Of course not!
Pro-lifers say having an abortion is murder and mutilates our soul, I see it the other way around: carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth to a new being that we are not able to take care of and protect, THAT, would be mutilating my soul and would be soul-murdering, and would have robbed me the chance at freedom and I talk from experience, knowledge is experience, everything else is just information and my experience has taught me that most information out there is misleading information and lies. I know without a doubt if I had to carry a pregnancy to term when I was not ready, my soul would have been mutilated and would have been soul murder by bringing a new being into an abusive, vicious circle, and my soul would not have become whole and free like it is today. I was able to liberate a soul instead of contributing two more mutilated, lost and confused souls into this world and continue the painful vicious circle. Pro-lifers fight so hard for the unborn beings because unconsciously and compulsively, they want an endless supply of innocent, powerless beings to use, exploit, and project their disowned parts. Carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth to a new being we are not ready to nurture, take care of, and protect, THAT, is soul murdering and contributes to the destruction of the world. Pro-lifers are soul murderers and destroyers of life that is already born.
The pro-lifers see a fertilized egg (zygote) as a person, whatever, but that is not reality. The reality is a fertilized egg is nothing but a fertilized egg (Zygotes).
"Unwanted children are usually mistreated. But there exist, as a rule, also a huge amount of people who were "wanted" indeed, but only for playing the role of the victims that their parents needed to be able to take revenge on. They were wanted to give their parents what the parents never had gotten from their own parents: love, adoration, attention, and so many other things. Otherwise, why would so many people have five or more children when they have no time for them? Why do they adopt children if their body refuses to give them what they apparently "want?"
The never acknowledged, never felt pain of their childhood calls for being avenged. They go to church, they pray, they honor their parents, forgive them everything – and they mistreat their children at home, often in a very cruel way, AS IF THIS WERE THE MOST NATURAL THING, because they learned this so early. Their children learn this perverted behavior, also very early, and will later do the same; and so this perverse behavior continues for millennia. Unless people are willing to SEE the perversion of their parents and are ready to consciously refuse to imitate it.
Very few people dared to speak out the truth that most people are afraid of seeing or talking about.”
This is why I would never bring a child into the world and give it up for adoption for others to use for their projections. Sorry, you cannot have my unborn children for you to use. Pro-lifers need to stay out of women's uteruses and go be a dictator somewhere else.
“The Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu knew nothing of the way he suffered as a child from having been pent up in one room with ten brothers and sisters in a state of extreme neglect. As an adult living in the monomaniacal opulence of luxurious palaces, he repressed all explicit memory of it. But implicit (body) memories of his childhood suffering remained, and they incited him to take vengeance on a whole nation. Like his own mother, the women in this dictatorship were not allowed to have abortions. Like his own parents, most couples in Romania were forced to have more children than they wanted or were able to take care of. As a result, Romanian orphanages were full to bursting with youngsters displaying severe behavioral disorders and disabilities caused by extreme neglect. Who needed all those children? No one. Only the dictator himself, whose unconscious memories spurred him to commit atrocities, and whose mental barriers prevented him from recognizing them as atrocities. “Alice Miller, taken from the book “The Truth Will Set You Free”
“It is, in fact, not surprising to find that those who are both victims and apologists for the use of violence and severity against children are often those who most passionately proclaim their love of the unborn child, i.e., the kernel of life. Abortion can, indeed, be seen as the most powerful symbol of the psychic annihilation and mutilation practiced since time immemorial on children. But to combat this evil merely at the symbolic level deflects us from the reality we should not evade for a moment longer: the reality of the abused and humiliated child, which, as a result of its disavowed and unresolved injuries, will insidiously become, either openly or aided by hypocrisy, a danger to society.
It is above all the children already born that have a right to life - a right to coexistence with adults in a world in which, with or without the help of the church, violence against children has been unequivocally outlawed. Until such legislation exists, talk of “the right to life” remains not only a mockery of humanity but a contribution to its destruction.” From the book “Breaking Down the Wall of Silence” by Alice Miller
People who are the sickest always accuse others of being the sick ones and needing help. Kim should take her own advice and seek the help she really needs, rather than projecting herself onto others.
I take Kim’s personal attack as a compliment because usually people attack when they feel exposed and threatened in some way. My comments must be showing truth and facts about herself that are too much for her to bear at the moment, and she wants to create a smoke screen by personally attacking the messenger to hide the facts from herself and others.
“Are you aware that an unborn child's heart begins beating at just 18 days from conception? So, if the absence of a heartbeat determines someone's death, then shouldn't the presence of a heartbeat determine life?”
The heart
beating gives the illusion of life. Unlike brain-damaged individuals who are living in what’s called a “persistent vegetative state,” people who are declared brain dead are simply deceased. There’s no function in their brain stem, and they can no longer breathe on their own. Although their heart may remain beating, giving the illusion of life, it is inaccurate to suggest that a ventilator is actually keeping them alive. In fact, most medical professionals believe it’s highly unethical to attempt this type of medical intervention with a deceased person’s body." And when a heart starts beating is not the question here. The question is that no one can use my body against my will and that goes for a fetus too, if I don’t want to donate my body to the developing of a fetus and eventually the creating of a new human being, because I am very aware of the responsibility of bringing new beings into this world and I know without a doubt that I am not in a position to nurture this new being to grow as a free autonomous human being. I don’t want to take your right to carry any pregnancy to term, if that your wishes, even if I can see clearly that the new life you are bringing into the world is going to be a carrier of a psychological virus with misinformation and confusion you going to transmit into this new being, but like you can’t force your believes and will on me; I too can’t force you to see that you are helping in the creation of new beings that will continue spreading the psychological virus and ignorance in this world. The only thing I can hope is that the new life you are helping create will be able to see the hypocrisy and lies and be able to break free someday.
A person's right to live does not and should not interfere with another person's bodily autonomy. And no, a woman's right to her body DOES NOT end once she is pregnant. To even assume so is like saying "your right to your organs ends once a dying person needs them". NO ONE and NOTHING has the right to use the body of another without their consent or against their wishes. If a man can't rape me if a leukemia patient can't take my marrow or my blood, and if someone in need of a liver can't take mine, then why should a fetus have the right to remain in my uterus if that's not what I want? You CANNOT give a fetus a right that NO OTHER HUMAN has.
Abortion has no effect on society, and because of that, it’s nobody’s business but between the woman and her conscience. But abusing children, on the other hand, is everyone's business because it affects all of us. Most Parents have children because of their unconscious need to pass on to others the humiliation one has undergone oneself and the need to find an outlet for repressed effect. “The need to split off the disquieting parts of the inner self and project them onto an available object. The child’s great plasticity flexibility, defenselessness, and availability made it the ideal object for this projection. The enemy within can, at last, be hunted down on the outside. Peace advocates are becoming increasingly aware of the role played by these mechanisms, but until it is clearly recognized that they can be traced back to methods of child raising, little can be done to oppose them. For children who have grown up being assailed for qualities, the parents hate in themselves can hardly wait to assign these qualities to someone else so they can once again regard themselves as good, “moral,” noble, and altruistic. Such projections can easily become part of any Weltanschauung.” Alice Miller
“Again, I ask, where does the heartbeat come from if it's not a living thing? If a fetus is not a baby or child, then what is it? A kitten? I, for the life of me, can't figure out what else fetuses would be.”
A fetus is a fetus! It has the potential to become a human being. A caterpillar is not a butterfly until it transforms into a butterfly.
The pro-lifers see a fertilized egg (zygote) as a person, whatever, but that is not reality. The reality is that a fertilized egg is nothing but a fertilized egg (Zygotes). You would not call a caterpillar a butterfly, but just like a fertilized egg (zygote) has the potential to become a person, a caterpillar also has the potential to become a butterfly. Still, they are not until they do, and most, no matter what we do, will never become a person or a butterfly. If pro-lifers are concerned about the sanctity of life, they better be vegetarians, anti-war, and anti-death penalty too, or else they are little more than meddling, self-righteous hypocrites. Life did not begin in my uterus and will not end in my uterus; it began millions of years ago and will keep going until planet Earth can sustain it.
“Can they guarantee that the child won't have autism or get in a car crash on the way home from the hospital? NO. We are not guaranteed anything, and we must trust God with our lives and the lives of our children.”
If you want to put your life and that of your children life in God's hands, it is your choice, but my life is in my hands and if present circumstances take me into a difficult situation, I look within myself to find the answers to my life not to religion or anyone else, so don’t preach to me. Children who are preached to learn how to preach, and when they grow up, will preach to others, and children who are spanked learned to use violence to get their way.
Fool4Christ, thank you for your long comment that I did not finish reading because no matter what anyone says, decisions regarding my own body and life is not up for debate. I am the captain of my body. It’s very annoying to me when people use their religion to try to manipulate and control me.
Thank you for writing. I totally agree with you.
“What is CNN’s motive? To get at the truth? To start a fiery debate that will lead to a spike in hits and viewership? This is easy, low-hanging fruit “reporting”.
What you need to be focusing on is the cycle of poverty among women, the lack of access to reproductive healthcare, and the attacks across the country on women's right to a legal abortion. In the southern states, especially (CNN does know Mississippi's last abortion clinic is on the chopping block thanks to legion anti-abortion legislators headed by Governor Bryant?). If CNN is interested in having a conversation about abortion, how about you make it the right one?”
I hope they make the right one.
Status of Women-UN CSW 57
I have no words to express the sadness of your post. I don’t know where you got that picture to shock people. And we probably will never know the origins and true circumstances of that picture. You might be able to fool emotionally blind people with the mask of your illusion of love and caring about women and children. Still, I can see so clearly through the pretty masks people wear to allure vulnerable people to their seductive cults.
Thank you for sharing your story. Your experience was the same as mine; the only difference is that mine was illegal.
Avatbb, you write: “They were physical, sexually or emotionally abused or neglected as kids and the feelings they have carried around inside them all these years are stirred up by the anxiety of finding they are pregnant when they don't want to be, and having to cross anti-choice picket lines, and having to come up with more money than they make in a month to get a simple medical services that they need desperately.”
I know what you wrote is a fact. In my case I always was able to know that my off and on depression had nothing to do with my abortion, because I had it before I had my abortion and my abortion was a life-saving procedure, because I know without a doubt having a child without facing and understand the root causes of my off and on depression would have caused me to go over the edge. It’s sad to see so many young, vulnerable, and confused women falling victim to these religious charlatans who exploit them by shaming and controlling women by making them feel guilty. Most young women I have come across who live in confusion and think abortion caused them harm are those who suffered extreme abuse in their childhood. Almost all of them had experienced sexual abuse when they were still little babies, making it hard to recover from, because the earlier the trauma in a person’s life, the harder it is to resolve.
Thank you for your story! And I, too, agree 100% with you. "What's always gotten me, though, is that I've also had a "D&C". A "dilation and cauterization" is the same thing, you know: it's an abortion. Though it's given a fancy word because this procedure is somehow more legitimate, and is given under medical necessity rather than election. I had a D&C when I miscarried because I couldn't stop bleeding, and the miscarriage became dangerous.
One elective, one "necessary". Both saved my life. Who is to say that one is more important than the other, or one more justified than the other? Why does anyone else even get to have an opinion about these things?
I won't justify my abortion, but I will tell you that I'll keep fighting for the right of my daughters to have one any time they feel they need to, for whatever reason, without answering to me or anyone else."
Followyrid, thank you for sharing your story, and congratulations on making a conscious and wise decision.
Sylvie Imelda Shene: Abortion and contraception are the best ways to slow down all maladies in our society. One of my missions in life is to help remove the stigma from abortion, and this is why I went public with my story. You can read my abortion story in the link below:
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-924935
I could not agree more: "The time has come for those in America who have had abortions to start coming out of their closets in order to stand with those who will be needing abortions because of the Zika virus.
It’s time to normalize contraception and abortion worldwide and put an end to the draconian church persecution of those who in good faith and conscience, practice contraception and abortion. It’s time for all “good” Americans to stop tolerating religious leaders and politicians who continue to oppose women’s reproductive rights."
M David Liverman. This is nothing less than the fight for women's lives, for the most vital of medical and life needs.
Abortion encapsulates most profoundly all of a woman's rights in the most fundamental way. For no rights are possible without the right to body integrity and thus to body autonomy, which makes possible the practical right to physical self-defense. The immutable facts that a fetus grows within and feeds upon a woman's body and is thus not an individual person, together with pregnancy and gestation necessarily entailing a threat to a woman's very life--especially if she does not want it--mean that abortion is self-defense. It is, therefore, absolutely not murder, as the so-called "pro-lifers" are so wont to parrot to everyone, over and over again.
In addition to body integrity and its resultant right to physical body autonomy, which is the right to self-defense, a woman's right plan her own life long-range and thus to exert full control over her own fertility is also essential for her own right to her life; and for the general concept of a right to life to have any meaning.
This is nothing less than the struggle for the absolutely vital and utterly indispensable acknowledgment of the personhood and full humanity of women.
Thank you for telling your story, Sylvie! More women speaking up as you have is needed to raise consciousness and increase awareness of all that is at stake in the fight for abortion rights.
Sylvie Imelda shene: M David, thank you for your very thoughtful and encouraging comment. I completely agree with every word you wrote. You might also like reading the comments that CNN deleted on my abortion story.
Abortion and contraception: The two best ways to slow the Zika outbreak, according to experts
The author of the Facebook post below -- what she wrote --
is exactly what I did in 1979 when I needed an abortion In Portugal, where it was illegal for young women to make decisions over their own bodies and life. I didn't tell anyone about it until 2013.
