Talk to your kids about abortion, by CBS News.

Even though this article is very much in the "abortion as health choice" genre, it does say (although only in the last paragraph):

"A dose of mifepristone is taken under the guidance of a clinician, according to the organization's Web site. "In a few days, she uses the second medication, misoprostol. The pregnancy usually ends within four hours after taking the misoprostol. The pre-embryo or embryo and other products of conception that develop during pregnancy are passed out through the vagina. Complete abortion will occur in 96 to 97 percent of women receiving this regimen."

Sure wouldn't want to be in the 3-4%, and "products of conception that develop during pregnancy" is the longest synonym I've ever seen for "very small baby".

Time for a Dr. Phil update.

On Thursday, I wrote about Dr. Phil's Wednesday show. That show involved a young married couple is major marital disarray following an abortion.

Mark Shea linked to that post, and wrote some additional comments.

Mark's point is that I talked about this couple's need to grieve, but not about their need to recognize the sinfulness of the abortion. (Or, in secular speak, their need to recognize that it was a grave moral wrong.)

True enough. I agree with Mark about that.

I'm not trying to defend my failure to leave "repentance" off the list of what this couple needs to do in order to move on, which is what Dr. Phil is urging they do.

I was thinking more in terms of what happens after a person repents. The moment of repentance from abortion involves the simultaneous recognition that a life was lost.

My sense is that many post-abortive men and women live for years in the twlight sleep of trying to avoid their subterranean thoughts and feelings about the actual, real humanity of the baby that was destroyed in the abortion.

Do we do this because we don't want to admit that we sinned? Or do we do this because IF we admit that it was a sin, the emotional consequences of that admission are so daunting?

If abortion IS a sin, it is a sin because it is the intentional destruction of innocent human life. If that's what it is, then when you realize that, you realize that a child of yours is dead. You become a grieving parent, and there is no less grief involved than for those parents whose two-year-old or ten-year-old dies.

That's an ocean of tears, lamentations and moans in the night.

Frankly, it's a lot easier to say "I sinned" than it is to let yourself in for that particular ocean by dismantling one's denial.

I didn't mention the "sin" part and I should have. But as those of us know who confess our sins regularly to a priest, it's not so hard to say "I sinned". Distraught, inconsolable weeping? That's the hard part.

It takes all kinds and they're all on the internet.

According to a source at Rachel's Vineyard, after holding their first retreats in Africa in August, they have now been asked to have retreats in Russia and India. The manual is being translated into French and Dutch. It is already being used in a Spanish and a Portuguese version.

I haven't seen an official news story on this, but I understand that the Silent No More Awareness Campaign hosted a small event in front of Radio City Music Hall in New York City on Monday. Women held signs saying "I Regret My Abortion" including celebrities Melba Moore and Jennifer O'Neill.

Incredibly enough, yesterday's edition of the Dr. Phil show dealt with a couple suffering major sex problems as the result of an abortion.

Some quotes from the show:

"Tripp is one of the 20 million men in America who suffer from erectile dysfunction, and the condition has prevented him from consummating his two-and-a-half year marriage to Michelle. 'It's like a cancer eating me from the inside out,' Tripp says.

The problem stems from an abortion the couple had while they were engaged. 'I felt that the decision to terminate the pregnancy was forced upon me,' says Michelle. Tripp acknowledges his role in Michelle's unhappiness: 'When I made the decision to have the procedure, I think I lost a lot of her trust,' he says. Now, fear of failure keeps him from trying to have sex with his wife.

Tripp admits the only thing it could be is the abortion the couple went through. 'We weren't together very long when we had to deal with that,' Tripp says. 'And when it happened, it was like the sex went from 150 percent to zero. It was like the wall completely caved in on me.'


'The two of you got pregnant, the two of you went the route that you did, and don't both of you have to own that decision?' Dr. Phil asks the couple. He then addresses Tripp: 'Is it any wonder that you felt tremendous guilt and shame and pain over the decision and the pain it caused Michelle?'"

Go for it, Dr. Phil.

Unfortunately, he later tells them that what they must do is get over it and move it, without giving them any ideas about how to do that.

The last time they tried to have sex, as you can see from reading the transcript, Michelle ran from the room and cried for five hours. This is a situation that calls for more than the "okay, time to move on" advice.

This couple lost a child. They need to be allowed and encouraged to grieve together.

A poem sent in by a reader.

TO JOSHUA 1986

To You my unborn child, my son
So much I need to say
To let you know where I was at
On that your dying day

I was so full of fear myself
Incapable to see
That giving life to you my son
Was my responsibility.

A child myself, I did not know
the options that I had
So I made the choice to let you die
Although my heart was sad.

My parents had forsaken me
Disowned me as their own
I could not handle another way
For I was all alone.

The nightmare of that day, my son
It lingers deep inside
For along with you, my precious child
A part of me has died.

Though many years have since passed
And others I have raised
I never have forgotten you
You’re with my all my days.

You’re the child that I never held
Who never got to live
Who never got to feel inside the love I have to give.

The brother my children will never know
The grandson my parents lost
Unwed mother that I was
And you, you paid the cost.

People say that you’ll forget
That time will heal the ache
But I carry the cross of you my son
The child I did forsake.

And on my day of judgment
This cross I’ll bring to Him
Knowing in His mercy
He forgives me for my sin.

For now within my heart and soul
There always is regret
For killing you, my unborn son
God’s child I never met.

Kate Michelman has announced that she is stepping down as president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Here's a post I wrote earlier this year about Michelman's conflicted feelings about her own traumatic abortion.

What is it like to take RU-486? Two quotes from a webpage at Priests for Life.

"The only thing private about RU 486 is that the final stage of the abortion, the expulsion of the embryo, often happens at home--or someplace else. To call this an at home abortion is deceptive, to say the least, since most of the treatment transpires at the clinic or hospital and is extremely medicalized. What actually happens at home can be an excruciatingly long wait for the embryo to be expelled from the uterus, accompanied by pain, bleeding, vomiting, nausea, and other complications that are drawn out over a substantially lengthy period of time, compared with a conventional abortion ....We are talking about a non-private, extensively medicalized, and complicated procedure." (Raymond, et al, pp.27-29)

Edouard Sakiz (Chairman of Roussel Uclaf, the pharmaceutical company manufacturing RU 486) bluntly describes why the drug is not a panacea for women seeking a safe and easy abortion procedure:

"As abortifacient procedures go, RU 486 is not at all easy to use. In fact, it is more complex to use than the technique of vacuum extraction. True, no anesthetic is required. But a woman who wants to end her pregnancy has to 'live' with her abortion for at least a week using this technique. It's an appalling psychological ordeal" (Raymond, et al, pp.50-51)

Reading this, and reading the news story about the reaction of Holly's family to this tragic death, I think about Holly and Holly's boyfriend during the last week of her life.

What was all this like for the boyfriend? We don't know whether he supported or opposed the abortion, or whether he told Holly that he would support her no matter what decision she reached. I wonder if it ever occurred to the boyfriend to urge Holly to speak to her parents.

I wonder if it occurred to the boyfriend, as Holly slid in to septic shock and required emergency treatment, that this was a result of the RU-486. It seems from the newspaper stories that he did not mention to anyone (her parents or doctors at the emergency room) that Holly was in the middle of an RU-486 abortion, in case that information might help her receive appropriate treatment.

A funeral will be held today for Holly Patterson.

Holly died late last week after taking the RU 486 abortion pill. The Alameda County Coroner's office is investigating the death, as is the Food and Drug Administration.

An AP story about Holly's death,
Abortion Pill Death May Re-Ignite Debate, appears in many papers today.

"SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Holly Marie Patterson went to a Planned Parenthood clinic two weeks ago to quietly consider ways to handle a life change she wasn't ready for. One week later, the 18-year-old lay dying on an emergency room table, the victim of complications after she took the abortion pill.

Patterson's death is likely to reignite the debate surrounding RU-486, the pill approved by the Food and Drug Administration two years ago as a way for women to end pregnancies themselves. Her father is hoping the tragedy will encourage other women considering abortion to seek support, especially from their families.

Every time I think about it, I think, 'She suffered in silence,' said Monty Patterson, who said he did not know his daughter was pregnant or taking abortion drugs. 'She felt she would disappoint everyone around her, and then she had to carry that whole load. I wish she could have told me so I could have helped her.'

Holly Patterson, who lived in the San Francisco suburb of Livermore, visited a Planned Parenthood clinic Sept. 10 to take the pill. She followed the prescribed procedure for using RU-486, taking two more pills at home three days later. After experiencing bleeding and cramps so severe that she was unable to walk, her boyfriend rushed her to the hospital the following evening, where she was given painkillers and sent home. Three nights later, she was back in the hospital. She died the following day."

Yes, I will be posting a nice long story about the sonograms of smiling babies in the womb, with many links. Soon!

I also have a long overdue post on a few pro-abortion (truly pro-abortion) writers who believe that when women abort, all of them do know that it is a child and they are killing it, so pictures of babies in utero or facts about fetal development couldn't possibly make a difference.

California teen's death being probed.

From AP, an update on the San Francisco girl who died last week after taking the RU-486 abortion pill. If you read between the lines of the article, you'll see that Planned Parenthood and the girl's father are at odds. The girl's father says "an infection caused by fragments of the fetus left inside his daughter's uterus caused her to go into septic shock." Planned Parenthood, though, is "investigating the death", which implies that it doesn't buy that explanation.

What I was trying to say in the post immediately below, Ashli succeeds in saying.

Ashli is also asking for comments on music:

"Torture or 'art therapy'? Whatever music is it's affective. I would like to hear from others regarding music and the SICLE. I'd like to get different perspectives on different songs and post the anonymous comments/experiences. Did anyone ever get any of those 'post-abortion healing' CD's?"

SICLE, for those of you who aren't regular readers of Ashli, is a Self-Imposed Child Loss Experience.