After twenty-five years of sensing a call to mission to warn women that contraception is deeper bondage for women rather than freedom, after trying time and time again to get preachers to preach the message from the pulpit without appreciable success, after trying time after time to host events to get the word across, also without much success, I'm beginning to think that it's almost totally up to women to see through the lie and start the healing process, woman to woman. As my wise mother used to say, "A boy will take his lead from you as to how he will treat you. You're the one in control, not he."
It's not really men's fault for not stepping up to the plate. Doesn't matter if a man, ordained or not, has the truth in black and white print-- if contraceptive abortion or surgical abortion hasn't touched him, body, heart, mind, and soul, in the way it touches a woman, he just can't get it. Oh, a man can say the words, but unless he's experienced what women experience, he's not going to have that irresistible burning zeal that makes him speak, no matter what the consequences, exceptions notwithstanding.
The first time I ever read a list of symptoms of women who were suffering psychological and emotional side effects of surgical abortion, I wondered why I had a number of those symptoms, and it took another six years for me to realize that it was because I had had an abortion, but it was abortion that no one talks about, and hardly anyone knows about: abortion caused by IUD. Oh, they don't call it abortion--they just say that if pregnancy occurs while a woman is wearing an IUD, it will almost always end in 'miscarriage.' But a woman knows it wasn't an act of nature-- it was something that she chose that caused it. It's a silent abortion screaming loudly in her head, but until she comes to realize it, she can't seek healing because she doesn't even know she needs it.
Once I started to realize it, the healing process started: counseling with a priest, naming my never-before-acknowledged baby girl; counseling with Project Rachel; a healing retreat weekend with Rachel's Vineyard; a gradual return of joy, but never without an ever-deepening sense of mission, too. Some symptoms remain, and maybe they always will, but healing is happening and I'm confident it will continue, too, because God is Mercy.
When we women lead, the men will follow, but we have to stop fighting each other first, give up the lie that contraception is good for anyone, man, woman, or child.
It's not really men's fault for not stepping up to the plate. Doesn't matter if a man, ordained or not, has the truth in black and white print-- if contraceptive abortion or surgical abortion hasn't touched him, body, heart, mind, and soul, in the way it touches a woman, he just can't get it. Oh, a man can say the words, but unless he's experienced what women experience, he's not going to have that irresistible burning zeal that makes him speak, no matter what the consequences, exceptions notwithstanding.
The first time I ever read a list of symptoms of women who were suffering psychological and emotional side effects of surgical abortion, I wondered why I had a number of those symptoms, and it took another six years for me to realize that it was because I had had an abortion, but it was abortion that no one talks about, and hardly anyone knows about: abortion caused by IUD. Oh, they don't call it abortion--they just say that if pregnancy occurs while a woman is wearing an IUD, it will almost always end in 'miscarriage.' But a woman knows it wasn't an act of nature-- it was something that she chose that caused it. It's a silent abortion screaming loudly in her head, but until she comes to realize it, she can't seek healing because she doesn't even know she needs it.
Once I started to realize it, the healing process started: counseling with a priest, naming my never-before-acknowledged baby girl; counseling with Project Rachel; a healing retreat weekend with Rachel's Vineyard; a gradual return of joy, but never without an ever-deepening sense of mission, too. Some symptoms remain, and maybe they always will, but healing is happening and I'm confident it will continue, too, because God is Mercy.
When we women lead, the men will follow, but we have to stop fighting each other first, give up the lie that contraception is good for anyone, man, woman, or child.
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