On abortion

I am full of nervousness about writing this blog. It is such a controversial topic, with so much emotion associated with it. It's making me nervous writing it, because at the end of writing I may press publish and that will mean that more people than I would ever have wanted would know the thing that I am most ashamed of doing in my life - that I have had an abortion.
I had an abortion.
I was in my twenties, and at the time I suppose I thought that it was fine, it was your choice, whether or not you stayed pregnant. I knew people who'd had abortions, and I didn't blame them. I made the decision quickly I remember, looking back it's weird, why didn't I even think about keeping the baby until after the abortion? But I didn't, not until afterwards, and then I did. For years and even now I have wished with every fibre of my being that I didn't do it, but wishing won't change it. You see the problem is that the instant I had taken the medication to induce labour and rid my body of the baby I knew it was wrong, and not just "shouldn't have told that little lie" wrong, but irreversibly wrong. The kind of wrong that is so deep and vast and impenetrable that it grabs you in a choke hold and strangles the breath out of you. No-one said to me that it was wrong or bad, the few people that knew were very sweet and supportive, but I knew it. I knew it to the very depths of my bones. I wonder if everyone who's done what I've done feels the same, even if they don't say it. It doesn't matter what I thought about "when life starts", from the moment I realized I was pregnant it was a baby. I didn't walk around thinking, "yes I have collection of cells inside me", no I thought "I have a baby inside me!" (Exclamation being terror.) So when I chose to end the pregnancy, every part of me knew it was my baby I was ending, and there was no escaping that by relabeling the child as cells or a fetus or whatever. In my heart I had already called it child and child it was and child it is no more, because of me.
There is a lot of debate about this issue, and I'm not about to stand on any picket lines throwing blood on women seeking abortions, I'd have to throw it at myself, but it is wrong, so deeply wrong. I have grieved the death of my unborn child for so long, but it has been a complicated grief full of guilt, because I did it. The child was never born because of me. Had I not acted the child might be sat with me now, as a write a very different blog about how I was brave enough to keep her.
I share this for two reasons, firstly I suppose because you don't seem to hear that much from people like me, who've had an abortion and realized what a terrible thing it is. It's the shame I suppose, the deep deep shame that can't bare anyone to know. It's not just two sides, people who are against it and people who are for it, there are those of us who have done it. And the very loud and harsh political war that is being fought right now is hurting us. It hurts us when you scream about us being murders, trust me we know it, and it hurts us when you scream about it being our right, trust me we only think about the rights we denied our child. Maybe I "we" too generally, I don't mean to insult anyone with it, but I don't think I am alone in feeling this way.
My second reason is even though I still feel sadness about it sometimes, the Lord has recently taken me on a journey to understand and fully accept that I am forgiven.
I am fully forgiven.
I can't explain the fullness of it in words, it's so deep and vast and pentrating that it grabs you in resuscitation squeezing breath into places where there is no room for air.
I ended my child's life, and it took Jesus dying on the cross for the punishment to be fulfilled. But He did it, He wasn't disgusted with me, He saw me dying, dead, in a trap of my own making and loved me all the same. He died for me, adopted me into His family, by his blood I am saved and free! This sin isn't beyond the savior, and I am not meant to try and carry it as a burden for the rest of my life. It is paid for, like all the rest, and His sacrifice is counted to me by the faith I have in Him. It's not just a comfort, but an actual change in my condition, my heart pounds with the truth of it.
2 Corinthians 7:10 says "For godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death." I struggled for so long to achieve that last part, that "without regret" in this particular sin, because I did regret it so much. But Jesus didn't die so that I could feel trapped in regret. In holding onto my regret I was denying the efficacy of His work on the cross, it was like I was saying it wasn't enough. To be without regret doesn't mean that you don't recognize the wrongness of what you did, it means accepting that you have been forgiven, it's done, you repent and turn away from that sin in full confidence that the consequences have been dealt with in an eternal way, and they were dealt with long ago on a cross by a man who is God and who knew exactly what He was doing. Everyday I need Him, and everyday He provides.
Everyday I stand before the cross and know that it is finished!