Fraters Libertas

The Elephant in the Corner

Kim Jeffries is a WCCO radio personality and according to an article in the Star Tribune is involved in a Christian ministry geared toward women who have had abortions. Her ministry is based on her own experience with having an abortion in her early 20's and the effect it's had on her life since.

Given the media's hostility toward any information that abortion may be destructive to the women involved, this is a very brave, and potentially career jeopardizing stance by Jeffries. First, by merely admitting she's had an abortion. According to Jeffries' organization, Tell Them I Love Them, 43% of all women under the age of 45 have had at least one. Yet I can't name any other public personality who's been willing to admit it. And now she risks the wrathful attention of local pressure groups, since she's been outspoken about her experience. Because not only does Jeffries admit it, she's also willing to tell her story of the trauma she's experienced since.

It was all a blur. An abortion more than 20 years ago was so traumatic that Kim Jeffries blocked out most of the details. "It was like sleepwalking," she said.

For years Jeffries kept quiet about the abortion. Eventually, she said, the secret became too much for her to bear. Her first marriage fell apart. Finally, she said, she had what she calls an epiphany at a spiritual retreat -- a call from Jesus to share her story, to forgive herself and to minister to others.

While this article does a good job of describing the pain Jeffries and other have suffered because of their decision to have abortions, the writer, Jim Buchta, has a difficult time identifying the cause of this pain. He never bothers to explain exactly why abortions are so traumatic to some and why they feel the need for forgiveness. He dances around it a few times and does obliquely present a couple of possibilities:

Jeffries said it has taken decades for her to find the courage to talk about abortion, even to her parents. When she learned that she was pregnant, she had dropped out of college and was three months into her radio career. She was "ashamed of being exposed as a person who had sex out of marriage," she said.

And then he interviews an expert on performing abortions who clinically relays the only other possibility allowed:

Sarah Stoesz, chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota and South Dakota, said the organization offers pre-and postabortion counseling services, and that while some women suffer from depression caused by pregnancy-related hormonal changes, there's no scientific evidence to support claims of a clinical diagnosis called postabortion syndrome.

That's all we're offered as cause, the stigma associated with having sex out of marriage or the lingering affects of hormonal changes due to a 20 year old pregnancy.

Am I crazy or is there one other, rather obvious, possibility? Perhaps all of this extreme psychological trauma has something to do with the fact these women are having trouble coming to terms with the belief that they had their own children killed?

I'm not using that language to be inflammatory. But doesn't even the inviable tissue mass crowd have to acknowledge that this is certainly what some of these women believe? Even ignoring the overwhelming scientific evidence about the uniquely human qualities of even the youngest fetus, doesn't common sense alone allow the pro-choicers to understand that some women, many women, feel sad after their abortions, because they believe in their hearts they killed their children?

The answer is apparently no. According to Planned Parenthood, the idea that women may be legitimately depressed based on their haunted consciences is beyond the realm of possibility:

There is a wide array of services and treatments available for depression related to all kinds of causes and factors," Stoesz said. ". . . women who find themselves unintentionally pregnant can frequently feel quite depressed, and what this points to is the need for more widely available family planning services and not services that are constructed around a nonexistent clinical condition."

Non existent clinical condition. I didn't think I could be surprised any longer by the cold-hearted, deceptive rhetoric of these people, but that's a new low. Which only makes someone like Jeffries even more heroic. Despite what she's gone through, and despite the fact she knows groups like Planned Parenthood are engaged in activities bringing similar misery to others, she understands that the radicalized politics of the Pro-Choice movement can impede any human connection. To get around that she espouses her belief as:

"I'm pro-choice and pray that others will choose life"

May God bless her and may her heart find peace.