I receive a Google alert each day for news events dealing with the issue of trauma.  There are many on the list each day!  Trauma centered care is big industry and has grown immensely over the past two decades.  None of the alerts, however, talk about trauma as a result of having an abortion experience.  None!  If you’re like me, you wonder why?

I’d like to share with you my own personal cause and effect experience.

At the center of trauma-informed care are Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE’s), which can cause trauma to varying extents. You can imagine that those experiences include events like child abuse of any kind, witnessing violence, neglect, unsafe home environments, to name a few. Unless these traumatic experiences are faced head on and treatment provided, the individual is likely to not only engage in risky behavior themselves as they grow up, but also pass it on to the next generation. This is called generational trauma. Trauma effects behavior, which leads to more trauma. The cycle goes on and on, until it is broken.

I am not an expert on trauma, but I have learned much about it in the last few years as I pressed through my own abortion-related trauma.

For anyone experiencing the pain of abortion, if you want to be free, there is healing available.

First, the attempt to take my life through the abortionist instruments traumatized me at about 13 weeks’ gestation. This violent experience was not discussed with my mom until I was in my 30’s. Second, while submitting to the authority of others, I lost two children myself to abortion and then, after my loss, I pivoted to a job in the abortion industry.

There is much pain and suffering to be healed of from these multiple experiences.  Here is a partial list of symptoms as stated by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration:  anger, fear, shame, self-medication, eating disorders, detached emotions, risky sexual behavior, and sleep disturbances.

Abortion is a violent experience that traumatizes it’s victims.  One in four women are affected by an abortion experience.  Men, families, communities and nations are affected too!  It is and has been a destructive, violent and damaging reality for decades.

Abortion trauma begets more trauma, generation after generation, unless there is a cycle breaker.

Before birth a severe trauma experience was set within my brain, and then it manifested through my behavior for the first three decades of my life. The affliction that abortion had over me was finally and eternally broken when I came to faith in Jesus Christ, receiving forgiveness, and being made new day-by-day. Christ is the cycle breaker and can change us from the inside out. His redemption is a miraculous gift!

I’ve accessed healing through the Abortion Survivors Network, and have experienced healing from abortion through Forgiven and Set Free and other programs. I’ve also been blessed by the group, And Then There Were None, for the time that I worked in the abortion industry.  I can attest to the benefit of healing and the hope the process provides.

For anyone experiencing the pain of abortion, if you want to be free, there is healing available, through many resources, books, videos and every kind of format.  Look to your local community for something or someone.  Or, if I can help, reach out to me at pahurley@alaska.com.

The views expressed here are those of the author.

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