ABORTED WOMEN, SILENT NO MORE
David C. Reardon
Westchester, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1988
373 pp., $9.95
Abortion is an impassioned subject. Since 1973, when the Supreme Court legalized abortion, the issue has continued to spark heated political and moral debate and at times violent dissension between the two opposing sides, pro-life and pro-choice. Both sides stand on certain rights: the right to life versus the right to freedom of choice.
Between the two sides is a gray area only rarely explored and held open to public view. It is a region peopled by those who have the most to say about abortions--the women who have experienced them and are willing to discuss them openly. Aborted Women, Silent No More is a journey into this cinereous region. It is a profoundly disturbing journey, yet of a kind that is sooner or later necessary for all who would go beyond the comfortable ideology of abortion into its excruciating reality.
What the Survey Shows
The book is a concerted effort by author David C. Reardon and the national organization known as Women Exploited By Abortion (WEBA), founded in 1982 by Nancyjo Mann. In her foreword, Mann describes her own abortion experience, with its subsequent severe physical complications ending in total hysterectomy at the age of twenty-two, followed by years of guilt and anger. WEBA's membership, in forty-two state chapters, is made up of women who, like Mann, have felt exploited by the abortion industry and/or the abortion ideology of convenience and quick fix. Most are women who share a feeling of having been pushed into abortions by boyfriends, parents, husbands, school counselors, physicians, or difficult circumstances, and/or who feel they have been deceived and lied to by abortionists and clinic counselors about the abortion procedure and the possible physical risks involved.
For the vast majority of WEBA members, a common denominator is the experience of a wide range of negative post abortion psychological and emotional effects. It was primarily to assist in healing these traumas that WEBA was organized. It is the only national organization made up entirely of women who have had abortions, all of whom, without exception, regret their abortion decisions. WEBA's two main functions are simply stated: "WEBA serves as a refuge and a source of spiritual and emotional healing for women who have had abortions. Offering group support, WEBA members share their experiences and their insights in order to promote the healing of the emotional and psychological scars of the abortion experience…"; and, "WEBA volunteers who have fully reconciled themselves to their abortions speak publicly of their experiences in an attempt to educate the general public, and young women in particular, about the physical, emotional, and psychological side effects of abortion."
Aborted Women is a reflection of these two functions. It is a work based in large part on an in-depth survey of 252 women in WEBA chapters around the country. The strength of the WEBA survey lies in its being the first independent national study of aborted women, and in its long-term view--the average time between abortion and survey is ten
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