CONTRACEPTION / ABORTION: WHY IT IS MY ISSUE – PART II
When I finished graduate school and re-entered the career world, I became very competent in my field and, of course, rather successful in secular terms. People told me, “You have it all – looks, a good career, money, a nice car.” What more could a girl want? I can’t think of any time in my life that I was lonelier than when I was in my late 30’s and married to my career – working 60 – 70 hour work weeks. Although I enjoyed my work immensely, I longed for intimacy – a special someone to greet me at the door with a hug and a kiss, someone to talk with in the middle of a long, sleepless night, someone to cuddle up with on cool or not so cool evenings, someone to share my life with, to have children with, some one to love. I suddenly realized how important it was to me to give birth to a child before it was too late.
When my sister and mother both contracted breast cancer at the same time in their lives (I believe that my sister’s condition developed as a result of taking birth control pills and my mother’s were a result of taking hormones for menopause), I experienced a rather dramatic conversion (which is another story) and returned to my Catholic roots. This was in 1987. At that time, I also had developed stage III endometriosis. I believe that the birth control pills which I had taken for 10+ years were, in part, responsible for my condition.
Let me explain exactly what endometriosis is. It is NOT an STD. Endometriosis is one of the most common causes of pelvic pain and infertility in women. It is a condition where tissue similar to the lining of the uterus (the endometrial stroma and glands, which should only be located inside the uterus) is found elsewhere in the body. Endometriosis lesions can be found anywhere in the pelvic cavity: on the ovaries, the fallopian tubes, and on the pelvic sidewall. The most common symptom of endometriosis is pelvic pain. The pain often correlates to the menstrual cycle, but a woman with endometriosis may also experience pain that doesn’t correlate to her cycle. For many women, the pain of endometriosis is so severe and debilitating that it impacts their lives in significant ways. Endometriosis can also cause scar tissue and adhesions to develop that can distort a woman’s internal anatomy. It is estimated that 30-40% of women with endometriosis are infertile. It is interesting to note that of the five women in my immediate family – (only two of us were on the pill) only one of the five developed this disease. What I am saying is that in my case there was no genetic predisposition for developing endometriosis (No other family member or relative had been diagnosed with this condition.) – which can result in infertility – which leads me to believe that the birth control pill was responsible.
By the time I was in my early 40’s, I had undergone three surgeries for endometriosis – the last one resulting in the removal of one of my fallopian tubes and one of my ovaries. The operation was very traumatic for me as I had never had any children and so desperately wanted them. My physician later told me that I still had a chance of becoming pregnant and a couple of years later, I married my husband – a devout Catholic man whom I had met at a weekend retreat. I wanted so much to have a child with the man I loved, but it was not to be. I never did become pregnant, but my ideas about the pill and abortion changed radically. As I educated myself on how contraceptives and abortion worked and learned that the pill was an abortifacient, I wanted to help other women learn the truth as I had and share it with them before it was too late for them, before they too would lose the “gift of motherhood” as I had.
A few years later, I developed fibromyalgia – another disease that has been linked to endometriosis, the pill, and abortion. Although I have never had a surgical abortion, it is possible that I may have aborted a child unknowingly by taking the birth control pill.
What is fibromyalgia? FMS (fibromyalgia syndrome) is a widespread musculoskeletal pain and fatigue disorder. Fibromyalgia means pain in the muscles, ligaments, and tendons – the soft fibrous tissues in the body. Although some physicians state the cause it yet unknown, there are some research studies that link abortion to fibromyalgia. It doesn’t surprise me that more research in this area has not been done – after all, how many physicians want to face lawsuits for prescribing the pill and how many gynecologists who have done abortions want to make people aware of the dangers of abortion and open themselves up to lawsuits?
The event that triggered me to become a pro-life activist occurred in January, 2001. I attended a pro-life rally with some friends from church and witnessed Jill Stanek’s testimony about her experiences as a delivery nurse at Christ Hospital. I was shocked and outraged by Jill’s eye witness account of live-birth abortions in this “Christian” suburban Chicago hospital, which was not all that far from my home town.
Most pro-lfers know Jill, but I know that there will be others reading this who do not, so I believe that it is necessary to include her testimony here. The witness she gave that night is included in this testimony which she later presented before the U. S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee later approximately seven months later.
Testimony of Jill L. Stanek, RN. U. S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution Hearing"Born Alive Infants Protection Act of 2001"July 12, 2001
Warning: the description below is graphic and upsetting to most people. Do not continue if you are unwilling to suffer some emotional trauma.
I am a Registered Nurse who has worked in the Labor & Delivery Department at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, for the past six years. In the year that has elapsed since I testified before your committee regarding the same bill under discussion today, I have continued to work at the same hospital in the same position.
Christ Hospital performs abortions on women in their second or even third trimesters of pregnancy. Sometimes the babies being aborted are healthy, and sometimes they are not. The abortion technique that Christ Hospital and other hospitals use, called "induced labor abortion," sometimes results in infants being aborted alive, because throughout this particular abortion procedure the fetus is not killed in the uterus. The focus of this method is to forcibly dilate a woman's cervix so that she will prematurely deliver a baby who dies during the birth process or soon afterward.
The cervix is the opening at the bottom of the uterus that normally stays closed until a woman is about 40 weeks pregnant and goes into labor. There are a few ways to cause the cervix to open early. At Christ Hospital the most common way this is done is by the physician inserting a medication called Cytotec into the birth canal close to the cervix. Cytotec irritates the cervix. The FDA does not approve Cytotec for this use. It is a drug that is supposed to be taken by mouth to help control ulcers. The manufacturer of Cytotec issued a public letter in August 2000 warning that this drug may be harmful to women if used to induce labor, up to and including causing the uterus to rupture and causing death. But Christ Hospital continues to use Cytotec for pregnancy terminations.
After the cervix is prematurely dilated, the small, preterm baby drops out of the uterus, sometimes alive. In the event that a baby is aborted alive, he or she is given what my hospital calls "comfort care." "Comfort care" involves wrapping the baby in a blanket and offering him or her to the parents to hold until the baby dies. If parents do not want to hold their baby, as I have observed is most often the case, it is left to staff to care for the baby. Up until recently, staff options were to hold the baby until death or put the baby in our Soiled Utility Room if we got busy or if the baby lingered too long. Indeed, it is not uncommon for one of these babies to live for an hour or two or even longer. Last year alone, of the 16 babies that Christ Hospital states were aborted, I am aware of four who were born alive. Each of these babies - two boys and two girls - lived between 1-1/2 and 3 hours. At Christ Hospital one of these babies once lived for almost an entire eight-hour shift. At least two of the second-trimester babies who were aborted last year at Christ Hospital were completely healthy.
One night, a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down's syndrome baby who was born alive to our Soiled Utility Room because his parents did not want to hold him, and she did not have time to hold him. I could not bear the thought of this suffering child dying alone in a Soiled Utility Room, so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived. He was 21 to 22 weeks old, weighed about ½ pound, and was about 10 inches long. He was too weak to move very much, expending any energy he had trying to breathe. Toward the end he was so quiet that I couldn't tell if he was still alive unless I held him up to the light to see if his heart was still beating through his chest wall. After he was pronounced dead, we folded his little arms across his chest, wrapped him in a tiny shroud, and carried him to the hospital morgue where all of our dead patients are taken.
Other co-workers have told me about incidences of live aborted babies whom they have cared for. A Support Associate told me about an aborted baby who was left to die on the counter of the Soiled Utility Room wrapped in a disposable towel. This baby was accidentally thrown into the garbage, and when they later were going through the trash to find the baby, the baby fell out of the towel and on to the floor. A nurse coworker told me about an abortion she was involved in where the baby was supposed to have spina bifida but was born with an intact spine. She said that what actually happened was that there was an incompletely formed twin who appeared as a mass on his brother's back during an ultrasound. The nurse told me that the father came into the Soiled Utility Room to see his son, took one look and saw that he had been involved in aborting his completely healthy baby, and turned and left the room without saying a word. I was recently told about a situation by a nursing coworker who said, "I can't stop thinking about it." She had a patient who was just over 23 weeks pregnant, and she was not going to be able to complete her pregnancy to term. The baby was healthy and had up to a 39% chance of survival, according to national statistics. But the patient chose to abort. The baby was born alive. If the mother had wanted everything done for her baby, there would have been a neonatologist, pediatric resident, neonatal nurse, and respiratory therapist present for the delivery, and the baby would have been taken to our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for specialized care. Instead, the only personnel present for this delivery were an obstetrical resident and my coworker. After delivery the baby, who showed early signs of thriving, was merely wrapped in a blanket and kept in the Labor & Delivery Department until she died 2-1/2 hours later. Just three weeks after this baby was aborted, another mother came to the hospital under similar circumstances, carrying an identically aged baby and was offered the same options. But she said that she wanted her baby. And so present at her delivery were the aforementioned NICU team, and for the two days that I tracked her, that little girl lived.
When I testified before you last July, another nurse who worked at Christ Hospital, Allison Baker, also testified. Allison was not asked back today due to the new limit on the number of witnesses allowed. But last year Allison described walking into the Soiled Utility Room on two separate occasions to find live aborted babies left naked on a scale and the metal counter. She told about the patient that she herself had who didn't know that her baby might be aborted alive and who did not then want to hold him. After he was taken to the Soiled Utility Room she kept asking, "Is he dead yet? Is he dead yet?" (This testimony is being entered today into the Congressional Record.)
Lest you think that Christ Hospital's live birth abortion practice is uncommon, I am entering into Congressional Record today literature from a March 30, 2001, symposium sponsored by Waukesha Memorial Hospital in Wisconsin that was "reviewed and is acceptable" by the American Academy of Family Physicians, wherein Dr. Washington Hill writes that a "complication" of a mid-trimester labor induction is a "live birth." The American College of Obstetricians and gynecologists also gave credit hours to physicians for taking this course.
After I testified last year, Christ Hospital stopped putting aborted babies to die in the Soiled Utility Room. This past December it unveiled its "Comfort Room." This is a small, nicely decorated room complete with a First Foto machine in case parents want pictures of their aborted babies, baptismal supplies if parents would like their aborted babies baptized, and a foot printer and baby bracelets if parents would like keepsakes of their aborted babies. There is also a wooden rocker to rock these babies to death. (Pictures entered into Congressional Record.)
When Christ Hospital opened its Comfort Room, I was honestly galled. It became clearer to me than ever that a law must be enacted that specifies that all babies born alive are indeed humans and American citizens with civil rights to equal protection. This is a point that is obviously not clear to extremists in our great country who believe that the right to obtain an abortion must be extended to include the right to commit infanticide. If a hospital named "Christ" does not willingly stop committing infanticide but handles public and legal scrutiny by merely trying to make those whose lives they're snuffing out more "comfortable," I have grave concerns about children whose lives are being ended at abortion clinics and hospitals where there is no spotlight of attention.
Once a fetus is aborted, the pregnancy has been terminated. But when what emerges on the other of the vaginal vault is alive, "it" by medical definition is no longer a fetus but is now a "neonate" or "baby," with rights as human beings and American citizens that must be zealously protected. If we all cannot at least agree that civil rights begin at birth, then we will have to initiate the debate as to when after delivery a living person does begin to have rights, and a Pandora's Box will have been opened, the depths of which none of can possibly ascertain today.
The Department of Health & Human Services wrote me that, "civil rights laws do not cover abortion procedures or the rights of newborns." The Illinois Attorney General determined that "there is no basis for legal action by this office against the Hospital… at this time" in regard to Christ Hospital's labor induction abortion practices. (Both letters entered into Congressional Record.) Alan Keyes recently observed, "If we reflect for a moment upon the example of the Declaration of Independence, we will remember that sometimes even self-evident truths need to be declared." I think it is obvious that this is one of those times.
I did not cry while Jill humbly delivered this story to her attentive audience but I was bound and determined to do something about it – to help save the lives of innocent babies who were being put to death. I met and spoke with Jill after her witness and she asked me to be one of her prayer warriors, to which I willingly agreed. I also began to go out to the abortion mill to pray on a regular basis and later trained with Msgr. Reilly in Chicago to be a sidewalk counselor and a prayer intercessor at the mill as a member of the Helpers of God Precious Infants. I began writing pro-life articles and pro-life poetry and became actively involved in a number of pro-life organizations. I led the pro-life rosary at my parish and began to educate and discuss pro-life issues openly with others.
I have been an active participant in the culture of death, but God has forgiven me and openly shown me His grace and mercy. The Holy Spirit has guided me and led me to this ministry. If I had another chance to live my life over, I would never take the birth control pill nor would I have sex outside of a loving marital union blessed by God. We all have to live with the consequences of our behavior and I am living with mine. I thank God for opening the door for me and giving me the opportunity to share my experiences with other women so that they won’t make the same mistakes I did. Yes, it was in the early 1970’s when I began taking the pill – the time of the sexual revolution in America, but I could have clung to my strong faith beliefs and said “No” and stuck with it. It really isn’t any easier for women today. As a minister at a Cursillo retreat weekend I attended once said in his talk, “When you live in a whore house, you can’t remain a virgin.” I won’t say that I totally agree with that statement. I will say that it is difficult to do so in our culture of death today, but when you cling to God and His Holy Mother and participate in the sacraments, attend Eucharistic Adoration and sincerely place God’s desires above your own, He will give you the wisdom and the strength to do his will.
When my sister and mother both contracted breast cancer at the same time in their lives (I believe that my sister’s condition developed as a result of taking birth control pills and my mother’s were a result of taking hormones for menopause), I experienced a rather dramatic conversion (which is another story) and returned to my Catholic roots. This was in 1987. At that time, I also had developed stage III endometriosis. I believe that the birth control pills which I had taken for 10+ years were, in part, responsible for my condition.
Let me explain exactly what endometriosis is. It is NOT an STD. Endometriosis is one of the most common causes of pelvic pain and infertility in women. It is a condition where tissue similar to the lining of the uterus (the endometrial stroma and glands, which should only be located inside the uterus) is found elsewhere in the body. Endometriosis lesions can be found anywhere in the pelvic cavity: on the ovaries, the fallopian tubes, and on the pelvic sidewall. The most common symptom of endometriosis is pelvic pain. The pain often correlates to the menstrual cycle, but a woman with endometriosis may also experience pain that doesn’t correlate to her cycle. For many women, the pain of endometriosis is so severe and debilitating that it impacts their lives in significant ways. Endometriosis can also cause scar tissue and adhesions to develop that can distort a woman’s internal anatomy. It is estimated that 30-40% of women with endometriosis are infertile. It is interesting to note that of the five women in my immediate family – (only two of us were on the pill) only one of the five developed this disease. What I am saying is that in my case there was no genetic predisposition for developing endometriosis (No other family member or relative had been diagnosed with this condition.) – which can result in infertility – which leads me to believe that the birth control pill was responsible.
By the time I was in my early 40’s, I had undergone three surgeries for endometriosis – the last one resulting in the removal of one of my fallopian tubes and one of my ovaries. The operation was very traumatic for me as I had never had any children and so desperately wanted them. My physician later told me that I still had a chance of becoming pregnant and a couple of years later, I married my husband – a devout Catholic man whom I had met at a weekend retreat. I wanted so much to have a child with the man I loved, but it was not to be. I never did become pregnant, but my ideas about the pill and abortion changed radically. As I educated myself on how contraceptives and abortion worked and learned that the pill was an abortifacient, I wanted to help other women learn the truth as I had and share it with them before it was too late for them, before they too would lose the “gift of motherhood” as I had.
A few years later, I developed fibromyalgia – another disease that has been linked to endometriosis, the pill, and abortion. Although I have never had a surgical abortion, it is possible that I may have aborted a child unknowingly by taking the birth control pill.
What is fibromyalgia? FMS (fibromyalgia syndrome) is a widespread musculoskeletal pain and fatigue disorder. Fibromyalgia means pain in the muscles, ligaments, and tendons – the soft fibrous tissues in the body. Although some physicians state the cause it yet unknown, there are some research studies that link abortion to fibromyalgia. It doesn’t surprise me that more research in this area has not been done – after all, how many physicians want to face lawsuits for prescribing the pill and how many gynecologists who have done abortions want to make people aware of the dangers of abortion and open themselves up to lawsuits?
The event that triggered me to become a pro-life activist occurred in January, 2001. I attended a pro-life rally with some friends from church and witnessed Jill Stanek’s testimony about her experiences as a delivery nurse at Christ Hospital. I was shocked and outraged by Jill’s eye witness account of live-birth abortions in this “Christian” suburban Chicago hospital, which was not all that far from my home town.
Most pro-lfers know Jill, but I know that there will be others reading this who do not, so I believe that it is necessary to include her testimony here. The witness she gave that night is included in this testimony which she later presented before the U. S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee later approximately seven months later.
Testimony of Jill L. Stanek, RN. U. S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution Hearing"Born Alive Infants Protection Act of 2001"July 12, 2001
Warning: the description below is graphic and upsetting to most people. Do not continue if you are unwilling to suffer some emotional trauma.
I am a Registered Nurse who has worked in the Labor & Delivery Department at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, for the past six years. In the year that has elapsed since I testified before your committee regarding the same bill under discussion today, I have continued to work at the same hospital in the same position.
Christ Hospital performs abortions on women in their second or even third trimesters of pregnancy. Sometimes the babies being aborted are healthy, and sometimes they are not. The abortion technique that Christ Hospital and other hospitals use, called "induced labor abortion," sometimes results in infants being aborted alive, because throughout this particular abortion procedure the fetus is not killed in the uterus. The focus of this method is to forcibly dilate a woman's cervix so that she will prematurely deliver a baby who dies during the birth process or soon afterward.
The cervix is the opening at the bottom of the uterus that normally stays closed until a woman is about 40 weeks pregnant and goes into labor. There are a few ways to cause the cervix to open early. At Christ Hospital the most common way this is done is by the physician inserting a medication called Cytotec into the birth canal close to the cervix. Cytotec irritates the cervix. The FDA does not approve Cytotec for this use. It is a drug that is supposed to be taken by mouth to help control ulcers. The manufacturer of Cytotec issued a public letter in August 2000 warning that this drug may be harmful to women if used to induce labor, up to and including causing the uterus to rupture and causing death. But Christ Hospital continues to use Cytotec for pregnancy terminations.
After the cervix is prematurely dilated, the small, preterm baby drops out of the uterus, sometimes alive. In the event that a baby is aborted alive, he or she is given what my hospital calls "comfort care." "Comfort care" involves wrapping the baby in a blanket and offering him or her to the parents to hold until the baby dies. If parents do not want to hold their baby, as I have observed is most often the case, it is left to staff to care for the baby. Up until recently, staff options were to hold the baby until death or put the baby in our Soiled Utility Room if we got busy or if the baby lingered too long. Indeed, it is not uncommon for one of these babies to live for an hour or two or even longer. Last year alone, of the 16 babies that Christ Hospital states were aborted, I am aware of four who were born alive. Each of these babies - two boys and two girls - lived between 1-1/2 and 3 hours. At Christ Hospital one of these babies once lived for almost an entire eight-hour shift. At least two of the second-trimester babies who were aborted last year at Christ Hospital were completely healthy.
One night, a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down's syndrome baby who was born alive to our Soiled Utility Room because his parents did not want to hold him, and she did not have time to hold him. I could not bear the thought of this suffering child dying alone in a Soiled Utility Room, so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived. He was 21 to 22 weeks old, weighed about ½ pound, and was about 10 inches long. He was too weak to move very much, expending any energy he had trying to breathe. Toward the end he was so quiet that I couldn't tell if he was still alive unless I held him up to the light to see if his heart was still beating through his chest wall. After he was pronounced dead, we folded his little arms across his chest, wrapped him in a tiny shroud, and carried him to the hospital morgue where all of our dead patients are taken.
Other co-workers have told me about incidences of live aborted babies whom they have cared for. A Support Associate told me about an aborted baby who was left to die on the counter of the Soiled Utility Room wrapped in a disposable towel. This baby was accidentally thrown into the garbage, and when they later were going through the trash to find the baby, the baby fell out of the towel and on to the floor. A nurse coworker told me about an abortion she was involved in where the baby was supposed to have spina bifida but was born with an intact spine. She said that what actually happened was that there was an incompletely formed twin who appeared as a mass on his brother's back during an ultrasound. The nurse told me that the father came into the Soiled Utility Room to see his son, took one look and saw that he had been involved in aborting his completely healthy baby, and turned and left the room without saying a word. I was recently told about a situation by a nursing coworker who said, "I can't stop thinking about it." She had a patient who was just over 23 weeks pregnant, and she was not going to be able to complete her pregnancy to term. The baby was healthy and had up to a 39% chance of survival, according to national statistics. But the patient chose to abort. The baby was born alive. If the mother had wanted everything done for her baby, there would have been a neonatologist, pediatric resident, neonatal nurse, and respiratory therapist present for the delivery, and the baby would have been taken to our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for specialized care. Instead, the only personnel present for this delivery were an obstetrical resident and my coworker. After delivery the baby, who showed early signs of thriving, was merely wrapped in a blanket and kept in the Labor & Delivery Department until she died 2-1/2 hours later. Just three weeks after this baby was aborted, another mother came to the hospital under similar circumstances, carrying an identically aged baby and was offered the same options. But she said that she wanted her baby. And so present at her delivery were the aforementioned NICU team, and for the two days that I tracked her, that little girl lived.
When I testified before you last July, another nurse who worked at Christ Hospital, Allison Baker, also testified. Allison was not asked back today due to the new limit on the number of witnesses allowed. But last year Allison described walking into the Soiled Utility Room on two separate occasions to find live aborted babies left naked on a scale and the metal counter. She told about the patient that she herself had who didn't know that her baby might be aborted alive and who did not then want to hold him. After he was taken to the Soiled Utility Room she kept asking, "Is he dead yet? Is he dead yet?" (This testimony is being entered today into the Congressional Record.)
Lest you think that Christ Hospital's live birth abortion practice is uncommon, I am entering into Congressional Record today literature from a March 30, 2001, symposium sponsored by Waukesha Memorial Hospital in Wisconsin that was "reviewed and is acceptable" by the American Academy of Family Physicians, wherein Dr. Washington Hill writes that a "complication" of a mid-trimester labor induction is a "live birth." The American College of Obstetricians and gynecologists also gave credit hours to physicians for taking this course.
After I testified last year, Christ Hospital stopped putting aborted babies to die in the Soiled Utility Room. This past December it unveiled its "Comfort Room." This is a small, nicely decorated room complete with a First Foto machine in case parents want pictures of their aborted babies, baptismal supplies if parents would like their aborted babies baptized, and a foot printer and baby bracelets if parents would like keepsakes of their aborted babies. There is also a wooden rocker to rock these babies to death. (Pictures entered into Congressional Record.)
When Christ Hospital opened its Comfort Room, I was honestly galled. It became clearer to me than ever that a law must be enacted that specifies that all babies born alive are indeed humans and American citizens with civil rights to equal protection. This is a point that is obviously not clear to extremists in our great country who believe that the right to obtain an abortion must be extended to include the right to commit infanticide. If a hospital named "Christ" does not willingly stop committing infanticide but handles public and legal scrutiny by merely trying to make those whose lives they're snuffing out more "comfortable," I have grave concerns about children whose lives are being ended at abortion clinics and hospitals where there is no spotlight of attention.
Once a fetus is aborted, the pregnancy has been terminated. But when what emerges on the other of the vaginal vault is alive, "it" by medical definition is no longer a fetus but is now a "neonate" or "baby," with rights as human beings and American citizens that must be zealously protected. If we all cannot at least agree that civil rights begin at birth, then we will have to initiate the debate as to when after delivery a living person does begin to have rights, and a Pandora's Box will have been opened, the depths of which none of can possibly ascertain today.
The Department of Health & Human Services wrote me that, "civil rights laws do not cover abortion procedures or the rights of newborns." The Illinois Attorney General determined that "there is no basis for legal action by this office against the Hospital… at this time" in regard to Christ Hospital's labor induction abortion practices. (Both letters entered into Congressional Record.) Alan Keyes recently observed, "If we reflect for a moment upon the example of the Declaration of Independence, we will remember that sometimes even self-evident truths need to be declared." I think it is obvious that this is one of those times.
I did not cry while Jill humbly delivered this story to her attentive audience but I was bound and determined to do something about it – to help save the lives of innocent babies who were being put to death. I met and spoke with Jill after her witness and she asked me to be one of her prayer warriors, to which I willingly agreed. I also began to go out to the abortion mill to pray on a regular basis and later trained with Msgr. Reilly in Chicago to be a sidewalk counselor and a prayer intercessor at the mill as a member of the Helpers of God Precious Infants. I began writing pro-life articles and pro-life poetry and became actively involved in a number of pro-life organizations. I led the pro-life rosary at my parish and began to educate and discuss pro-life issues openly with others.
I have been an active participant in the culture of death, but God has forgiven me and openly shown me His grace and mercy. The Holy Spirit has guided me and led me to this ministry. If I had another chance to live my life over, I would never take the birth control pill nor would I have sex outside of a loving marital union blessed by God. We all have to live with the consequences of our behavior and I am living with mine. I thank God for opening the door for me and giving me the opportunity to share my experiences with other women so that they won’t make the same mistakes I did. Yes, it was in the early 1970’s when I began taking the pill – the time of the sexual revolution in America, but I could have clung to my strong faith beliefs and said “No” and stuck with it. It really isn’t any easier for women today. As a minister at a Cursillo retreat weekend I attended once said in his talk, “When you live in a whore house, you can’t remain a virgin.” I won’t say that I totally agree with that statement. I will say that it is difficult to do so in our culture of death today, but when you cling to God and His Holy Mother and participate in the sacraments, attend Eucharistic Adoration and sincerely place God’s desires above your own, He will give you the wisdom and the strength to do his will.
Oh Jean - it's not good for me to cry so early in the morning! What a beautiful story, and a powerful excerpt from Jill Stanek. Thank you for sharing this with me, with us. It needs to be said. Many women have been sold a cheap bill of goods by the feminists and their freedom cries and doctors making loads of money off of birth control, with little thought to the consequences. I know my very early experience (age 23-27) with fibroids was likely exacerbated by birth control pills, and the final time bomb went off when I tried Depo-Provera. It was barely 2 years later that I had to have a hysterectomy because the fibroids grew so fast after just two shots of Depo. It's crazy - like we're science experiments!
ReplyDeletePraise be to God for his unending grace, and for showing us truth and love. Sometimes we have to roll through the mud to appreciate being clean, I guess!
Fabulous story, Jean. Thank you.
ReplyDelete