Are Women Victims of Abortion?

She felt her child writhing in pain for three days until the poison finally killed him, and she secretly hoped she would feel him kicking again. She chose for three days to have more poison injected into her abdomen and be put into preborn labor to deliver her dead baby. Delivering a dead child is the most painful, difficult, and dangerous delivery with no reward when she's finished. It can take up to three days to deliver a dead newborn and sometimes requires their arms and legs and heads to be crushed and pulled in the process. Like Eve who was deceived to eat of the fruit in the garden of Eden, this mother made a horrible choice and would suffer the harm and consequences of her sin for the rest of her life.  

As a women's advocate of nineteen years helping young ladies through four pregnancy centers in two states, helping women trapped by partner violence and sexual assault in the secular world, and serving in a federal think tank on the co-occurrence of adult and child violence, I've walked alongside hundreds of women, listened to their stories, cried with them, hoped with them, and watched the miracle of children take their first breaths and the mothers who almost aborted them cry in joy over the blessings of their children.

I know first-hand that the propaganda of the abortion industry has fed the public and lawmakers for the past fifty years is a lie that abortion has anything to do with women's rights or health. If anything, abortion strips women of autonomy, of choice, of health, and most importantly of their precious children. Abortion is the opposite of empowerment. There is nothing empowering about having one's legs in stirrups while your child is ripped out from you and feeling like your guts are being ripped out all the way to your heart that becomes hardened and as lifeless as your child.

These women are hurting. And it's not a woman's hurt; it's a mother's heart hurting, her empty arms aching, and the cavern of the center of her being blackened empty, scarred, and oozing with grief. So, don't tell me abortion helps women.

So, does that mean that women are victims? Let's look at this from a secular knowledge of what a victim and what a perpetrator are. And then from a spiritual perspective from what Scripture says.

Every perpetrator was once victimized. The rapist has been raped. The homosexual has been sodomized. The pregnant mother contemplating aborting her child may have a multitude of victimizations behind her from rape to childhood abuse. And though the abortionist is deceiving her, adding trauma to her, violating her, and even revictimizing her, only some of the pregnant mothers having children ripped out of them are truly victims. These are the ones drug against their will by men twice their age trafficking and abusing them, parents abandoning them, or doctors taking children from them without their knowledge or permission. And yes, that happens. Polls of women themselves say this makes up about 10% of those experiencing an abortion. This kind of coercion is illegal. It is illegal for anyone to force a woman to have an abortion. For these women, making abortion illegal is the best thing we can do for them.

For the rest of these intelligent mothers who are moral agents making decisions based on the best information at the time, which may be extensive or may be misleading. They may feel pressure from a boyfriend, a parent, or a husband, and is choosing to lose her child thinking she will gain something in return. She has placed as an idol in her life something more important than the whole life of her son or daughter - a career, a reputation, an education, or a relationship - something or someone is more important in her world in that moment than the little one she is carrying who is dependent on her for protection and nourishment to continue living. She may even tell herself she loves her child and is doing this in the best interest of her child to prevent her child from any hardship, but this is a rationalization for also robbing her child of all the good things in life. About 45% of pregnant mothers aborting children feel pressured to abort, which is to say they lacked support but no one was holding a gun to their head.

The remaining mothers making the choice to terminate their pregnancy may have done so in a state of crisis, but they knew what they were doing. They knew their child was alive and they simply didn't care or didn't want to care. The decision is typically made from selfish reasons, like she decided to have an affair, her birth control didn't work that month, or she already has children and didn't want to have another one. Not to minimalize the true difficulty most women have in this decision, there are mothers who will defiantly tell you they murdered their child and would do it again. Some do murder many children, a child for every transient lover. And beneath that coarse exterior is a hurting mother who doesn't even know herself how much she needs healing.

A common practice in the last few decades has become doctors prescribing ultrasounds for babies past twenty weeks which keeps an ultrasound frequency focused at various parts of the child's body (heating up the child's molecules) to look for any perceivable abnormalities. Many of these women are then pressured by doctors to induce a late term abortion, either killing the child in the womb or delivering the child before the child's lungs have fully developed to be able to survive. This causes intense stress on the mother which is never good for the baby and turns an otherwise happy occasion into a nightmare. I've walked alongside many of these mothers who have chosen life for their children, deciding whatever hardship it may cause them, they would trust God. We've prayed many tearful prayers that their child would be healthy. I am happy to report that every one of those mothers delivered perfectly healthy babies.

Abortion is one-size-fits all for pregnant mothers who are not at all the same. Suffering the consequences of our choices is not the same as being a victim. “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow.” (Gal 6:7) Actions have consequences. Abortion harms women and abortion kills children.

Women are not all victims of abortion. Neither are all women perpetrators of abortion, though polls would tell us anywhere between 45% to 90% of women are perpetrating the violent act. No one wants to see herself as a perpetrator of violence, but aborting a child is violent. And women are choosing to do it. Every perpetrator sees herself as the victim and justifies what they are doing in harming another human being. It's about power and control, usually perceiving to protect oneself from something, when in actuality, the perpetrator is harming someone else in the process, hurting someone in a way they themselves would not want to be hurt. Without God's intervention, a perpetrator will justify their actions every time and continue to do it. This may contribute to why we see abortionists blind to what they are doing until all at once God intervenes and they suddenly see the little hands and feet and faces in front of them, and it suddenly registers for them that these are children.

Abortion cannot be both "a woman's right to choose" and simultaneously a moral pass for pregnant mothers who make that choice. Women cannot have it both ways.

Abortionists promote a mother killing her child as an empowering choice, while pro-life advocates condemn abortion as victimizing women. Abortion continues to be legal because the abortionist doesn't want to give up a woman's argument of power, and the pro-life advocate doesn't want to give up the woman's perceived victimhood. So, abortion continues. And women cannot heal, because what she did was either her right to do, or it wasn't her fault. Either way, it wasn't a sin and therefore there is no reason for repentance that would lead to receiving the healing grace of Jesus and reconciliation to God. Meanwhile, the victim in every abortion - the child - is the one who pays with their life.

When God called to Adam and Eve in the garden, the excuses the man and the woman gave for eating of the forbidden fruit are the same we are hearing today. The man left it up to the woman to decide. The woman blamed the serpent who deceived her. And no one took responsibility. Both the man and the woman would suffer the consequences, as would their children for generations to come. Even though Eve was deceived, God still held her accountable. Today, the man abdicates his role calling it the woman's choice, the woman says the abortionist deceived her, and the child pays the price with their life.

Some women are victims and need to heal as victims. But most women will only heal when they confess to God their sin and accept the forgiveness only God can give through the willing sacrifice and blood of Jesus that can wash her clean. She will always remember her child, but the sting of death can heal.

Most women are not victims of abortion. They choose it. And no women are helped by abortion. They suffer from their choice.

"They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. They shed innocent blood— the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan,

and the land was polluted with blood. They defiled themselves by their actions and prostituted themselves by their deeds. So the anger of the LORD burned against His people, and He abhorred His own inheritance. He delivered them into the hand of the nations, and those who hated them ruled over them. Their enemies oppressed them,

and subdued them under their hand." (Psalm 106)

Faye Barnhart is a Life Affirming Specialist and Co-Founder of the Colorado Life Initiative. She was a women’s advocate for 19 years, served four pregnancy care centers in two states, including CEO of the largest pregnancy care center in the United States geographically. A prelaw student who interned at the state Capitol and in media, she graduated with honors and pursued master's work in Organizational Leadership and a career in Communications for international ministries. She began in the prolife cause in the 1980’s, raised her children as a single parent, and is now married with an adopted special needs son and enjoys each of her grandchildren, including a grandbaby who needed life-saving surgery at birth. She accepted Christ as her personal Savior and Lord as a small child.