Washington Woman Shares Abortion Testimony with National Audience

During my 5 years as Regional Coordinator for the Washington state Silent No More Awareness Campaign I met so many great post-abortive women. One of them was Nancy Murray. I recently reconnected with her and discovered that she has recetly shared her testimony in the Celebrate Life magazine. It's a beautiful story of mercy and forgiveness.

She is a writer in Richland, Washington and blogs at Catholic Ethics.

If you are hurting after an abortion there is hope. See Project Rachel or Silent No More Awareness Campaign.

If you live in Washington state it's not to late to join the next post-abortion healing retreat:

Hope and Healing After Abortion

Healing and hope are awaiting you on a Rachel’s Vineyard Retreat™.
Next retreat: May 3-5, 2013

Call Valerie: 1-800-822-HOPE (4673)
You are loved with an everlasting Love!

Project Rachel is a program of Catholic Community Services.

Post-Abortion Retreats for Men and Women

I've heard so many good things about Project Rachel I want to promote their retreats as much as I can. If you've had an abortion consider attending one of their retreats. It will change your life. The retreats are open to men and women of any faith.

If you aren't ready to attend a retreat and just need someone to talk to, you can call Valerie at 800-822- HOPE.

For locations other than Washington and Oregon see here.

If you wish to attend a Rachel's Vineyard retreat at one of the locations below, please call or e-mail the contact person listed or call toll-free 877 HOPE 4 ME.

Washington
Auburn
Contact: Noemi 206-450-7814
Next Retreat: TBA
Note: Espanol

Ellensburg
Sponsor: Diocese of Yakima
Contact: Nancy Murray 509 554 9415
Next retreat: September 19 - 21

Longbranch
Contact: Valerie Jacobs 800 822 HOPE
Next retreat: TBA

Stanwood
Contact: Valerie Jacobs 800 822 HOPE
Next retreat: May 15 - 17, 2009

Tacoma area
Contact: Noemi 206-450-7814 (Espanol) or Valerie Jacobs 800 822 HOPE
Next retreat: September 19 - 21, 2008
Espanol
Next retreat: November 7 - 9, 2008

Vancouver
Contact: Valerie Jacobs 800 822 HOPE
Next retreat: TBA
Note: Espanol

Oregon
Eugene
Contact: Lori Eckstine 800 249 8074 or 541 521 5186
Next retreat: TBA

Medford
Contact: Lori Eckstine 800 249 8074 or 541 521 5186
Next retreat: TBA

Portland
Contact: Lori Eckstine 800 249 8074 or 541 521 5186
Next retreat: November 14 - 16

Post-Abortion Testimony

I love this testimony. My friend Ellen is featured in it. It's from a magazine article that was published in December of last year but as I was reading it again tonight I realized how many parts of her story I could relate to and thought others might as well.

Now I have nothing but the peace, joy, love and hope of lving in the life of Christ. Every year my life gets better. I’m in a place of joy,” she says.

Ellen Egge has a story worth sharing.

Story starts on Page 10.

Abortion at Planned Parenthood: Unwanted and Botched

by Valerie L. Call Jacobs, MA
One recent afternoon the Project Rachel phone rang. A young woman, fighting to choke back sobs, began to pour out her heart.

“My sister wanted to keep her baby - and I tried to do everything I could to help her because..... I had an abortion years ago and I swore I would never go through that again!”
The young woman, who I will call Kelly, continued her anguished story.

"My sister had already begun to bond with her baby. She picked out a hospital and made an appointment with a midwife. But she never got to that appointment. One day....just one day! And everything changed!"

What was it that happened on that one day that changed everything for Kelly and her sister? She spent that one day with her parents, telling them about her pregnancy and her intentions to have her baby.

“How can you possibly think you can have a baby?!""You’re not ready; you’re too immature." "Don’t expect us to support you. You will be on your own with it.""You can’t live with either of us and if you have this baby, you won’t get any more money for school."
So what would you do if you were 19, single, pregnant, and the very people you look to for guidance - undermine your self-confidence and pull out all your rungs of support?

Kelly didn’t know what else to do to help her sister, so she went to Planned Parenthood with her.
“My sister was in so much physical and emotional pain. But they were so clinical. They said, ‘We’re going to extract the tissue.' It wasn’t tissue. It was a child! We both sobbed all the way through the procedure. No one really helped us. No one even questioned what my sister really wanted. She just felt she had no other choice.”

Days later Kelly’s sister was admitted to a local hospital for surgery to repair a perforated uterus. Kelly is agonizing over what she should or could have said or done to persuade her sister against that fateful choice. If only....

“I am grieving for my sister,” Kelly said. “I’m grieving for my niece or nephew.”
Kelly’s sister is grieving too. She is at serious risk of depression, substance abuse, and suicidal thoughts or actions. She is at serious risk of experiencing such self-loathing that she will undermine the very life success her parents thought they were protecting for her. We can only pray that she won't also grieve the loss of her fertility.

At this point, I do not know the outcome of the surgery. It may be days or years before Kelly and her sister follow up with another call. I have left a message, but the physical recovery is a priority right now. I will give them some time and continue to check back. And, of course, I will continue to pray.

Kelly and her sister will need much compassion and love in the days, weeks and months ahead. They need to know that their lives are as precious as the children they once carried beneath their hearts. They need to know that there is hope and healing for their futures. Please pray with me for Kelly and her sister, even as we pray for that day when the Project Rachel phone will no longer ring.

Valerie L. Call Jacobs, MA
Project Rachel
1-800-822-HOPE (4673)
You are loved with an everlasting Love!

[This story was told to this editor in late 2007. We also pray for Kelly and her sister. This abortion happened at a Planned Parenthood of Western Washington abortion center.]

Valerie Call Jacobs, MA -- coordinator for Project Rachel of Western Washington sent the following letter to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer after their mean-spirited attack on Project Rachel and women who suffer after abortion. We'll see if they print it.

Dear Editor
To those of us who work in the field of post-abortion healing, questioning whether post-abortion syndrome (PAS) exists is absurd, but expected. In the same way, other significant conditions have suffered through periods of social denial. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was not recognized for decades; veterans who suffered from the condition were described as weak men. Pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS) was also dismissed. After all, we know that women are emotional and a bit crazy. Only recently have we begun treating the grief of miscarriage with greater empathy, allowing space for a process of resolution. In each case, society has moved from dismissal, and even ridicule, to acknowledgement and empathy.

Fortunately, the tide is turning with regard to PAS, as evidenced by a recent scientific study by Dr. David Fergusson, of New Zealand, published in the Journal of Child Psychiatry and Psychology (January 2006). It is one of many current scientific studies of PAS. Philosophically pro-choice, Dr. Fergusson found that women who had an abortion had elevated rates of depression, anxiety, suicidal behaviors and substance abuse, unrelated to prior mental health history.

This study scientifically validates what we have witnessed over the last 30 years, as we have listened to the stories of women of all faiths, and no faith. It is ironic and unfortunate that women who have experienced crisis, trauma and grief in relation to their abortions continue to be dismissed by others – especially by other women. This tyranny of ridicule suppresses the resolution of grief and prevents healing.

Women and men, of any faith or no faith, who come through the Rachel’s Vineyard ™ Retreats offered through Project Rachel in Western Washington receive unconditional compassion and love.

Valerie L. Call Jacobs, MA
Coordinator, Project Rachel
PO Box 398
Kent, WA 98035

Seattle PI: A Blight on our City

Women who are suffering after an abortion will recieve no support from Seattle's media, especially the rabidly pro-abortion Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The editorial board is composed of nothing but snide, ignorant ostriches who refuse to pull their heads out of the sand.

Here's the best response we've heard to their desperate attempt to continute their banal defence of abortion.

Oh man!!! I am a post abortive woman. I also work with women who have had
abortions and men who have been fathers to the children. For the PI to write such an biased article is amazing.

I had a choice...and what was the choice? The choice was to kill my child. That was the choice. I had no regrets for years and years and years.

THEN, one day I saw a fetal model of what my child looked liked when I had him aborted. Talk about shock! Talk about regret!

Did I come to that with Project Rachel's information? No, I came to that regret all by myself and I understood for the first time in 20 years that I had been a party to the taking of a human life. A life that had been created within me.

People, you can write all the rhetoric you want - you can call life 'fetus' which is Latin for "little one" and you can deny all you want...that is your right.

However, there are many women who do regret having had an abortion and there are many women who do suffer emotionally from having had an abortion. There are also women who do not suffer, as I did not, for 20 years...

I do believe that those who castigate us who are working to help women and men are themselves trying desperately NOT to deal with having been part of the taking of human life. The involvement may be as simple as not saying anything when a friend comes and tells you that they will have an abortion all the way to having an abortion.

The good news is that when the anger is over and the denial is gone, Rachel's Vineyard (which are the retreats) and Project Rachel, (which is NOT Rachel's Vineyard but one on one counseling) will be here - be here without judgment and without condemnation.

Bless you all - Lee Anne

Project Rachel Director Testifies before Washington State Pharmacy Board

3/10/2006

Testimony before the Board of Pharmacy, Kent WA

My name is Valerie Jacobs. I am a master’s level therapist. For the past twelve years I have counseled hundreds of women to help them resolve a variety of emotional and psychological stress symptoms related to abortion ranging from anxiety and depression to nightmares, flashbacks and suicidality.

The Northwest Women’s Law Center, together with certain identified family planning providers purport to represent the uniform voice of women of Washington for the purpose of ensuring ethical conduct by professionals to protect women’s health and safety.

I am here to speak for those women whose voices Northwest Women’s Law Center and certain family planning providers refuse to recognize and whose health and safety has been compromised by their own unethical professional conduct.

Planned Parenthood and other family planning providers figure regularly in women’s stories of abortion trauma. Most prominently described are failure to take time to adequately assess well-documented risk factors predicting post-abortion psychological trauma, failure to take time to provide adequate information, and failure to take time to proactively provide support for alternative choices.

Each of these failures represents a failure to take sufficient time with women who are experiencing a state of crisis and are in conflict about their choices. A woman’s best interests are served by calming the sense of crisis and slowing down her decision-making process, taking time to adequately inform and proactively support alternative choices. Instead, women report that their clinic experience engendered a sense of urgency to make a choice which caused them lifelong negative health consequences.

*[I was contacted by such a young woman at the beginning of March. Planned Parenthood confirmed her pregnancy on a Tuesday afternoon, scheduling an abortion before the end of her brief visit. The following Thursday the pregnancy was terminated;
by evening the young woman was depressed to the point of suicidal ideation. This story has been reported to me in hundreds of variations.]

The language of Northwest Women’s Law Center attempts to create a sense of crisis and urgency where there is none. There is no crisis of availability or access either to abortion or contraception. To the contrary, women say to me, “Why was it so easy?” I would urge the Board to make a calm and measured judgment to uphold the right of pharmacists to choose according to their consciences in this matter.

*This paragraph was omitted from testimony due to pressure to hold to a two-minute time allotment.