Grieving

Is grieving a normal and healthy response after an abortion? Absolutely. The child that was lost became a major loss through death. Grief is painful, but it is necessary in relieving our sorrow. After an abortion, women may attempt to bury their grief, turn off their emotions, and run from God. Eventually, they face the fact that abortion ended their unborn child's life.The grieving that follows an abortion is similar to the grief of a woman who has a miscarriage. Both experience stages of denial, anger, depression, and acceptance. Both experience guilt, but the source of their guilt is not the same. Women who had a miscarriage feel guilty because they don't know what role they played in their child's death. Women who choose abortion feel guilty because they do know what role they played in their child's death.For men, they are usually the silent, wounded warrior...suffering because they are not given a choice. Because they had no choice, they question their right to have feelings following an abortion. Make no mistake, abortion leaves both men and women wounded. They both struggle with fear, anxiety, anger, guilt, grief, and depression. For men, there is in most cases, an unexplainable need to defend their masculinity; that need causes much confusion and strife in most of their relationships and they don't even realize the effects of abortion was the root cause of their problems.

Source: Forgiven and Set Free