Counseled to Abort in a Catholic Hospital
Published at Catholic Lane.
“What’s going on?” asked the therapist.
“I told my doctor that I am having issues with anxiety. I’ve had three babies in the last four years and just found I’m pregnant again, and no matter how hard I try, I keep having panic attacks. I feel out of control. I’m ready to admit I need help. I have some past issues I need to face, but I don’t know what to do. My doctor said I could talk to you because you have experience helping pregnant women.” It all finally came out, stuttered, yet punctuated, a first plea for professional help.
“Why do you feel anxious?”
“I want to do everything perfectly, I want to do it right, I’ve made some bad decisions in my past, but I want to do better. Now I get so confused and overwhelmed. When I give up, I feel ashamed, sometimes I harm myself because the emotional pain is so great. I know I need help. I’m pregnant!”
The therapist replied with a knowing grin, “You don’t have to be perfect, you know. Don’t you see? You are beating yourself up trying to be perfect. Slow down. Right now you need to take care of yourself. You have living children and they need their mother. They need their mother to be healthy. Have you thought about abortion? You know, it’s alright to abort this pregnancy so you can take care of yourself right now.”
“What? I’m Catholic, that’s why I came to a Catholic hospital, well, I mean, I’m a recent convert and I’m learning about the teaching of the Church, and this…”
The confused mother stared past the licensed mental health professional out the window of her obstetrician’s office, where she was meeting with this therapist. In this hospital that bears the name of a saint and a crucifix in every room, the mother was more confused than ever. She tried not to let the vortex starting to swirl in her mind show. Abortion? She trusted these people under this roof, but abortion? Catholics are not supposed to have abortions. She could barely speak.
“…this isn’t right.”
“Well,” chuckled the mental health therapist sitting under a Catholic roof, “Catholics don’t really believe that today, that’s an old idea. Women are not expected to tear up their bodies giving birth to baby after baby, and besides, most Catholics have small families. If that’s what Catholics really believed there’d be many, many more large Catholic families, wouldn’t there? Look, I’ve travelled in Europe where there is a large Catholic population, and they all have one or two children. You don’t have to have lots of kids to be a good Catholic. Perhaps you’re just trying to have a lot of children to be a perfect Catholic.”
Later, they got around to the big question.
“Do you ever have thoughts of suicide?”
“Yes, when I feel out of control and I don’t know what else to do. I just want to give up, but I don’t want to give up either. That’s why I want help. I’m scared.”
The conversation continued past the scheduled hour, and the mother insisted she could not have an abortion. The counselor, growing weary, continued to try to engage the pregnant woman, and asked about her family.
“Got any pictures of your family?”
The mother pulled out a recent photograph, with a smile. She’d ordered matching sweaters for the entire family to wear for Christmas portraits, and even though in all the moments before and after the shot the room had been filled with chaos and bickering, she was proud of how united and happy everyone looked in the instant of the photo. It was proof there could be peace amid turmoil.
The counselor, however, didn’t see a mother trying to keep herself and her family together; she saw a mother obsessed with perfection. She saw children who didn’t have a healthy mother, and she uttered the words that invited in the demons.
“Look, if you do not abort this pregnancy, you may not survive, and then those beautiful children in that picture will have no mother at all. Is that what you want?”
The mother heard nothing else…
By the end of the session she was unable to hide the despair that had overcome her. It had taken more strength than she thought she had to admit she needed this kind of help, and now all strength had vanished because a professional had just confirmed her worst fear. She was a bad mother, incapable of taking care of her children. How could it be that she must choose between ending the life of one, or failing all the others?
The counselor took the now shaken and incoherent mother to the emergency room and had her admitted. She stayed by the mother’s side until an ambulance took the “pregnant woman at risk for suicide” off to a psychiatric facility.
That night the terrified pregnant woman lay flat on a hard bed in a room thinking about her unborn child while white-suited professionals marched outside in the hallway, and she talked to her Saviour, The Counselor, asking for answers. She was determined to find the truth because she had not given up hope.
You see, pregnancy can do that to a woman if she lets it. There’s a life inside her, and that life is a spark. She saw with the light of grace and clarity that even professionals — even professionals in Catholic hospitals — sometimes cannot be trusted. In spite of her failings, she knew she loved all her children, and love does not give up.
By the time her husband picked her up from the hospital the next day she had made a private commitment to find real help and to keep trying until she felt the satisfaction and peace she knew the Holy Spirit would affirm in her soul.
Through prayer, grace, patience, and sheer determination, she did find an independent counselor. She accepted medication and therapy, on her own terms. No one was going to label her again. She clung to the Sacraments and whispered the Rosary whenever the demons of doubt and insult threatened. The child was born prematurely but perfectly healthy, a six-pound baby girl to grow up with three older sisters. She named her Lucia — from the light.
It took some time to process all that happened in that therapist’s office, but the mother would finally heal and be able to talk about it with her husband. When she told him the full story, he held up his hand when he could hear no more, left the room, and found the curly-headed, brown-eyed toddler who looked just like him. He wept as he held her tight, thanking God for safeguarding this gift.
Then he became angry, and it was all he could do not to storm into that counselor’s office with his daughter in his arms to show this professional the beautiful child she had counseled a mother to kill. Instead, he contacted his bishop’s office and started a process of setting things right.
It outraged him — a father who would give his life to protect his children — all the more that this could have happened without anyone even consulting him. In a Catholic hospital a mother asking for help was urged to kill a child to save herself, a monumental lie, without even asking the father. How many times each day does this happen in the world, where confused and hurting patients seeking advice in Catholic hospitals and are told lies about Catholic ethics and pushed to do things that only tear people, families, and societies apart?
Women have to speak up if something happens in a doctor’s office that is against Catholic teaching. Priests don’t frequent gynecological offices, after all. If a doctor prescribes contraception, anything else could happen behind closed doors too. Speak up, if not for yourself, then for the woman sitting next to you in the waiting room because you don’t know what she is going through.
The mother? Well, she doesn’t think women should be lied to, and so she decided never to shut up preaching the truth about abortion and talking about the strength that mothers can find if they accept the graces that God offers. She decided she’d learn for herself what the Church teaches, and she’d defend it from the proverbial mountaintops. She decided that if her faith wasn’t everything, it was nothing. She decided that she would accept God’s purpose for her life and live it, accepting the abundance she knew He wanted to give her if she just trusted in the healing power of love.
(And eventually — she started a blog.)
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- Counseled to Abort in a Catholic Hospital | September 14, 2012
Stacy, your story brings back memories of a person (not a Catholic then) who approved an abortion even though that approval wasn’t necessary for the act to take place accordng to the law. More of a courtesy heads up to the person who dedicated his life to a child, worked two jobs often to exist, nursed a sick wife for a lifetime. It’s only fatherhood, husbanding, and parenting! The unnecessary parts of child rearing according to progressive thinking. Approval was given by a confused and angry father who then closed himself in a bathroom and cried – not knowing why.
A few years later another courtesy call, this time from a distant city. An offer was made to take the child and raise it. Offer refused and the father and mother were devastated. Helplessness, loss and regret followed for years. When the Church came into view, an understanding of the nature of life and acceptance of imperfection replaced helplessness. Loss remains, but regret was replaced by reconciliation. An important and surprising lesson was that members of the Church, even the ordained, were imperfect. The perfect part is The Holy Spirit who is the one teaching anyway.
The demonic approach to life will always pick the path that says you are not able or worthy, I’ll let you know when you are, and that more loss is necessary. It is easily spotted by this principle.
We are wonderfully made, but do not always know why or how to live out our design.
Thank you for your honest and horrifying story. I am so glad that your daughter made it through that smoke screen of evil that was thrown your way.
Please do update us as to how “the father” fares in seeking to rectify the gross injustice done to you, him and your family in that “Cathlic” institution.
my eyes are filled w tears.
your daughter is so beautiful.
thank you for choosing life, that her life may be a blessing for many people, you will never know.
Stacy: What a stunning display of grace – hope – you were given. Indeed “ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” May the Father continue to bless you, your husband, and your children through our Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
God granted humanity a victory over the devil when you chose life.
May God grant that the bishops will excommunicate the Culture of Death traitors who counseled you, along with the kingdom of Satan, to kill a human being so that things might be ever so much more convenient.
The crisis of the Church is a crisis of bishops.
Cowardly bishops, who do not have the Faith, but have the office.
Whenm God is pleased to send us Catholic bishops, then it will be morning.
Ah Rick, thanks, but I can’t agree that the bishops have no faith or that they are cowardly. Unless a bishop makes it known that he deliberately secedes from Peter and his successors, thereby separating himself from the Church, I cannot assume the Holy Spirit has somehow left us in crisis by abandoning the Church that Christ instituted. The bishops have my trust, obedience, and gratitude. That is my duty as a Christian.
Stacy, you are wrong about that. When a bishop permits Catholic hospitals to perform and recommend abortions, you owe that Bishop your personal resistance to his face.
Rick, no bishop “permitted” such evil. Like I said, bishops and priests don’t frequent OB/GYN offices. They don’t know if we don’t tell them. The people that committed the evil are responsible, and to a lesser extent, anyone who did know and failed to speak up.
Please see in the story, which I carefully wrote. We did go to the bishop’s office, we had a long talk and told everything, and a process of setting things right was initiated as a result.
It mattered to me that we went in sincerity, trusting that the right thing would be done, rather than scream publicly trying to ruin reputations. What would that have solved?
Charity commands us to give people the benefit of the doubt.
“a process of setting things right was initiated as a result.”
>> Oh?
Let us know, please, whether the advocates of abortion were excommunicated.
Let me take a huge leap here and expect that the answer is:
They weren’t.
Reprimanded publicly?
Let us really go out on the skinny branches and say:
“They weren’t”.
Let us really bet the farm here and suggest that the very same Catholics who suggested the murder of your child remain to this day in “full communion” with the Church, in the same jobs.
Am I wrong?
Rick, thanks for your generous display of trust, friend!
Stacy:
Am I wrong?
That is a question, the asking of which involves trust; first, that you will answer it, and second, that if I am wrong, I can trust you to say so.
If I am wrong then I owe the bishop an apology.
If I am not you owe me one.
Rick, I’ve already made it clear that I’m not disclosing certain details of a private situation. I made public what my husband and I decided was right, and we spent much time (years) praying, following up, and thinking about this. As you know, I made a commitment some time ago not to attack another Catholic publicly.
So, I’ll apologize to you. I’m sorry.
If you think I’m wrong for not doing it differently, then pray for me.
I conclude that the apologists of the Culture of Death were not excommunicated or otherwise disciplined.
I conclude that they remain in “full communion” this day.
I conclude that I am right.
This is a disgrace, and a confirmation of the diabolical disorientation which so horrifically continues to hold sway over our shepherds.
I do not have the slightest desire to prefer a lie to the truth.
Thanks for the apology.
Sigh, Rick. Not everyone who works under a Catholic roof is Catholic, that’s a big part of the problem – one with no overnight solution. It’s not a matter of excommunication. You can’t excommunicate non-Catholics.
I’m absolutely certain that the hospitals in your area suffer from the same affliction. It’s a nation-wide, if not world-wide, problem. I have concluded that one way parents like myself can change things for the next unsuspecting patient, is to speak up and directly communicate with clergy.
Like I said, priests don’t frequent OB/GYN offices. I’d wager that neither do you
, but if you did you’d probably find plenty of contraception and IVF being offered by non-Catholic doctors under roofs bearing Catholic labels right in your own area too.
I also already know of plenty of watchdog groups who out people when they can, and I have observed that approach to be ineffective. Rather than make a sensational display of public demands for excommunication (for people that aren’t even Catholic) or demands that the Catholic title be ripped from the hospital (something I have no authority to order), I chose to contact the diocese where this hospital was located directly and tell them what happened. They had no idea this kind of thing happened, and were able to take action, not just for that office, but for all of them. I don’t know all that was done, that diocese was under no obligation to disclose those details to me.
I was never able to face that counselor again, if you must know. I have no idea where that person is now.
The way I see the problem — it still comes down to trusting what goes on behind closed doors, and the only way to know that is for patients to speak up when something’s not right. Rick, I’ve received treatment as a pregnant woman in a number of Catholic hospitals and ALL of them have mentioned contraception and abortion. All of them, Rick. Read the stories on this post at Catholic Lane.
You understand what I’m saying, right? Non-Catholics work in Catholic hospitals. Yes, they are supposed to adhere to the USCCB directives, but — how do you enforce that? This is the problem before us, and I’m afraid you and I aren’t sitting at the top of these committees steering the wheels. (Although, this is one reason I decided to pursue a theology degree, it’s possible I could sit on a Catholic hospital board someday.)
If you have more ideas, I would like to hear them. I’ve been writing about this subject for a long time, even though I only now got up the nerve to tell this story. It was difficult to write.
Stacy,
The Holy Spirit did not leave the Church when Pope Alexander VI was fornicating with a young married girl ( the Borgia Pope who had really 7 children during his being Cardinal and Pope). No one now is like him but the Holy Spirit can be with us while something is wrong with authority figures.
Oddly the hierarchy needs a top consultancy firm to correct the Pope and Bishops as to what real administration is. No one gets fired in the Catholic Church and that’s a mark of a bad corporation. We are like a civil service job where anything is tolerated because trying to fire you is so hard to do.
I want you to imagine a future Pope who DOES NOT WRITE books, best sellers or documents and DOES NOT MEET with visiting presidents from Malta and DOES NOT DO long liturgies at 80 years old. Why? Because he’s on the phone or Skype all day working on administration and kicking ass like this: …” Cardinal of the Washington DC area…what are you doing about Hospital St.X that performed an abortion….stop it or close it…and sue to have the ” Saint” name removed…Call me next Monday and let me know what you accomplished.”
There is nothing normal about Pope Benedict writing three books on the gospel Christ while Georgetown has a gay/ bi/ transgendered organization that is not about chastity. There was nothing normal about John Paul II writing TOB lectures while altar boys were being raped by priests. That’s not normal administration. That’s Popes escaping into intellectual pursuits because reality is horrifying. We are an administrative disaster. Laity can not close down Catholic therapists who advise abortion or Catholic hospitals that do them. Popes
can close them down unless we corporately play along with their being authors instead of administrators. And that is the current state of denial. Read canon law on Popes….they have power that is “supreme” and ” immediate” over “all the churches” and their decisions cannot be gainsaid. They are not using it daily…or monthly. We praise them when they use it once in a blue moon and we call them rottweilers. Please. We are a papal/ hierarchy disaster and I predict that the situation will stay the same your whole life until you get a Pope who works 8 hours a day at phone to Cardinal administration. ” What did you get done on that hospital that advised abortion….is the therapist gone…no…wny not?”. As long as you have Popes that indulge their first love from college as the role of their papacy: John Paul loved the stage in college, he traveled to stage after stge as Pope in various countries. Benedict loved the University life and writing, that’s hat he does. No Catholic author will say what I’m saying because their money comes from an audience that wants a static Catholicism that is always perfect with a papacy that is perfect…no matter what is happening during that papacy….child rape or abortion counseling. We need not hear it. Was the Pope happy at writing? Yes. Then we’re good. Did he administrate? No…it was not his strong point. He wrote well though.
” want you to imagine a future Pope who DOES NOT WRITE books, best sellers or documents and DOES NOT MEET with visiting presidents from Malta and DOES NOT DO long liturgies at 80 years old. Why? Because he’s on the phone or Skype all day working on administration and kicking ass like this: …” Cardinal of the Washington DC area…what are you doing about Hospital St.X that performed an abortion….stop it or close it…and sue to have the ” Saint” name removed…Call me next Monday and let me know what you accomplished.”
>> Then it will be morning.
Town, there are many Catholics (I don’t know if you are Catholic) who advocate strict rule within the Church especially now when we are being attacked by our own government. The ideal aggressive Church that you propose is not like the organization I perceive from scripture and history, a least not Christian scripture, more like the institutions we are familiar with within government and monarchy. I don’t think your answer to eliminating sin by creating autonomous hero leaders has worked in secular organizations, and judging by the horrors of the 20th century I don’t see it working now that there is a large faction dedicated to driving God from our country.
Howard,
Read Acts 5. It seems God through Peter’s verbal cooperation executed Ananias and Saphhira. Read I Cor. 5:13 ” Expel the wicked man from your midst”. Had Rome obeyed that later passage in about the 1950′s, gay predator priests would not have dared enter the seminary subsequently.
Town cobblestones?
In Acts 5 Luke tells of Peter and John after Pentecost leading a small but growing Church. A few thousand living a communal life style with common property, the followers were still being persecuted. Peter confronted Ananias and Sapphira after they had lied and God acted. They were denied penance and made an example, not the usual course of the Church. We don’t see persons being struck dead as a matter of course, a Sacrament is offered. Peter said in Act 3, “Be penitent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. That when the times of refreshment shall come from the presence of the Lord, and he shall send him who has been preached unto you, Jesus Christ.”
In 1st Corr, Paul was writing to his church as their Bishop regarding particular problems in Corinth. I think he was especially concerned about outside influences that threatened his people’s beliefs as a young church – his very leadership as an apostle for example. I have no trouble with eliminating serious influences within the Church that he was referencing. A doctor at a hospital that calls itself Catholic and is not answerable to the Pope except for the use of the title is not quite the same thing.
I have criticized Bishops for not acting in a stronger manner on some issues, but, the general stance you are suggesting as a general approach is more appropriate to Islam than Christianity.
http://usccb.org/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/
Howard,
Yes….Popes actually working the phones and administrating a majority of the time and obeying I Corinthian’s template so that pervs were booted out in 1950 and children were protected is very Islam. In what universe?
The Council has failed.
Completely and shockingly.
The situation of the Church in the world has perhaps never been so diabolically disoriented.
We are not here to seek religious freedom for Muslims and Jews who hate Christ and slander Him.
This is the great evil of the Council; this lying innovation of religious liberty, this Masonic doctrine that proceeds from the devil and has destroyed the power of our missionary outreach.
All of the prelates responsible for this betrayal of Christ will answer to Him in eternity.
Very few will have the courage to say so.
But Truth has nothing whatever to do with 51% of the vote.
Rick, haven’t had your first cup of coffee yet?
Stacy, you bring up a very important point.
Where is the Catholic or any Christian denomination’s laity?
There are about 200 Bishops in the U.S. and millions of Catholics and a total of about 350 million people altogether. Do we expect them to be super baby sitters to the country? The Gospel has been presented to this country and it has been our responsibility to follow it and spread it.
Get off you’re a.. and march in D.C. or SanFrancisco next January. Write letters to the editor, pray at an abortion clinic, convince your friends that the teachings of the Bishops is correct.
It is shameful to blame the Church when a teaching about when life begins and that killing that life is a sin is so clear yet ignored.
Howard, exactly! That’s one reason I started writing. Literally, I was anxious to teach and share what I knew, but didn’t know how to do it from home with so many small children to care for. The logistics prevented me from going to rallies or private meetings very often (my kids head straight for the streets). But I discovered the internet and realized from my helm at home I could reach thousands of people.
Lots of people are figuring that out.
What is shameful, Howard, is the lack of enforcement of the Church’s canon law, in the face of highly influential political and financial incentives to ignore it.
Bless you for telling your story, Stacy.