If Abortion is Murder, Then What is Suicide?

I have written on this topic several times because it is so important to me. I guess there is a turning point in everyone's life when they ultimately decide "what they want to do when they grow up."

In my class yearbook, it is noted that I wanted to become a caseworker. And I did. But few know the original reason behind that choice. (I have to alter some things in this story to protect the "guilty" and the innocent.)

As a caseworker, I saw a lot of terrible tragedies involving sexual abuse with children, and I have written about them. But when I was working, I was a "professional," objectively handling my caseload.

However, there was an event earlier in my life that led to my choice of that profession.

When I was 12, I had a class mate, "Christy," who was a true friend. When you're twelve, you think you'll be friends forever and nothing will ever tear you apart.

Her mother had remarried, so Christy lived with her mother, her new dad and his 14-year-old son.

Christy seemed depressed to me - although that wasn't a term we knew much about back then. We're talking about many years ago. She missed school a few times and told me her new "brother" was trying to have sex with her. She didn't know how to talk to her mother about it.

I told her she had to tell her mother and, at some point, she did. But Christy was already pregnant. This was before Roe vs. Wade so abortions were illegal in many states.

And young girls just weren't supposed to get pregnant back then. Especially not by their step-brothers.

We lived next to a state that allowed abortions and Christy and her mom went there for her to get one.

Later she told me how scared she was, absolutely terrified. She said there were people outside the clinic trying to stop them from going in. They said things like, "Abortion is murder" and "You'll go to hell for this."

I guess the picketers figured Christy was the pregnant one or the "older lady" wouldn't have had her there. A couple people taunted her and asked how she got that way and why was she going to kill her baby because she had had sex?

Well, if I thought Christy was depressed before the abortion, she became downright suicidal afterwards. Her mother took her to a counselor. A psychiatrist, actually. And that went on for a few weeks before Christy slashed her wrists in her first suicide attempt.

Her mother was frantic. Her "father" never believed the story about his son, and the family was really divided. The boy got into trouble with the law for several different offenses, and he was sent to juvenile detention for 6 months.

Christy seemed better while he was gone, but right before he was due to come home, she attempted suicide again. Christy was in the hospital for 3 days; she was going to come home on Friday and her "brother" would come home on Saturday.

Christy ran away. They never found her. How can a human being disappear? Maybe she found a place for homeless girls or turned to the streets. Who would have forced her to go back to that home?

Or maybe she killed herself.

When people make judgments about "abortion is murder," I think about Christy's plight. She should have had the right to live -- I mean, to grow up with some kind of childhood. I know her mother believed her story and would have tried to protect her more carefully after that.

Jesus said we should "not judge another, lest ye be judged." We talk about being a Christian nation and yet, all I hear are judgments against other people.

Maybe if Christy's dad had believed her... maybe if the brother had gone to the psychiatrist... maybe if abortions were legal and she could have simply gotten one quietly, near home -- maybe Christy would be alive today. And maybe she is.

Am I concerned about the fetus that didn't get to live? No. In fact, if given a choice, I'll take the "mother" every time. A baby can become an Einstein or a Hitler. Who knows?

But with a beautiful, young, loving girl like Christy, I know what the world could have had.

[If there is any chance in the world that you are reading this, "Christy," please look me up and get in touch.]