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Nearly 100 students, faculty and staff gathered in a classroom in the School of Music last week to hear the stories of nine women who have had abortions.
The speakers were part of the “Silent No More Awareness Campaign,” which works to reduce abortion rates.
The campaign is sponsored by Priests for Life and other organizations, both advocators for the prevention of abortion. The intention of the campaign is to “expose and heal the secrecy and silence surrounding the emotional and physical pain of abortion.”
A sign reading “Women need love, not abortion” was at the front near the speakers as they gave their testimonies to the crowd. Speaker Kristen Story of Lexington, Ky., gave her testimony, vowing to “fight for the liberation of the unborn.”
Story found herself in a rough relationship, pregnant. Which was the cause for her and many of the other speakers to loathe themselves for their actions. Story’s fear of telling her parents about her abortion became a reality when her parents simply responded with, “Do you mean to tell us we had a grandchild and now we don’t anymore?”
Kathy Wilson of Louisville said her abortion process left her “physically and emotionally exhausted.” Wilson was also aware of the implications of telling her parents, “I was scared to death to tell my parents [that] I was pregnant out of wedlock,” said Wilson. She was 23 when she got pregnant, and the decision to have an abortion caused a “lifetime of emotional torture because I killed my baby.”
The youngest to become pregnant was Linda Pierce, at the age of 14. Currently, this Madisonville resident is the regional coordinator in western Kentucky for the campaign. She came to the realization as a teenager to have an abortion because she thought “it would mess up my whole life.” She now regrets the abortion and believes that it is never the answer. “I felt so dirty and so empty,” Pierce said.
Ben Casabella, a senior mechanical engineering major, called the stories “very eye-opening.”
Renee Zeelly, a senior French major, agreed. “I felt very sad for them for going so many years without being able to say anything. They had to be very brave to speak out about [their abortion].”
Many of the women found that opening their hearts up to God and asking for forgiveness was the best decision they could have made. “God taught me to forgive myself,” said Story. Kathy Wilson also touted God as her saving grace. “Deliverance from my emotional prison was exactly what I needed, for God is merciful,” said Wilson. All of the women giving their testimonies not only volunteer with the campaign, but they work at counseling centers to help other women struggling with abortion.
The regional coordinator for eastern Kentucky, Kathy Rutledge said “Abortion destroys not only a baby; it destroys a mother’s heart.” According to Rutledge, “everyday 3,600 women undergo an abortion procedure in the U.S.” Rutledge, who was also the main speaker of the event, views these women to be “some of the most courageous people I have ever met; abortion imprisons a woman and requires a lot of inner strength to tell about it.”
Rutledge noted that this was the first campaign to take place in the state of Kentucky, and U of L was the first university to invite the campaign to its campus.
Some women were on the birth control pill when they became pregnant, others were raped and became pregnant, and some were emotionally tied up in young love. No matter what their background or their current lifestyle, all of these women have decided that they must fight for the unborn and protect other women.
These women had abortions and proceeded to fall into despair and silence. But now, with the help of the campaign and their courageous testimonies, these women will be silent no more.SN
