Siblings of Children Lost to Abortion Say They Have a ‘Longing to Have Known’ Their Sibling

By Cassy Fiano
Live Action News

A new article at Romper purports to help women who have had abortions break the so-called abortion stigma: by telling their surviving children the stories of their other abortions. The author, Priscilla Blossom, explained that she was already considering how she would, one day, tell her son of her abortion.

“I want him to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that his mother believes in a pregnant person’s right to choose,” she wrote. “I want him to know someone, first-hand, who can talk about abortion, and who doesn’t regret her positive experience. I want him to know that if he should ever know someone who is in need of an abortion or considering one, that I can be a trusted individual and, moreover, a resource. I want him to grow up acknowledging everyone’s bodily autonomy (something we already practice via lessons in consent). And a conversation about my abortion experience will help me facilitate all of these messages and lessons.”

One mom said that the story of her miscarriage gave her children nightmares, making her realize that she couldn’t tell them about her abortion — yet she said she worried that not telling them violated her “work values,” as she works as an abortion activist. Another mom explained that she wrote an “open letter” to her children that was about to be published online, so she let them read it first and admitted that she had an abortion as well. Another said she chose abortion because her marriage was going well.

“I explained (truthfully) that while I still had baby fever after having had her, I got pregnant at a time when her dad and I were doing really well and focusing on our own relationship,” she wrote. “It was not a good time for us to have another child.” READ: Abortion affects sibling survivors: ‘I miss them although I never knew them’

Noticeably absent is any discussion of how news of prior abortions affected the children. And telling children that you’ve aborted their siblings isn’t a great way to destroy stigma, but is, in fact, cruel. It causes them immense pain — as sibling survivors have explained.

One sibling wrote of the pain they felt after learning of their mother’s abortion.

“We let it drop and I forgot about it,” they wrote. “But I had not really forgotten. I didn’t think about it consciously for years.” They continued that years later:Suddenly I found myself thinking about my little brother! I became disoriented and lost control of the car for a moment as I burst into tears having lost him. I was astounded by my reaction, but I couldn’t shake the sadness and longing to have known him.

Other siblings have similar feelings.

She tells me that she speaks to him sometimes, in her mind and in her dreams. She wonders about the life they would have had growing up together. Would they have fought a lot? Would he have counseled her on boy matters? Would he have scolded her for her overzealous high-school drinking?

She believes that in this other world, she is already an aunt. Her brother would have met a girl. Married her. Had babies my friend would babysit and spoil shamelessly.

She feels cheated. She feels lonelier than an only child should feel.

Feelings of survivor’s guilt are not uncommon, according to Dr. Philip Ney, who says that sibling survivors have “lifelong struggles about existing” after learning that their survival is based on arbitrary decisions on whether a child was wanted or not.

Live Action News continues here

Voices for Life is an e-publication dedicated to informing and educating the public on pro-life and pro-family issues. To read our Mission Statement, use this link.  Follow us on Facebook, Google, and Pinterest.  Help us spread the pro-life message by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks.

Pregnant, need help or know someone who does?  

National Hotline: Call 1-800-712-HELP or Text 'HELPLINE' to 313131.
In Southeast Penna:  Call the Community Women's Center at  215-826-8090

If you or someone you know is suffering after abortion, confidential non-judgmental help is available.  

Call Project Rachel's national toll-free number 888-456-HOPE (4673) or visit hopeafterabortion.org.  

Brothers and Sisters of Aborted Children Suffer

By Kristi Burton Brown
National Right to Life

Abortion is anything but a simple choice. It affects not just the child who dies in an unimaginable way. It affects not just the mother who suffers through the abortion or the father who could do nothing to stop it. Abortion affects the family at large – grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and brothers and sisters.

It can be a very strange thought to wonder why you were chosen to live while your brother or sister was chosen for death. Why did you survive? What would your sibling have been like, acted like, looked like? Would he or she have resembled you? Become your best friend? Years of memories you should have had were wiped out before you ever knew that your brother or sister should have existed. Indeed, abortion is anything but simple for the brothers and sisters of aborted children.

Barb, who has worked with the AAA Center for Pregnancy Counseling for nearly thirty years, writes this:

“Abortion teaches children that they have worth because they were conceived in the right conditions and at the right time; that they have value because their parents want them. Up to 50% of all American children have lost a brother or a sister to abortion, making it much more likely that they live with a performance view of love: I was born because I was wanted therefore I better perform so they will continue to love me.”

Barb also talks about the reality of survivor’s guilt among siblings of aborted children and about the horrors of selective reduction, in which one or more babies in a multiple pregnancy (twins, triplets, quadruplets) are selected for death and aborted while the rest are allowed to live. Mark I. Evans, a doctor known for doing selective reductions, explains the heartache from his own perspective. Imagine the thoughts of surviving siblings once they discover what happened to their brothers or sisters, right next to them in the womb:

“It’s a very hard procedure, because the baby is moving, and you are chasing it. That is what is very emotional — when the baby is moving and you are chasing it.”

Angie (not her real name) is the sister of two aborted children. She was the oldest child and the only girl allowed to be born. Her only full biological sibling was aborted just a few short years after Angie’s birth. Angie’s mother then went on to have two sons – Angie’s half-brothers. They were five and nine years younger than her. When Angie’s mother got pregnant for the last time, she decided she was too tired to have a fourth child. So she flew to New York, where elective abortion was legal at the time, and aborted Angie’s last sibling.

Angie will always have to wonder why she was allowed to live when her brother or sister was subjected to a crude back-alley death. Would she have ever had a sister? Would her real father have been able to stay in her life if her full brother or sister had lived? What would it have been like to have had a sibling close in age to her; to grow up with as a friend? Would she have been a second mother to her youngest sibling, just like she was to her youngest living brother? What made the difference? Why was she saved, when others died?

National Right to Life stories continue here

Voices for Life is an e-publication dedicated to informing and educating the public on pro-life and pro-family issues. To read our Mission Statement, use this link.  Follow us on Facebook, Google, and Pinterest.  Help us spread the pro-life message by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks.

Pregnant, need help or know someone who does?  

National Hotline: Call 1-800-712-HELP 
or Text 'HELPLINE' to 313131.

In Southeast Penna:  Call the Community Women's Center at  215-826-8090

If you or someone you know is suffering after abortion, confidential non-judgmental help is available.  
Call Project Rachel's national toll-free number 888-456-HOPE (4673) or visit hopeafterabortion.org.