A friend in Australia recently sent me Giving Sorrow Words, by Melinda Tankard Reist. It’s a book for women who don’t exist, the author writes, because women who grieve the abortions they had are told it was just another choice and that if they suffer, it’s their fault:

Attitudes towards women overwhelmed by grief following abortion demonstrate a cruel indifference to women’s pain. Their suffering is considered a figment of their imagination; their guilt and remorse a byproduct of social/religious conditioning. In short, they are an embarrassment.

The book allows women to tell their personal stories. I read one last night and cried–a woman followed by the ghost of her child everywhere she went, for whom suicide felt like it might provide welcome relief.

I think I’ll likely quote from this book as a I read it, from time to time, but I wanted people to be aware of the book in the first place. It’s the first time I’m seeing all in one place, detailed stories of how and why these women went for an abortion and what that did to them. And I think it’s important both for women who have had abortions and are suffering right now, but also for the rest of everybody to remember that abortion causes tremendous pain for so many.

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