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“Drugs, Sex and Abortion: The Connection”
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“I am sorry. We were not there when you needed us and so you thought that abortion was the solution to your problem.” These are the words I say to women who come to me admitting in all humility to having had abortion.
Abortion is an act of desperation. Abortion has many victims – a dead baby, a hurting mother, a confused or angry father, resentful and distrusting siblings, and many hardened, insensitive abortion-providers.
The Blessing of the Garden of Angels then was a very significant response to the need for healing of the men and women in Nazareth Formation Center last April 4. NFC was founded by Bob Garon about ten years ago for rehabilitation of persons in various addictions – drugs, alcohol, sex. Many of the residents reveal history of sexual abuse in their childhood. In the course of the counseling they eventually admit to having abortions due to promiscuity. They get into sex because of loss of self-esteem, need for cash to buy more drugs, or due to group pressure. There are around 40 of them now in the Center, ages ranging from 14 to 62 years old. Most of them begin on alcohol abuse, and in two years time they are on drug addiction.
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I have networked with Bob Garon over the years. He has been referring single mothers to our maternity homes and I have been referring to him the persons needing the services of his rehabilitation center. He had also helped me get my own airtime in the same radio stations he had been using. I was happy to be invited to the Blessing of the Garden of Angels. He and his wife, Emmy and children, Vanessa and Alexandra, are all involved in the rehabilitation program. The p[lace is actually a ranch in San Jose, Batangas. Along with some parents of the residents, they had fixed a garden beautifully with statues of angels and names of aborted babies etched in little marble markers. In the middle was the statue of the Resurrected Christ and below it was a bigger marker to the “unknown babies” – for the millions killed day after day with no one remembering them. Flowering plants surrounded the rocks where the angels and markers were mounted.
The residents themselves prepared the prayer service. Special guest was Bishop Soc Villegas who came all the way from his diocese in Bataan to do the Blessing. Three of the young women bravely read the poems they had written to their innocent babies – who they believe are now enjoying the peace of our Lord in heaven. They sang a couple of lullaby songs that they had composed, and all of these poems and songs were written in an album that was permanently placed in their adoration chapel. There were a lot of tears and holy silence as Bishop Soc went from one marker to another to bless them – 44 markers in all. Then it was the turn of the men to express their participation in the abortions of the women they got pregnant. One by one they said, “I dedicate this song to my child Angelo or Michael or Therese …” One of them mentioned four names.
A program of lively singing followed the sumptuous meal. Most of the dishes were brought by the parents of the residents but some were prepared by the residents themselves. All of them take turns in the kitchen, in the garden, in cleaning the toilets, rooms and the animals in the farm.
Then they asked me to speak on post-abortion trauma and healing. Hearing the girls loudly sobbing as they watched the film on abortion was most upsetting but I assured the parents that it was good for them to cry and grieve. This is part of the healing process, a stage that the post-aborted had to go through after they have surmounted the first stages of denial, anger, bargaining and forgiving.
After my talk, a 20-year old young woman approached me and revealed how the abortionist would demand sex in exchange for the free procedure. And this done immediately after the D and C. His son would then take his turn in sexually using her before she was allowed to go home. She has had five abortions. Her first sexual abuse was when she was 12 years old and first abortion when she was 15. She got into drugs to deaden the nightmares, and later into prostitution.
A 19-year old claimed she was sexually abused by her own father, an actor by profession. He started abusing her when she was 9 years old. Her mother had her confined because of anorexia nervosa, addicted to diet pills. Little did she know that her daughter was into so many other addictions by then.
The session was just the first of many more that they have to undergo in order to be able to move on and “graduate” from the rehabilitation center. Hopefully, healing the abortion trauma will hasten their recovery from their addictions and other trauma from child abuse.
Those interested in getting involved in post-abortion healing, a training on group therapy using the Hope Alive will be held on November 9 to 15 in Tagaytay. Contact the Pro-life Center for details – 911-2911 or Sr. Pilar at 0920-945-5494.
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