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It is estimated one of every two women entering a Pregnancy Help Center (PHC) has already experienced an abortion.

That tells you at least two things: Counselors at PHCs need to be alert to these women because they are more abortion prone, and there are a lot more people walking around having been touched by abortion than you realize.

These realities explain why Vitae Foundation brought Michaelene Fredenburg to Jefferson City on August 26. While here, she addressed a group of PHC directors regarding reproductive grief.

“Someone who has had one abortion is at a higher risk of having another abortion. It also makes it more difficult to grieve,” Fredenburg stated.

The Wisconsin native would know, as she experienced her own abortion at 18. She thought it would solve her problem. Because it changed her so much, her life fell apart. What helped her put it back together was helping others—both men and women—with the process of reproductive grief.

Fredenburg developed a website which is an invitation to individuals to begin looking at the abortion experience. Once they realize they aren’t alone, healing can begin.

She said she discovered that women want to investigate their grief in private.

PHCs are called upon as a source in that grieving process and can lead individuals to Fredenburg’s AbortionChangesYou.com.

“That way she leaves the center knowing you (the PHC) are a safe place to go to open up,” Fredenburg told the center directors. “These women are more vulnerable to a second abortion. If you interrupt that process, they are less likely to have it.”

There was also an evening session for Vitae supporters. Fredenburg shared how Vitae is different from many other pro-life organizations. “Vitae shares its knowledge. You are a bridge organization who is not territorial. You bring people together and seek out top experts who can bring their expertise to Pregnancy Help Centers.”

Those gathered at the evening session learned that there will be about one million elective abortions this year. One in three women will have experienced an abortion by the age of 45.

“It seems unbelievable we don’t hear these stories—not at the dinner table or at barbeques. The cultural silence is deafening,” Fredenburg explained. “There’s a sense of isolation, a barrier, and the pain doesn’t go away. I’ve yet to meet an individual who hasn’t said they weren’t changed by it. They need to be told they aren’t alone and that there is help.”

The Abortion Changes You website allows people to share their stories as part of the healing process.

One story Fredenburg shared was how a senior in high school became pregnant and she told her girlfriends. As a group they decided abortion made the most sense, so they helped their friend get her abortion. In college another girl in the group unexpectantly became pregnant, but she decided to keep her baby. The girl who had aborted wouldn’t go to the shower or hospital at the time of the birth. The friends don’t know how to help her move to a place of healing.

The expert on reproductive grief also explained how men are deeply affected as well, since many believe they are doing the “manly” thing of supporting their wife/girlfriend in the abortion process, only to find out abortion changes everything.

Now with the release of the shocking Planned Parenthood revelations, the videos can be painful triggers, Fredenburg explained. After the first video was posted, her website received a message from a woman who had an abortion at 16.

She wrote: “I’m drinking a glass of wine just like the woman in the video, wondering if my baby was for sale. I feel damn near suicidal.”

Fredenburg noted the lies told by the abortion industry need to be exposed, but what’s not being talked about is how they are impacting women who’ve already experienced abortion. Many will be re-traumatized. Healing will only come when women process the loss.

Vitae Founder/Strategic Advisor Carl Landwehr reminded participants that Vitae’s media strategies continue to help direct woman experiencing an unintended pregnancy to over 130 life-affirming Pregnancy Help Centers across the country.

“Our beta site research indicated 74 percent of women responding to Internet marketing were abortion minded. Of those women who came to the centers, 54 percent chose life,” Landwehr stated.

These are women who will not need to seek out the AbortionChangesYou website—at least not for themselves — because they spared themselves and their babies the devastation of abortion.

RELATED
Abortion Changes You — http://www.AbortionChangesYou.com

LifeNews Note: Martha Schieber is the Communications Director of the Vitae Foundation.
[4 Sept 15, Martha Schieber, http://www.lifenews.com/2015/09/04/woman-who-regrets-her-abortion-is-suicidal-with-worry-did-planned-parenthood-sell-my-baby/ ]