Note: This is Part I of a two part series.
ORANGE, California, January 10, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The 28 year-old woman did not feel loved in her on-again off-again relationship with her boyfriend. In fact, he was becoming downright abusive. During an off-period, the young woman fled into the arms of another man, seeking solace and acceptance. She soon learned that she was carrying his child.
It was the year 2000. Ma’May Faucher from southern California was just making ends meet. She had been raised with Christian values, but, as she told LifeSiteNews in a recent interview, had rejected her upbringing, feeling that it made her too “closed-minded and judgemental.”
Partying, experimenting with drugs, and making herself sexually available was how she had decided to make herself happy. Ma’May was living life in the fast lane. She had convinced herself to enjoy every moment of it. Becoming pregnant brought her life to a screeching stop.
She now felt like her world was crumbling apart. She knew she didn’t love the father of her child, and didn’t think it was possible to raise a child with him. She was now beginning to think that she could barely take care of herself. “How in the world am I going to take care of another person?” she remembers thinking.
The pregnant woman did not know where to turn for help. The father of the baby had already told Ma’May that it was ‘her life’ and that she could do what was best for her. She made a phone call to the only resource she knew, Planned Parenthood.
The receptionist was empathetic, telling Ma’May that an abortion was the only answer to her problems. It would free her from responsibilities and allow her to pursue the career she really wanted, she was told. Ma’May began to think that perhaps the receptionist was right: how could she possibly bring another person into the world?
The baby’s father agreed to pay for the abortion.
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The night before the procedure Ma’May remembers feeling “overwhelmed with sorrow and deeply depressed.” She spent the night curled up in a ball crying inconsolably. She says she felt “alone and scared” and was “angry” that she had to make such a difficult decision. She didn’t understand why she was so upset. If the procedure really was her choice and the best option, why did she feel so terrible?
There were protesters outside the abortion clinic that morning. Ma’May remembers seeing baby dolls in their hands. She turned down their brochures and did her best to avoid their pleading gaze. She recalls that she was thankful at the time that they didn’t have any abortion pictures or posters.
The clinic lobby was packed with people, no one smiling. A nurse performed an ultrasound, telling Ma’May that she was 8 weeks pregnant. The technician asked her if she wanted to view the monitor, but told her that there was really nothing to see but a blob of tissue. “After I heard those words I felt so relieved,” she said. “Great, it’s just a ‘blob of tissue’. It will be just like picking a scab. No big deal,” she thought, trying to reassure herself.
Ma’May awoke from the procedure, feeling numbed in body and soul. She felt like the inside of her heart had been carved hollow. “I felt like something was wrong and I wanted to bury it,” Ma’May says she thought at that time.
The abortion, instead of helping her to recover her sense of freedom and ambition made her feel “worthless and unlovable, like a piece of useless garbage.” She says that she despised the man who had put her in that position.
“I fell deeper into self-medicating and abusing drugs. I was trying to kill the pain, the void, the reality of what I had done,” Ma’May recounts. She surrounded herself with people who supported her decision. But this only advanced her more swiftly down a destructive path. She hated herself and thought that no one could love her after what she had done. Bouts of depression left her feeling empty and suicidal.
“I got to the point in my addiction that I longed for death,” she said.
Even five years after the abortion Ma’May would wake up some mornings begging God to make it her last day on earth. She was now in a drug-plagued relationship with another man. They lost everything to feed their addiction. “We did not have a place to live and our families did not trust us,” she said.
Ma’May’s companion suggested that they seek refuge with his parents. Both parents were God-fearing Christians. She remembers well the day they knocked on the door seeking a place in which to continue their lifestyle. But something happened to them for which she will be forever grateful.
The father of the young man refused to let them cross his threshold.
The young man’s mother approached her son sorrowfully. “Son, can you imagine how this makes me feel knowing that your father will not let you come into our house?” she cried softly to him. Something suddenly stirred in Ma’May as she beheld the scene unfold between the mother and her estranged son.
A childhood religion lesson flitted through her mind about how Mary, the mother of Jesus, prayed for all God’s children to enter into the house of the Father. She had learned how sad Mary becomes when God’s children do not follow His plan for their lives. Her religion lesson was being acted out right before her eyes.
For a moment, she caught a glimpse of how far she had traveled from ‘home’. She suddenly realized how sorrowful her earthly mother must be on account of her choices.
Instead of giving the young broken man and woman a roof over their heads, the concerned father and mother offered to send them to a restoration and rehabilitation program that was based on Gospel principles. Ma’May remembers her heart leaping at their offer. “I knew it was my only chance. I was so sick of being sick and tired,” she said. She had come to a point where she knew beyond a doubt that her life choices had only worked against her. “What could it hurt to try it God’s way,” she reasoned.
Read Part II of this series here.