LONDON, July 9, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Before and after pictures often inspire thoughts of accomplishment, but a series of pictures a woman posted online of an empty jar that gradually filled with the shredded corpse of her unborn child has elicited feelings of sorrow, pity, revulsion, and – for an abortion survivor – acute memories of a haunted past.
“Jane Young” said she posted images of her 2011 abortion on her website, ThisIsMyAbortion.com, “to counter the perverse use of dead fetus images used by the anti-abortion movement.”
The anonymous woman, whose mother had an illegal abortion 30 years earlier, first encountered “horrific graphic images” of aborted babies while accompanying a friend to an abortion clinic. A year later, she visited the facility herself.
En route to her own appointment, she said she felt threatened by pro-life protesters holding “religious paraphernalia” and noted the “security risk” pro-life demonstrators posed to “abortion caregivers.”
After stepping inside the abortion mill, she wrote in an article published in The Guardian, “I entered a sanctuary” where “my psyche [was] held by empathetic professionals.”
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During the procedure, she snapped pictures of an empty jar that would eventually fill with the suctioned remains of her unborn child. “At 6 weeks of pregnancy, my abortion looked very different than the images I saw when I entered the clinic that day,” she wrote.
Pointing to her picture, Young claimed pro-lifers’ “heartless use of lifeless fetus images” was “just propaganda…being used as a weapon” to leave the public “cheated, lied to and manipulated.”
However, some say it is the anonymous photographer who is misleading the public.
“Yes, a young baby murdered by suction abortion will look very different than an older baby murdered by a D&C, RU-486, D&E, or induced labor abortion,” wrote Jill Stanek on her website.
“I am still overwhelmed with sadness looking at that jar of bloody pulp,” Stanek wrote. “Jane’s dead baby is in there, even if unrecognizable.”
Graphic depictions of certain kinds of abortions have proven effective in changing minds and hearts in the struggle for life. Fr. Frank Pavone says visitors to the Priests for Life website have told him those searing images forced them to face the consequences of abortion. One female visitor simply wrote, “Thank you for showing me the truth.”
But Young considers her photos a call-to-arms. She told Jessica Gottlieb of Village Voice, “we still have to dig in the trenches as women to fight for the right to choose…We must continue to demand rights for ourselves and for the future generations of men and women alike.”
Young’s own graphic images have won her effusive plaudits. A woman named Chelsea wrote on Young’s website, “You f—-ing rock for this. Absolutely brilliant.”
Many commenters shared stories of what Young called “courageous” abortions. Sarahj wrote that after her abortion, “I bled for a long time, but I was told that was normal.” She believes her decision “was the best choice for the potential ‘child.’”
A supporter named Katie said, “I had major complications the next day and actually had to be rushed back to have another procedure done. I am now unable to have children but luckily for me my husband who was adopted doesn’t want biological children…It was MY decision to have an abortion..no one else’s. I am the one who has to live with that.”
Not all shared Young’s enthusiasm for abortion. A “Tara T” wrote that having an abortion at 10 weeks “devastated me. It wasn’t the protesters – there were none there at the time – it was the feeling I got inside of me as I realized this man was vacuuming my baby out of me and putting its parts in a jar.”
“Now I want kids and can’t have them because I developed a bad infection after the abortion,” she wrote. “There’s more to it than both sides are willing to see…..WAY more.”
ThisMyAbortion.com appeared shortly after a website xoJane.com asked post-abortive women to share their happy abortion stories, and follows a trickle of similar articles.
In March, Amanda Chatel, a self-described “selfish” New York writer, called her abortion “the best decision of my life.” She added that she prefers the companionship of her Jack Russell terrier to motherhood.
In April, Susan Heath wrote in the New York Times that she had “felt only gratitude and relief” after having her abortion.
Sarah Tuttle-Singer then wrote of “years of pain” that followed “My Jewish Abortion.” Nonetheless, she continues to support abortion-on-demand.
A more prominent post-abortive feminist, The Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead, now performs one-woman Planned Parenthood benefits, in which she thanks those who ended her own child’s life and mocks the work of crisis pregnancy centers.
As for Jane Young, “So far, I have not regretted having my abortion or sharing these photographs,” she wrote. “I don’t think that I will.”