by Laura Rosecrans with The HUB of New Mexico Internet Radio Station:
Thank you to Pastor Rick Edwards from First Baptist Church in Bosque Farms New Mexico for allowing Dan & I to speak about abortion during church service on January 22, 2017 – 44 years since Roe vs. Wade passed in the Supreme Court. We shared statistics as well as my personal abortion story. You read my full story under the video. Sorry for the grainy video. Wi Fi was being difficult.
TO GOD be the glory for the forgiveness and grace He extends for even a sin like abortion.
If you would like for us to go speak to your church or group please email us at info@thehubnm.com or at our contact page on our webpage. We would be more than glad to share!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WlH97s-Q4w]
My name is Laura Rosecrans with Surrendered Hearts Abortion Recovery Ministries and The HUB of New Mexico Christian Radio Internet Station.
1 out of every 3-4 women in our country have had an abortion. These are women you meet everyday at work, shopping, in your church and in your families. 1/3 of a generation has been wiped out off the face of the planet due to holocaust known as abortion AND 60 million babies have been taken from since 1973 when Roe vs. Wade passed. Abortion is the #1 killer of American citizens to date.
I heard Apologetics Expert Grant Bresett on a radio show one morning that has resonated in my heart since I heard it. He said, “If you knew abortion hurts women would you rethink your position?” His statement hit me profoundly and personally since I had never heard anyone bring the argument against abortion to the woman’s level. I had always heard it on the level of the murder of the child but never had I heard someone make it based on the pain and destruction it causes the women affected by abortion.
This statement has become the mission in my life. I want to let you know what abortion did to THIS woman
If you had told me at this time 3 years ago that I would be telling you my story, I would have thought you were crazy! This very time 3 years ago I was pretty sure that I would always keep my shameful secret to myself til death as I had for decades. Only a handful of people knew my past sin and I intended to keep it that way.
But God, as He does so many times, had other plans.
My story begins When I was 16 years old I was delivered by a predator 5 years my senior to the gates of what would become my personal hell for 33 years.
I was ripe for the picking for this man. My father had passed away when I was 2. My precious mother was doing her best to keep us surviving and I found myself alone at home a lot. This man was our neighbor and as most abusers he could smell my vulnerability as any predator can smell out the weakness of another.
He stole everything from me – my innocence and my virginity. When I became pregnant with his child he would kick me incessantly in the stomach to get me to miscarry. When I didn’t and I reached 11 weeks gestation he informed me I would get an abortion. Now I understand that he very well knew the timetable he was on. At 12 weeks the procedure becomes more complicated and of course more expensive. I look back now and I realize I was so young and naïve about it all. At 16 you think you know the world but you are still such a child. I now understand he had to get rid of the evidence that could potentially put him in jail for statutory rape.
He arranged everything and at this point I willingly went along with it at first because the only thing that I could think of was that he would kill me if I didn’t. I was also afraid of bringing shame to my precious mother and to top it all off the all girl Catholic High School I was going to had a policy that if you got pregnant you got kicked out. I now wonder how many of my fellow students made the same choice I made. I was terrified and felt trapped and ashamed for even having sex with this man.
When we got to the clinic, he handed me an envelope with money and left me standing alone and terrified at the front door. If you are a parent here today, I would like for you to imagine your little girl at 16 years of age standing alone at the door of an abortion clinic. I want you to imagine what she would be feeling and experiencing and you not even knowing she is there. I know I imagined it every time one of my four daughters turned that age of 16 and I understand how much of child I really was – facing an overwhelming and horrifying decision alone.
Please speak to your children and grandchildren about abortion. I know we want to believe as parents and grandparents that our little girls are going to make it the altar as virgins but we live in a fallen world. Please let your sons and daughters know that if they find themselves in a crisis pregnancy that they CAN come to you. Many have said this only gives them permission to go have sex. That is not true. It gives them permission to turn to you instead of someone else that will guide them to go get an abortion.
Back to my story, after the man dropped me off, I proceeded to the office and handed the envelope to the front desk and I was then escorted to an office where two women greeted me with smiles and “counseled me”. At this point it is when I told them I did not want to be there. I told them I DID NOT want to do this! I felt this was murder! I still remember their pathetic words of counsel to me. They asked me, “If we handed you a gun would you be able to go up to someone and shoot them?” I answered, “Of course not!” Then they said, “Then you are not capable of murder. This is not murder it is a solution to your problem”.
Did they at any time ask why I was in this position at this age? Did they care who the father of the baby was? Did they bother to find out why I had been just dropped off and left and why I was alone? NO! Why? Because despite all their insistence that they are a trusted healthcare provider – there is nothing trustworthy about them.
They led me to another part of the clinic and left me to change. At this point I have no recollection of much of the procedure. I was asked if I would be driving home and I told them I would be picked up. So they gave me a local anesthesia. I was actually one of the lucky ones. Many of the women I counsel today tell me they had no one to pick them up and they went through this surgical procedure without anesthesia. They were not informed of the excruciating pain they would go through all the while having an abortion worker covering their mouths so other clients wouldn’t here their screams.
I was awake during the whole thing. Many of the ladies I speak with now remember the doctor and the nurse but I have NO recollection of either. The only clear memory I have is of watching the pieces of my baby being taken out in a trash bag.
When it was over I was taken to another room to “recover”. I was given crackers and juice and they asked for the phone number of the person I needed them to call to come get me. They gave me a list of instructions and I was told that if I had any of a number of symptoms not to call them but to call my regular doctor. As if I would really do that.
I left and walked myself alone to the door in pain and was picked up by the father of what had been my baby. I think I was in shock. I don’t remember much of the drive back to my house except I knew what I had done had been wrong. I felt full of regret and shame. I bled hemorrhaged that night and was afraid I was going to die and I wished at that point I would.
I went into that clinic as a terrified child and left a scarred woman. The image of my child in a trash bag caused me to live that very way…as trash. A part of me died on that table along with my child and nothing in life really mattered anymore.
I broke up with father of my baby not long after and lived a life of promiscuity going from man to man – often abusive men – because I felt I deserved no better. I was full of anger and rage and self-hatred. I became an alcoholic to help ease the pain and deaden the memories of what I had done and drank in hopes of slowly killing myself. I had many acquaintances throughout my life but never any real friends.
I joined the Air Force at the age of 21 and had all the men and booze I wanted. Then in October of 1987, 6 years after my abortion, I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I accepted His forgiveness for every sin except one. I placed my abortion and my baby above the cross. I knew He could NEVER forgive me for that one. But my life did change miraculously in many ways. The anger left and was able to experience a little bit of the peace I had sought after.
But I did continue my self-destructive behavior. I married into an abusive relationship but God still blessed me with my 5 beautiful children from that marriage. And I became SUPER MOM! I wanted to prove to myself I could be an amazing mother to my children who were living since I had failed my first child so miserably.
My past was used continuously against me in my marriage and the abuse started turning to my children and I realized I had to leave my marriage after 20 years.
Then, a couple of years after my divorce, I started dating a good friend and Godly man and I for once in my life experienced God’s grace and mercy through him. I told Dan right away about my abortion because I wanted him to know the filth he was dating. But instead of running away or using my past against me, he stuck around and he recognized that I needed healing and he made it HIS mission to find me that healing.
One day, a little after we got married on January 1, 2014 I heard a young woman named Laura Morrison on his morning show announcing the start of a new study in Albuquerque called Surrendering the Secret and I felt this was it. This was the time. Dan took me the first couple of times to make sure I didn’t bolt and finally in March of 2014 it happened. I now stand healed, whole and set free. I finally found the peace that had eluded me for 33 years.
I am now teaching the very study that helped set me free and I have personally seen how God can use a very broken woman to bring His healing to other broken women. I am also back in school pursuing my Master’s Degree in Psychology and Counseling to be better equipped to help heal my fellow sisters!
Dan and I have also started a ministry called Surrendered Hearts Abortion Recovery Ministries New Mexico with the objective of bringing abortion recovery ministries together. This is to benefit our hurting sisters and to unite us with one voice to make it known that ABORTION DOES INDEED HURT WOMEN! We also own an Internet Radio Station called THE HUB of New Mexico were one of our many goals is to bring all things pro-life to the forefront.
I pray if you are a woman who has been through an abortion and you are reading my story – that you understand that there IS forgiveness to be found at the foot of the Cross of our Savior Jesus. All you have to do is reach out and take it. He offers it freely. Please go to surrenderedheartsnm.com to find a study you can participate in.
