Silent No More offers help, hope and healing from trauma of abortion

By Mary Ann Wyand

The National Silent No More Awareness Campaign offers help, hope and healing to women and men damaged by the trauma of abortion.

Janet Morana, associate director of Priests for Life and co-founder of the New York-based Silent No More educational ministry with Georgette Forney, spoke at several cities in the archdiocese on Sept. 29-30 to encourage expectant mothers to choose life and help women and men suffering from the pain of abortion to speak out about their experience so they can begin the healing process.

“It takes a lot for people to tell their [abortion] stories,” Morana said during a Silent No More rally on Sept. 30 at University Park in downtown Indianapolis.

“Take this information and use it to help someone else who you know had an abortion,” she told the gathering. “Let’s bring some of those people back to healing and use this information to stop another girl from going down this road. … Women do not have abortions because of freedom of choice. Women have abortions because they feel they have no choice.”

Morana presented the keynote speech at the Bartholomew County Right to Life banquet on Sept. 29 in Columbus then helped three women choose life for their babies on Sept. 30 outside a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic on East 21st Street in Indianapolis. Later that day, she spoke at the Silent No More rally in downtown Indianapolis then presented programs at two parishes in the Lafayette Diocese on Oct. 1-2.

“At the abortion clinic on 21st Street, we had two Hispanic girls who were saved and brought around to the Crisis Pregnancy Center,” Morana said, “then I had the experience of assisting in the save of a mother bringing her daughter to the abortion clinic. The mother’s boyfriend was there, and the daughter’s boyfriend was there. … We were literally sitting on the ground in the parking lot talking for about a half hour, and after a lot of persuasion I got the whole family to go to the Crisis Pregnancy Center right around the corner for help.”

Morana said “saves happen a lot around the country” when she does sidewalk counseling alone or with Father Frank Pavone, the founder and director of Priests for Life based in Staten Island, N.Y., and local pro-life counselors.

“I want to encourage people to come out and pray at an abortion mill,” she said. “We were there praying for at least two hours. Some of the people were praying and others were counseling, but as a result there are babies alive today that would have been dead.”

Morana said when people ask her what they can do to end legalized abortion, she encourages them to pray outside an abortion clinic and help women experiencing crisis pregnancies.

She also offered her thanks to Father Andrew Dudzinski, administrator of St. Joseph Parish in Lebanon, Ind., in the Lafayette Diocese, for leading the rosary outside the abortion clinic.

“It’s the power of the prayers right there where the deaths are happening that get results,” she said. “I see it all over the country, and here in this diocese there were three babies saved on Sept. 30 because of people coming out to pray and Father Dudzinski’s leadership at the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic. Father Dudzinski’s leadership was very important, especially for the Hispanic women. When they saw a priest standing there, his presence really helped melt their hearts then the counselors could do the rest.”

Morana also encouraged people to log on to the website www.SilentNoMoreAwareness.org to read testimonials from women and men harmed by abortion.

“Offering women an abortion is not offering them real help,” she said. “Offering a woman an abortion does not solve her problems. It creates other problems.”

Since the first Silent No More program during the March for Life in Washington, D.C., in January 2003, Morana said the campaign has grown into a national and international post-abortion ministry.

“We have events going on all year long,” she said, “but January is the big focus because of the tragic decision of Roe vs. Wade. We’ll be back in front of the Supreme Court in Washington on Jan. 23 during the March for Life.”

Morana said she is very encouraged that so many people are speaking out about their abortion experience.

“By people speaking out, several things happen,” she said. “Women and men who have been damaged by abortion realize they’re not alone, and they take those first steps to healing. It breaks the silence for them. For girls who are considering abortion or someone who is encouraging someone else [to have an abortion], they hear about the damage it has done to others and this might be the only thing that will help them. Finally, it helps convert people out there who are just mushy on the issue.”

The use of ultrasound technology has saved many babies in recent years, she said. “People know that it’s a child, but they cling to choice by saying that a woman should have the right to choose. However, when they hear about the damage that abortion is doing to women that has converted people in the pews who say they are still pro-choice. We know by the women speaking out and being silent no more that hearts and minds and babies are being saved, and every time a baby is saved from an abortion a mother is saved from the pain of being post-abortive.”

About 3,000 people have registered for the Silent No More monthly e-mail letter, she said, and a number of post-abortion healing programs have asked to be listed on the website.

Morana also encouraged people to log on to www.unborn.com, a website created by Shari Richard, a pro-life Christian who lives in West Bloomfield, Mich., to view ultrasonography of babies in the womb.

Richard joined local Silent No More members at the Sept. 30 rally in Indianapolis to share her abortion story and urge people to promote her Windows on the Womb educational pro-life ministry on the Internet. †