By the time I finished the first couple of hours' worth of correspondence, I knew I had enough to write a book. Only twice before in all the years we've published Today's News & Views have I been so inundated with the level of heart-felt e-mails that came in over the electronic transom in response to the question, "What Do We Say to the Woman Who Has Aborted?" [See http://nrlc.org/News_and_Views/Nov08/nv112008.html].

So let me begin by saying that today's thoughts are only a first pass, a preliminary overview, of the bevy of sensitive, discerning correspondence that came from as far away as Australia. If it's okay with you, I will periodically return to this most important question over the next couple of weeks. In so doing, I hope to do justice to what people so kindly shared with me.

Although my question asked what we would say to women who've aborted, let me use this first go-round to talk about what the women themselves said to me.

Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian, once wrote that "Life must be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward." So many of my correspondents were women who had aborted when they were very young.

Most were very hard on themselves for succumbing to pressure. But, to be fair, as teenagers, they simply didn't know what they perhaps couldn't know. All too often the failure was with the adults in their lives who should have known better but didn't.

In retrospect, it was clear to them what had happened. Typically, they were very young when they became pregnant, panic turned their adolescent brains to mush, and most of the time the boyfriend either exited stage right or joined in a chorus of counsel to "get rid of that thing."

Beaten down as they had been, nonetheless, many insist they should have been able to withstand the siege. But as I read their accounts, I could understand why they hadn't. Were you to read the same stories, I know your heart would reach out to them.

Frankly, I was emotionally exhausted just reading their stories. I thought of what the legendary football coach Vince Lombardi once famously said: "Fatigue makes cowards of us all." To expect these young girls to bear up under all the pressure to abort is to ask for ten times more moral stamina than I possessed when I was an adolescent.

In subsequent TN&V blog entries I'll talk at length about what has subsequently happened in their lives. While their regret and their remorse remain unwelcomed companions, the "Days of Regret" now seem more like 24 hours than 24 years. I'll look at why this is so in much more depth next time.

Suffice it to say here that over and over these women told me that they drew strength and consolation in being able to help other women avert the decision they had unfortunately made.

Some had already become volunteer counselors. Others had established blogs of their own to reach out to women and girls in crisis pregnancy centers. Still others seemed to have developed a sixth sense (or at least a keenly sensitive ear) which allowed them to intuit that a woman had undergone an abortion and might be reaching out.

In many instances, this helped them overcome a principal stumbling block: an overpowering sense that they were unworthy of forgiveness. Again, more about that next time.

(However, for many reasons, assuming a public posture was not–and should not be-- for all. Some women candidly admitted that the emotions were still so raw that their families begged them to keep quiet about their abortion--or they themselves understood that they had only just begun their recovery. It was, they wrote, like "walking on eggshells.")

I would like to make just one other preliminary point. Women who have aborted are a kind of living testimony that is hard for anyone who has not to match.

They are an incredible witness for the cause of life, but our first response is gratitude they are healed enough to speak out. Like almost all of you, I am 100% in support of extending the hand of love and friendship to women who've made this tragic decision. Would anyone begrudge them these first steps on the way to wholeness?

But one woman reminded me that this ought to be an attitude that extends not just to women who have aborted and have seen the light but to all those who reconsider. As I read it, I realized

I needed to keep the gates of my heart wide-open.

She wrote,

"[President-elect Barack] Obama is not my favorite person in the world, but if he repented and became pro-life, what a day of rejoicing that would be for me! I wouldn't think back on the time he was pro-abortion and be like "Oh, I still can't stand him for what he did." I'd be too busy rejoicing that he changed!...This is what we should do to women who have abortions."

If you haven't commented yet, please read the original article which is at http://nrlc.org/News_and_Views/Nov08/nv112008.html]. And then send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

Part Two -- Doctors Grow New Windpipe Using Patient’s Own Cells