Operation Outcry

Sorrow, pain speak at last

GROUP SEEKS TRUTHFUL WITNESS FOR TESTIMONIES

BY ED VITAGLIANO

"When the subject of abortion arises, there are plenty of men and women arguing for and against the rights of women to end the life of the unborn child. But what do the women who have actually aborted a child have to say?

Operation Outcry (www.operationoutcry.org) is giving America a chance to find out by collecting the testimonies of post-abortive women, who often reveal the tremendous anguish, guilt, depression and emotional and physical damage that comes with the aftermath of abortion.

Operation Outcry is a project of The Justice Foundation (TJF, www.thejusticefoundation.org), a non-profit organization dedicated, it says on its Web site, to protecting “the fundamental freedoms and rights essential to the preservation of American society.”

TJF began the project in 2000, when the legal group agreed to represent Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff “Jane Roe” in the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion; as well as Sandra Cano, the “Mary Doe” plaintiff in Roe’s companion high court ruling, Doe v. Bolton.

TJF asked the Supreme Court to overturn the two rulings, since both McCorvey (See related article.) and Cano said they had not known about the deleterious effects of abortion. The high court refused to hear the appeal at that time, although that meant the arguments could be made at a later time.

TJF began Operation Outcry so that post-abortive women could begin testifying to the harm of abortion. “If women and men who know the real pain of abortion do not tell their stories, then the lie that abortion is a safe, easy solution will win,” said TJF President Allan E. Parker Jr. “We need truthful witnesses to come forth and speak the truth in love.”

The effectiveness of this campaign was apparent in April 2007, when the Supreme Court upheld the federal ban on “partialThe birth abortion.” In that gruesome procedure, an abortionist extracts a live baby from its mother – except for its head – before killing it. In its decision the high court cited a TJF brief which contained sworn testimony signed by 180 women – all testifying to the ruinous after-effects of their own abortions.

The Supreme Court ruling in the case acknowledged that “abortion hurts women,” and that “some women come to regret” their abortions. “Whether to have an abortion requires a difficult and painful moral decision” and is “fraught with emotional consequence,” which could cause “severe depression and loss of esteem,” the high court said.

Yale University Law professor Jack M. Balkin said the inclusion of the testimonies of women in the court’s decision was important. “The new rhetoric of pro-life forces (that abortion hurts women) is no longer just rhetoric,” he said. “It is now part of Supreme Court doctrine. That is the big news. ...”

The only problem, however, was that the high court also said that it had “no reliable data to measure” the extent of the problem.

“That means we need to continue the process of gathering testimonies from women who have suffered after aborting their children,” Parker said, “so that their voices can be added to the debate.”

The affidavits and declarations obtained through Operation Outcry thus far number about 2,000 women since the project’s inception. TJF encourages everyone to help the group collect one million such testimonies to take back to the Supreme Court.

“God is able to take what is the worst thing in the life of a woman, a woman suffering from the pain of abortion, and use it for great good for herself and others,” said Clayton Trotter, general counsel for TJF.

Trotter also co-hosts Operation Outcry’s television program, Faces of Abortion, available through the Sky Angel satellite television service. The program is also available on DVD through both the project’s Web site and the AFA online store (http://store.afa.net). The program offers healing and hope through the testimonies of women who have gone through the trauma of abortion and have found forgiveness and peace through Jesus Christ.

“We are bringing ‘good news’ to the afflicted; we are binding up the broken-hearted and proclaiming liberty to the captives, according to Isaiah 61,” said Trotter.

Operation Outcry has been endorsed not only by AFA chairman Don Wildmon, but by representatives of Focus on the Family, the Center for Reclaiming America, Alliance Defense Fund, Priests For Life, Hope International, the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and many more pro-life groups.

The project also offers counseling for women who have had or are contemplating an abortion, via its 24-hour, National Helpline for Abortion Recovery, 866-482-LIFE."