An American mother has related how a coerced abortion led to years of regret until she experienced a profound vision of forgiveness from her deceased unborn child. “I will continue speaking out against abortion and to help any way I can… I know one day I will see Emily and she will be whole.”
Michelle Greco had an abortion at Planned Parenthood when she was 20 weeks pregnant. She had recently broken up with her boyfriend, who then pressured her to have an abortion.
“He freaked out. He did not want our child and told me I’d have to pay for the abortion if I waited any longer”, Greco said.
After her surgical abortion, Greco saw a bucket of blood near the table. “I was told I’d have some bleeding and that I would need to go to the ER if it got bad. I stayed in the dark recovery room to eat some fruit before leaving.”
It wasn’t until later that Greco truly came to terms with the abortion and the violent loss of her unborn baby: “I felt so much remorse.”
Despite turning to drink and drugs in the aftermath of the abortion, Greco got back together with her boyfriend, with whom she had a daughter, and later married. She had another child with him within two years.
It was only after the birth of her third child that “it all became real… It finally hit me about the abortion because I started reading more about fetal development.”
Later, she opened a crisis pregnancy centre with a church friend, and it was around this time that she learned to forgive herself.
“It forced me to grasp the pain I had endured and had caused my daughter”, she said. Greco also gave her aborted child a name: Emily Rose.
She also divorced her husband after years of emotional and physical abuse. “I had always carried around these deep-rooted wounds and had just wanted someone to love me. The ones I wanted to love me had hurt me the most.”
Finally, when Greco was lying in bed one night, she had a vision of her deceased unborn baby:
“I felt Emily being laid on my chest and a spotlight lit up in the corner of the room. She was wrapped in a pink fuzzy blanket. A voice said, ‘Here is your daughter; she’s whole, she’s safe, and she forgives you.’ Then, hands came back and took her away.”
15 per cent of British adult women say they have experienced some form of pressure to have an abortion, as reported by a 2022 poll commissioned by the BBC.
In 2023, an academic study found that abortion coercion or pressure inflicts deep emotional harm on women, from pressure from a partner or family member to financial burdens.
“Perceived pressure to abort was significantly associated with more negative emotions… Overall, 61% [of respondents with a history of abortion] reported high levels of pressure on at least one scale”, the study’s authors reported.
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