Each week AFL posts an Anglicans in Action video, which gives practical suggestions, resources, and ideas for life-ministry. This week’s focus is on ministering those who mourn siblings lost to abortion. You can see all the Anglicans in Action videos on our YouTube Channel.
For this episode, we are focusing on ministry to siblings who have lost their brothers or sisters due to abortion. As you may know, Anglicans for Life co-sponsors the Silent No More Awareness Campaign along with Priests for Life. In 2015, Silent No More began an initiative that provides an in-depth look at how the Shockwaves of Abortion impact society. Each month focuses on a special group that has been directly affected by abortion loss, with helpful information, resources, and abortion-recovery programs.
The month of April is focused on healing siblings that have been affected by abortion. I’d encourage you to visit the Silent No More website and read the testimonies and information posted. The more we acknowledge that this hurt exists and become educated about how abortion affects everyone, the better equipped we are to create hope for healing.
Dr. Philip Ney is a child psychiatrist and has done extensive research in the area of siblings of aborted children, particularly those who suffer from Post-Abortion Survivor Syndrome. The dynamics that arise in the relationship with a brother or sister who was aborted are often overlooked or ignored entirely. That relationship brings a profound sense of emptiness, anxiety, and guilt to the surviving sibling, and also complicates his or her relationship to their parents.
As those who are alive because they were wanted, Post-Abortion Survivor Syndrome people tend to feel they have no intrinsic value and therefore, neither do others. This is an extremely important but rarely discussed example of the collateral damage from the abortion. Dr. Ney says that those affected by Post-Abortion Survivor Syndrome experience “recurrent depression, intense obsessions, suicidal risk taking, and frequent hospitalizations.” His research shows how profoundly abortion can affect siblings of aborted children.
If you know a sibling who has been affected by abortion, this week’s action idea is to encourage them to seek healing and help. Please direct them to visit this website to find Healing Resources, testimonies, prayers, sermons, research and much more. Those who have been healed are invited to join the Silent No More Awareness Campaign and share their testimony.
Breaking the silence that surrounds abortion is critical to making it unthinkable and illegal.
