There is a heartbreaking scene in the movie “Secretariat,” where the main character, Penny, is unable to attend her daughter’s performance because of another commitment—her commitment to save the family horse farm and shepherd the racehorse Secretariat to victory.
Penny is on the phone with her son, who is attending his sister’s play. He holds the receiver up, so that Penny can hear her beloved daughter sing “Silent Night.” She lies across her bed, sobbing, because she is unable to be with her daughter on her big night. Actress Diane Lane expertly projects her character’s grief, showing her to be inconsolable because of her separation from her teenage girl.
In watching that scene, I couldn’t help but think of the pain of women who will never hear their daughters sing Christmas carols—let alone see them perform. Their separation from their daughters represents a life term in an emotional prison constructed by the abortion industry.
Who hears their cries?
Certainly it is not Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion operation in the U.S. While claiming to speak on behalf of women, the abortion giant offers no solace to women who regret their abortion decisions. It seems these women are also invisible to the “pro-choice” members of Congress, who fail to recognize the fact that abortion is no ticket to prosperity and peace of mind.
If anything, abortion impoverishes women, casting them as victims rather than empowering them to mother their children. Without support and a healthy grieving process, serenity following an abortion can be hard to come by, since the woman is left with a long list of what ifs…What if the child had been born? What if she had grown up to be scientist on the brink of a cure for heart disease? What if she had married and had children of her own? What if I had realized what an incredible gift she was—even in the womb?
1973 was the year that Secretariat burst across the finish line in the three legs of the Triple Crown, earning it the title of the greatest racehorse of all time. 1973 was also the year that the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the unborn children of America did not have a right to join the human race.
The legend of Secretariat lives on at the local movie theater. The pain of the 1973 Supreme Court decision known as Roe v. Wade crushes spirits at the neighborhood abortion center.
There might have been another feisty female horse owner who could have captured more than one 21st century Triple Crown . But if she was aborted, we’ll never know her.
LifeNews.com Note: Maria Vitale is an opinion columnist for LifeNews.com. She is the Public Relations Director for the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation and Vitale has written and reported for various broadcast and print media outlets, including National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and AP Radio.
