Reconciliation and Healing for Wounded Gen Xers

By Irene Lagan
HERALD Staff Writer
(From the issue of 11/7/02)

Victoria Thorn is the executive director of the National Office of Post-Abortion Reconciliation and Healing. A dynamic and engaging person, Thorn is nationally recognized as a pioneer in post-abortion healing and related issues.

Thorn first became interested in women’s issues surrounding abortion during the 1960s while still in college. A close friend became pregnant for the second time and was taken by her mother to a major metropolitan hospital for a "safe but illegal abortion." In the aftermath, Thorn witnessed her friend cycle through depression, self-destructive behaviors, suicidal behavior, an abusive husband and finally becoming abusive toward her own children. Thorn said her friend, who had given one baby up for adoption, could "live with the adoption, but not the abortion."

"She was the poster girl for the people I work with," Thorn said. "Watching her go through the abortion was a life-changing event for me, though I was not aware of it at the time. I tried to help, but never knew how to reach her and could not seem to say the right things."

After graduating, Thorn worked in an office that was staffed mostly by women. In that setting, she was exposed to "crazy lifestyles" and other women who had gone through abortion. Her experiences of women struggling with abortion, contraception and sex outside of marriage led her to pursue avenues of helping women bound by such damaging experiences.

After moving to Wisconsin with her husband in the mid 1970s, Thorn began working as a pregnancy counselor for Birthright, a nonprofit crisis pregnancy center. In 1977, the U.S. Catholic bishops began to implement a comprehensive pastoral plan for pro-life ministry. Through word of mouth, Thorn was offered a job as a lobbyist to promote pro-life legislative initiatives as part of the bishops’ plan. After hesitating, Thorn ultimately accepted a similar position when she was offered the job for a second time.

Since pro-life ministry was relatively new, Thorn had no model to follow in structuring her own work. She quickly realized that legislative issues, education, pregnancy counseling and post-abortion counseling were aspects of pro-life work that presented different challenges.

"There were no models out there," Thorn said. "There were no experts in the field. I began seeking out people who could work with me."

In 1984, Thorn organized one of the first training seminars for priests, Catholic Charities counselors and others who dealt with women in crisis pregnancy or post-abortion situations. The negative impact of abortion on women was not well understood, and the deep spiritual and psychological wounds that many women experience after abortion presented new challenges to priests and counselors.

Now, after more than 25 years of legalized abortion, the negative effects of abortion, including post-traumatic stress disorder, are better known. There is a wide variety of symptoms, ranging from mild depression and grief to more serious and long lasting post-traumatic stress reactions, such as suicidal ideation, addictions and relationship problems.

Following the 1984 conference, Thorn became known as an "expert" in post-abortion ministry, a field that had not been recognized only the day before. Then-Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee donated space to Thorn to establish a national office for post-abortion ministry. Several benefactors donated money to initiate the project, and Thorn founded Project Rachel, a post-abortion outreach of the Catholic Church, and assumed the role of executive director of the National Office of Post-Abortion Reconciliation and Healing.

Today, the National Office maintains a referral line that directs men and women to professionals and ministers in their area, networks professionals in the field and offers training to providers. Thorn has become widely recognized as a speaker and an advocate for those who suffer the effects of abortion.

Her research in abortion-related issues has led her to develop a series of talks about the psychological impact of abortion on young people in general. Following upon ideas outlined by sociologists Neil Howe and Bill Strauss in their book 13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?, Thorn explored the particular psychological and spiritual wounds that have come about as a result of widespread sociological changes, including abortion as a socially accepted practice.

Thorn said that young people today have been born in an era when children are often not welcomed or wanted, but are planned. It is the first time that children have been portrayed as "evil personified" in literature and films such as Rosemary’s Baby. Widespread divorce, increased mobility, the breakdown of the family and the stress of working mothers have also contributed to creating a generation of young people who are afraid of commitment, feel lost and are lacking in domestic skills.

As a result, Thorn said that many young people seek intimacy through sexual relationships but do not have models of successful or happy marriage relationships. This also contributes to abortion. Without appropriate models of commitment, relationships are often doomed to failure.

"Our generation is locked into the fallacy of perfect households. There is no such thing, and without the benefit of the extended family, individual family units are isolated. This means that when there is a problem at home, children cannot turn to relatives or neighbors for the support they need, and have no models for comparison. People do not know what normal or healthy family systems look like," Thorn said.

According to Thorn, those born into the age of technological reproduction face even more confusion. "This is radical stuff in terms of where we are going as a society," Thorn said. "We are going to have to change course if we want a healthy society."

Thorn believes that once people become aware of their particular wounds, they can work them out. While some people turn to therapy, the cure for young people, she said, is appropriate mentors, older men and women who can befriend young people.

Thorn recently gave several workshops in the area. On Tuesday evening, Thorn’s talk on Generation X at St. Catherine of Sienna Church in Great Falls was open to the public. Thorn facilitated several workshops for Project Rachel counselors last week.

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