On a bleak February weekend, I make a return visit to Lisieux and Alençon in company with my friend Theresa, who, living as she does in America, has never managed hitherto to visit the shrine of her patron. After spending five days together running a “Grief to Grace” retreat in London for those suffering from the after-effects of abuse, now seemed like a good opportunity to ask for the saint’s prayers.
Dr Theresa Burke, to give her handle, is an American psychologist and author of the definitive book on post-abortion trauma, Forbidden Grief. It explains how and why abortion leaves significant and lasting physical and/or psychological damage to large numbers of women who chose it, and how this damage is more serious and prolonged because it remains a disenfranchised grief which is not allowed to be expressed.
