Emma Beck, a 30 year old artist with everything to live for is dead. She committed suicide after having her twins aborted at a clinic in England. This is indeed a tragic story of what can happen when two people become involved and one of them totally rejects the other. But there is far more to this story than meets the eye.
The London Telegraph reported that Emma left a suicide note in which she wrote: “I should never have had an abortion. I see now I would have been a good mother.”
Her note goes on to say, “I told everyone I didn’t want to do it, even at the hospital. I was frightened, now it is too late. I died when my babies died. I want to be with my babies; they need me, no one else does.”
Emma Beck aborted her twins because her boyfriend did not want them. She aborted her twins because her abortionist did not make sure she had adequate counseling. She aborted her twins because nobody was willing to love and affirm her in her hour of need.
Emma’s decision, clearly made under duress and without benefit of proper counseling, sealed her fate.
After the abortion Emma’s general practitioner knew how distressed Emma was. She told the media that she made every effort to encourage Emma to see a counselor, but Emma refused. I believe that to the abortionist who carried out the surgery without assuring proper counseling ahead of time, Emma was simply just another “pregnant woman” with a “problem” that had to be solved.
Prior to the abortion, the abortionist is reported to have said that the situation was discussed with Emma and the abortionist knew that she felt alone and unsupported. But … since there was no counselor available to see Emma prior to the abortion, the abortionist claims to have given Emma a phone number to call. Further, the abortion clinic spokesman claims “I am satisfied that everything was done to make sure that Emma consented to the operation.”
This blasé statement tells me a whole lot! Of course they wanted to make sure she consented; without her consent no money would be paid! But how did she consent? Obviously she did so without benefit of appropriate counseling.
If we consider the fact that Emma had no counseling whatsoever, and apparently no support to carry her babies to term by any member of her family, not to mention her boyfriend, it becomes painfully clear that isolated from all manner of love and caring, Emma simply could not go on. Her suicide note makes that perfectly clear.
The medical examiner in this case, who declared Emma’s death a suicide, said “It is clear that a termination can have a profound effect on a woman’s life.”
That word “termination” is another red flag. The very use of that word suggests to me that far too many, even in the aftermath of a tragedy like this one, will not provide one scintilla of thought to the possibility that had Emma had positive, pro-baby, pro-mother counseling prior to her decision, she and her twins would be with us now.
It should also be obvious to one and all that not only does a mother who aborts her children suffer greatly and in many ways, but that she too often realizes after the fact that rather than being the mother of a living child, she has by her own decision become the mother of a dead child. This reality is what brought Emma Beck to her tragic end.
Emma Beck’s death should give us all pause to consider how much genuine unselfish love is required of each of us, but particularly those involved in a procreative act that results in a child being conceived. For far too long sex outside of marriage has been accepted as the norm and our sexually saturated society has met the news of tragedies like this one with little to no consideration of the root causes. It is high time that those of us in positions of responsibility within the pro-life movement started drawing the word pictures that are necessary to protect and preserve the dignity and the very life of future Emma Becks.
This sad story can only provide a better outcome for future expectant mothers when we pro-lifers begin connecting the dots and avoid opposing surgical abortion in a vacuum. Each of us has an obligation to make it clear that sex outside of marriage is wrong and contraceptive practice is evil. We know that abortion is but a fruit of the tree of so-called sexual freedom and that many simply do not want to hear it. Be that as it may, let us not be silent about the obvious.
Please remember Emma Beck in your daily prayers.
