Charnette Messe, we miss you
even if breast cancer from your abortion did not.
I wonder if Oprah remembers having you on her show.
Or if Rosie O’Donnell remembers the article about you she published in her magazine.
We lost you about 9 years later, December 3, 2011. You were 41.
You were interviewed on the first Season 1 episode of “Facing Life Head-On” around June 2006 (first apx. 5:40).
I have found sooooo many links to your words, your life, I won’t be able to do this Memoriam justice, but will try.
I haven’t stayed in touch with Tom and your kids since we all lost you, so I won’t go into personal detail, in case that’s not what they’d want. Your kids would be about 22 and 25 years old now.
But I want to honor you, now, this first Black History Month after I’ve resurrected After Abortion.
You were such a grace in our lives, even for me, the short time I knew you and worked with you. You still are.
“America's Beauty Is Stained By Abortion”
I think it was you who wrote that phrase. If it was someone else, Google won’t surface who else did.
I met Charnette when we spoke together at press conferences in the NYC Tristate area for Silent No More Awareness Campaign in the Noughties. She had her abortion when she was 20. Before she met and married Tom.
Tom, was Dr. Tom, the Navy Doctor who I mentioned provided an account of his experiences at the April 25, 2004 counter-protest against the Women’s March for Choice (no, I haven’t posted his account here yet).
She had a story to tell about both her abortion and her breast cancer, and how she now had “the freedom to love all my babies.” Oprah Winfrey had her on her October 2, 2002 show, and the now-defunct ROSIE Magazine printed her story also that month (can’t find a link).
Her breast cancer story related how she refrained from treatment until her second living baby was born when she was diagnosed at 31, the day before she discovered she was pregnant again.
Breast carcinoma had, back in the Noughties and prior, always affected women over the age of 35 typically, from everything I’d read. Today I won’t list all the research, quotes and links, will post that updated column when I have time to update all that (it will take a while).
But Charnette believed that her abortion contributed to her breast cancer, and she wasn’t alone:
“Charnette was pressured to abort her son when she was pregnant because of the cancer....having experienced a previous abortion and knowing not only that it was wrong, but believing it contributed to her breast cancer, she refused to give in to the pressure and brought her beautiful son Christian into the world.”
One of her books, “A Brilliant Performance: A Mother's Battle With Breast Cancer And Pregnancy Defined Her Dignity In The World.”
A second book she wrote, for her children: “My Mommy Taught Me to Dance: A memoir for Gabrielle and Christian Messe.”
