When Georgette Forney was 16, she had an abortion and was immediately traumatized by it.

“The next day after [the abortion], I couldn’t handle what I did yesterday, and so I thought, you know, I’ll pretend it didn’t happen. And I did that for the next 19 years,” Forney said.

Forney, co-founder of the National Silent No More Awareness Campaign, will be one of three speakers at a discussion on the effects of abortion Monday.

After she had her abortion, Forney spent the next 19 years trying to forget about it. She said her denial ended in February 1995 when she was confronted by her aborted baby.

She said while she was cleaning her basement, she had a vision. The book she was holding turned into her aborted baby. At that point, she realized she had missed out on a future she could have had if she had not gone through with the abortion.

After this, she said, her walls of denial were broken down, and she began to grieve and sought help.

The National Silent No More Awareness Campaign is a pro-life group devoted to increasing awareness of the negative effects of abortion.

Speakers from the campaign will talk at 7 p.m. Monday in the Campanile Room of the Memorial Union about the abortions they have had and the emotional pain they felt as a result.

Forney said one aim of the National Silent No More Awareness Campaign is to let women who have gone through an abortion and who are struggling to deal with it know help is available. She said the help includes online and e-mail counseling, weekend retreats, 10-week programs and books and songs.

Forney said Monday’s discussion will present the impacts of abortion calmly.

“We will present a fair and balanced reality of what abortion is like from a woman’s experience. Usually, it turns into a shouting match between those who are on the different sides of the issue, but rarely can a woman calmly talk about it,” Forney said. “Also, we will present other options that might be available to women [besides abortion], because many women don’t know about the other options.”

Members of a campus pro-choice activist group, the Feminism Majority Leadership Alliance, said they plan on attending the lecture to hear the other side of the debate.

Nikki Feuerstein, president of the alliance and junior in women’s studies, said the Feminism Majority Leadership Alliance also offers counseling to women who have gone through abortions. They serve as a “connector” between the women and groups who provide services to women who need help. The group is focusing mostly on abortion this year.

“This year we are spending quite a bit of time on the abortion issue, because it is in a very dangerous position politically, concerning reproductive freedom,” Feuerstein said.

“Our main focus of this is reproductive freedom, and also, President Bush’s judicial appointments to different circuit courts, which are very anti-choice judges,” she said.