Susan M Stanford–Rue tells the story of her abortion:
“I glanced at the nurse’s face as we walked down the silent corridor. She looked bored, or sullen, evidently not interested in carrying on any conversation… I could not help feeling that I was suddenly just a number, part of a routine.
She led me into a small room similar to the gynecological examining rooms I’d been in during routine checkups in the past. The smell of medical disinfectant was heavy. On one side was a counter with various medical instruments and rolls of gauze. I would not allow my eyes to take in the sight.
“Lie down,” the nurse said, not gruffly, but as if I were a child. “The doctor will be with you in a few minutes.”
I slid myself onto the narrow bed, which had stirrups at the lower end… Don’t think. Don’t feel, I said over and over and over. Just be strong enough to get through. Hang in there and it’ll be over. Be strong.
In a minute the door opened and I turned my head as the doctor walked in…
“There will be some pain,” he acknowledged. “Let me know if it gets to be too much.”…
I nodded mutely.…
I could feel the tube being inserted, and then a burning sensation that turned at once into intense pain. Throughout my abdomen I was in agony. Clenching my fists and teeth, I determined to bear the pain and not cry out. For some minutes I could hear the doctor moving about. Perspiration collected on my upper lip and forehead.
At last he said, “I’m going to turn on the machine now. In a few minutes, it will all be over.”
In a few minutes. Over. Could I hold on that long? There was no backing out now.
The machine was humming suddenly with a dull sucking sound. My abdomen cramped and the pain in my uterus was nearly unbearable. The mechanical whine went on and on. My breath came in shallow, panting gasps, and I thought I would hyperventilate. Biting my lip, I tried to find some spot in a distant corner of my mind where I could hide from the hurt. Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think…
When I thought I could not stand the pain and the whine of the machine another moment, the sound stopped. In the silent seconds that followed, something like an electric shock went through me – an overwhelming sense of disbelief at what I had just done. If only I could hold onto the thought that nothing had formed yet…
The nurse asked [the doctor] something and I barely overheard him say, “Oh, it looks like about 6 or 7 weeks.”
I started. 6 or 7 weeks?… I had not expected that. As long as I could think of it as a “clump of cells” it was not quite so awful.…
I had seen textbook pictures of infants in utero. At that stage the fetus had already started to take definitive shape – It’s heart had begun beating and it had fingers and toes. What had I done?”
Susan M Stanford–Rue, PhD Will I Cry Tomorrow? Healing Post–Abortion Trauma (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H Revell Company, PowerBooks, 1990) 68 – 71
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