When Cindy Hendrickson was a teenager, she had a saline abortion. Saline abortions are seldom performed today. They were done by injecting a caustic saline solution into the uterus to kill the baby and then inducing labor.
Hendrickson says:
“When I told my parents about the pregnancy, dad decided I would have an abortion, even though I wanted to give my baby up for adoption. We told no one about the baby. My mother always obeyed my father, and I was afraid to disobey him, so I agreed to the abortion.
Mother and I went to a Houston clinic where dad said they had counselors to help me. Mother paid them $500 in cash and was told to leave me there. The counselor took all the girls (about 25) and taught us about birth control.
That was the last I saw of her. I was given a shot of Demerol, and around midnight the doctor came to my room and injected saline my uterus. The nurse never told me what would happen.
Later, I went to the bathroom and saw my baby hanging from the umbilical cord. As I screamed hysterically for help, I heard the nurses out in the hall talking and laughing.
After 15 minutes, my roommate went to get a nurse. She made me get back in bed with the baby hanging between my legs and said they had to wait until I passed the placenta. I lay in bed crying, trying not to touch the baby with my legs. Finally, they removed it. We went home…”
She writes about the emotional aftermath of her abortion:
“During college I started taking speed, stopped eating, and was anorexic (90 pounds.) I was on antidepressants for 20 years until recently… I spent 8 years after the abortion in destructive behaviors, going to three different secular counselors and never talking about the abortion.
A Christian counselor at Birth Choice helped me examine how I felt about my child, and I grieved for three days and nights. She suggested The Memorial as a place to honor my child, and that has given me peace.”
Wendy Williams, Ann Caldwell Empty Arms: More Than 60 Life-Giving Stories of Hope from the Devastation of Abortion (Chattanooga, Tennessee: Living Ink Books, 2005) 112 – 113
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