A British woman who had an abortion tells her story:
My decision to deny a child a future has in many ways been a personal life sentence for me. The first time I had sex I fell pregnant.
I’d been going out with my first boyfriend for seven months and we stupidly didn’t use protection, but I was so young I didn’t really understand the consequences.
I was petrified – especially when my boyfriend make it clear he didn’t want me to keep the baby. He said if I didn’t get rid of it, I’d never see him again. …
The weekend I went into hospital was awful. I was put on a ward with a group of pregnant women – everyone was so excited about having their babies but I felt guilty about terminating mine. Every hour or so the nurses would come back and ask if I was still sure I wanted to go ahead – it made the experience so much worse. …
No one apart from close family and my boyfriend knew about it, and if the topic ever came up in conversation, I would never admit to having had one. I was terrified people would think badly of me.
My guilt worsened when, aged 23, I met my first husband and had Katie. Every time I looked at her I thought of the baby I’d terminated.
I fell into a terrible depression and began to think anything that went wrong in my life was my punishment for having a termination and I turned to alcohol.
Eventually I pulled myself together and had counselling in my early 30s. It was the first time I’d spoken about how I felt. It made me realize that while I believe I made the right decision at the age of 17 – I really wasn’t capable of bringing up a child then – I could never destroy another potential life. …
I’m still not over my abortion – I even wrote a letter to the baby that might have been and buried it in the garden – it would be 19 now, and probably at university
NATASHA PEARLMAN; JENNY NISBET “ABORTION: THE LEGACY” The Daily Mail July 27, 2006 42.
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