They said it.
From one woman who had an abortion:
“I still defend the right to choice. But I also expect, or want, people who have abortions to get counseling. Because, I think it is very traumatic.”
Cara J. Marianna Abortion: A Collective Story (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002) 64
Share on FacebookFrederica Mathewes-Green sat with groups of women and listened to their abortion stories. She recalls one story:
“She voices the secret hope many aborting women harbor: “When I was at the clinic waiting for the abortion, I kept hoping my husband would show up. I kept hoping he would come in and say, “Don’t do this! I changed my mind!” but he didn’t show up. The marriage grew tense and they divorced a few months later.”
Frederica Mathewes-Green Real Choices: Listening to Women, Looking for Alternatives to Abortion (Felicity Press; 3 edition, April 16, 2013) Kindle version
Share on FacebookElaine Blakely of Huntsville, Alabama, describes the “safe, legal” abortion she had in 1976:
I am a woman who was exploited by abortion ten years ago. My abortion was free, legal and by no means performed in a “back alley” facility. In fact, the abortion facility was recommended by Planned Parenthood. Since I was not working at the time, Planned Parenthood happily gave me a “free pass” for the abortion. I didn’t even have to pay for the abortion. . .
At the Kansas City abortion clinic, I was given a pelvic exam. . . Contrary to what I was told, the abortion hurt very much and it led to severe complications. The “doctor” who performed my abortion perforated my uterus, cut an artery, and traumatized my colon. The doctor left me alone there with the “counselors” and one “nurse” for one and a half hours. After all the other patients had left the abortion facility, I was rushed by ambulance to a hospital across the state line for observation and blood transfusions. The ambulance rushed me to the hospital with lights flashing and sirens blaring in an attempt to save my life. The complaint that back alley abortions kills girls must be seen in light of the fact that girls are dying today from LEGAL abortions.
In order to save my life, a few hours later a hysterectomy was performed at the Kansas City, Missouri, Hospital. I am telling you this because I am an adult. I was misled into believing it was a simple procedure with no complications. Since then I have had eighty percent of my colon removed.
Amicus Brief in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services” by Christine Torre, et al.
BRIEF FOR FEMINISTS FOR LIFE OF AMERICA,
WOMEN EXPLOITED BY ABORTION OF GREATER
KANSAS CITY, THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF
PRO-LIFE NURSES, LET ME LIVE, AND ELLIOT
INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL SCIENCES RESEARCH,
AS AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF APPELLANTS
A British social worker says:
….the woman’s feeling that she cannot tolerate bringing a child into the world may be a symptom of a situation such as an inability to cope with married life, and by making abortion too readily available we do little but relieve the patient’s immediate suffering for a short time and thus do her no real service, producing in her a sense of guilt which she can redress only by becoming pregnant again as quickly as possible. . . .
When talking to the parents of these unborn children one must at all times be aware that what may at first seem to be an uncompromising attitude may swing around to a complete reversal of the original rejection.
N.M. Cogan, “A Medical Social Worker Looks at the New Abortion Law,” British Medical Journal 2, (1968): 235.
Share on FacebookAn abortion doula, who volunteers at an abortion clinic and comforts women while they’re having abortions, says:
“Some of the first-trimester patients scream and cry and shake”
Alex Ronan “My Year As an Abortion Doula” The Cut SEPTEMBER 14, 2014
Share on FacebookAuthor Curt Young summarizes a case profiled in the American Journal of Psychotherapy about a woman whose mental illness was greatly exacerbated by her abortion:
“[The article] recounted the story of a 19-year old woman whose abortion was recommended by a psychiatrist as a mental health safeguard. At the time of her abortion no medical personnel were present with her, so she had the opportunity to study the dead infant. She was especially affected at seeing the tiny but well-formed toes and fingers.
In a strange sort of self-retaliation, she concluded that her hands and feet were dirty and hurt other people. She began washing her hands thirty to forty times each day and refused to wear shoes or socks. Soon she was continually washing all her possessions. She could no longer function normally. Fifteen months after her abortion, this young woman was admitted to a psychiatric unit.”
The study was: Steven Lipper and W. Morton Feigenbaum “Obsessive Compulsive Neurosis After Viewing the Fetus During a Therapeutic Abortion” American Journal of Psychotherapy 30 1976, 666-74
The book that cited it: Curt Young The Least of These: What Everyone Should Know about Abortion (Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1984) 62-63
Share on FacebookOne woman who had an abortion developed a strange obsession with the doctor who performed it. Even though she was not his patient and had never seen him before, she began to take him lunch and buy him gifts. Her actions seem driven by guilt.
“I transferred my medical records to the doctor who had done the abortion, sent him a huge waiting room plant, a tree, and began to bring him bag lunches and sit with him to eat. At the time I remember thinking I was ‘returning to the scene of the crime,’ though I am not sure whose crime it was; now I think I was reassuring myself that this person accepted me despite what I had made him an accomplice to.”
Helen Susan Edelman, “Safe to Talk: Abortion Narratives as a Rite of Return,” Journal of American Culture 19, no. 4 (1996)
Share on FacebookCarol Everett, former owner of 2 abortion clinics and director of 4, now pro-life:
“The last 18 months I was involved in the abortion industry we maimed to the point of major surgery one woman out of every five hundred. Let me define maimed. Hysterectomy, colostomy because her uterus had been perforated (punctured), and her bowel closest hospital. We never called an ambulance. An ambulance is a terrible advertisement in front of an abortion clinic.”
Carol N. Everett, <Women’s Lobby> program on KFIA Radio (California) January 1990.
Share on FacebookLinda Bird Francke interviewed men and women in abortion clinics and after their abortions for her book The Ambivalence of Abortion. She says:
“In my research, almost every relationship between single people broke up either before or after the abortion. What had been pleasure became pain. What had been frivolous became heavy. Sex, which had brought intimacy and relief, brought memories of pain and guilt.”
Linda Bird Francke The Ambivalence of Abortion (New York: Random House, 1978) 47
Share on FacebookOne woman tells her story:
“The abortion clinic workers told me not to worry about it because they were just removing “a blob of tissue,” and I wouldn’t feel anything. However, the pain after the third abortion was excruciating, and I had to be rushed to the emergency room after the third day, because I was bleeding excessively and running a high fever.
The ER doctor told me that I might have a perforated uterus, and if that were the case, they would have to do a hysterectomy. I discovered later that my uterus had not been punctured, but that the abortion clinic had left some of the “fetal matter” (parts of the baby) and part of the placenta inside of me. Because of this, they had to do a D&C. I’m lucky to be alive today, for the doctor said if I had not come in when I did, I would’ve hemorrhage to death!”
Cheryl Chew Make Me Your Choice (Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image Publishers, 2006) 100
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