They said it.
From a woman who had an abortion by pill (i.e. medical abortion)
“[I] wouldn’t wish that my worst enemy should go through a medical abortion. The pain plus the uncertainty as to whether the abortion had really taken place was awful.”
Vivian Wahlberg Memories After Abortion (Oxford: Radcliffe Publishing, 2007) 32
Read more women’s accounts of taking the abortion pill
Read about the health risks of the abortion pill here.
From one woman who had an abortion:
“We got inside to a waiting room. I couldn’t stop crying. I realize now I was looking for help. I was looking for someone to say, “You can have this baby, and it will be okay.”
When they called my name I went into a back room. I was shocked at how many girls were there! Some were very young, and each one looked sad and frightened. I still couldn’t stop crying, and I had difficulty breathing.
A nurse took me out of the room and sat me in an office across the desk from a rather stern looking woman in a nurse’s uniform. She looked over her glasses at me and said, “You don’t seem like you really want to do this. Are you sure about this?”
I told her, “My mom will kill me if she finds out, and I’m afraid because I started doing some drugs.”
She just said, “Okay,” and instructed me to go back into the holding room.…
In one room I was put on the table with stirrups before the doctor breezed in. When he tried to examine me, I couldn’t keep still on the table. He rose to his feet, glared at me over my knees, and yelled at me. “If you don’t spread your legs, you won’t get this abortion.” I started to cry again. His treatment was so shocking and devastating; I knew I had to leave. But I didn’t.”
Barbara Horak Real Abortion Stories: The Hurting and the Healing (El Paso, Texas: Strive for the Best Publishing, 2007) 54
Share on FacebookOne woman gives an account of her abortion:
“I went to a doctor’s office and picked up literature on “choices.” An abortion was described as a simple procedure… In and out in one afternoon… No complications… Removal of tissue. So I decided to have the “procedure.”…
A nurse strapped my feet into high stirrups, and it began. A doctor, who never spoke to me, forced what felt like the blunt end of a branding iron into my vagina so hard the pain caused my head to jerk backwards against the table. He shoved this metal rod in again, and again, and again. I could feel him scraping inside my uterus. Noise exploded in my head! A roar like a loud vacuum sweeper. A sucking noise like a dentist’s suction instrument. Slapping sounds like someone clapping their hands right next to my ear. I thought it would never end.
I screamed and begged them to stop! I shouted for help! But I wasn’t making a sound; my pleadings were all inside my head. Tears soaked my hair and the table under my head. Finally, the doctor pulled the metal thing out and left the room.…
That night I thrashed around in bed; the whirling, sucking, slapping noises roaring in my head. When I did sleep, horrible nightmarish dreams kept repeating themselves.
Then the crying started. A baby’s cry. I checked Sara [her daughter]. She was sound asleep. I looked everywhere in our tiny apartment for the baby… I realized there was no baby! I slumped to the floor next to my bed sobbing. Every night for months, the baby cried.… I asked myself 1000 times, “How could I have done such a thing? Why did I agree to have an abortion?”
Barbara Horak Real Abortion Stories: The Hurting and the Healing (El Paso, Texas: Strive for the Best Publishing, 2007) 33 – 34
Share on FacebookFrom a woman who had an abortion:
“I was so upset that my boyfriend gave priority to a ski trip just at the time of the abortion.”
Vivian Wahlberg Memories After Abortion (Oxford: Radcliffe Publishing, 2007) 30
Share on FacebookFrom one teenager who had an abortion:
“In my junior year health class I found out that my baby had developed to the point of looking like a person with arms, legs, and a head. And she could feel pain. That knowledge will haunt me for the rest of my life… I would trade every success and milestone in my life to have her back.”
Barbara Horak Real Abortion Stories: The Hurting and the Healing (El Paso, Texas: Strive for the Best Publishing, 2007) 26
She was told in the abortion clinic that her child was only tissue.
Read other examples of women who were deceived by abortion clinic workers.
Read what the workers themselves have to say about their ‘counseling.”
Share on FacebookFrom one woman who was pressured into an abortion:
“My mother was furious… She hated me for what I had done. She took me immediately to have an abortion. “Wait a minute… I don’t want an abortion.” I thought to myself. She said I had to do it. She took me and promised not to tell my father. I could not stand for him to know… I was so embarrassed and ashamed. I could not stand to look at myself in the mirror… From that day on, I hated my mother. I turned to drugs, boys, sex, lies, and alcohol. I dropped out of school… Became a stripper and a prostitute on drugs. Had a total of four more abortions… Two of which I was forced to do and the last two of which I chose to do on my own because I had no feeling in me left… I was so far gone. My life was hell.”
Sharon Serratore “Coerced into Unwanted Abortions” The American Feminist Fall/Winter 2016
Share on FacebookFrom one woman who had an abortion:
“Abortion changes you forever. I thought the abortion would free me up from a responsibility I felt I was not ready for. Instead it held me in bondage to feelings of regret, remorse, depression, and despair. My soul became a slave to self-hatred and worthlessness. My sanity was the price I would pay. Women deserve better than abortion.”
“The Long-Term Effects of Abortion” “You Can Stop Injustice” Human Life Alliance Advertising Supplement 2010, 8
Share on FacebookThe pro-choice author of a book that compiles women’s stories talked about how she felt right after her abortion:
“The abortion proceeded without many problems, although I ended up in another emergency room that night, vomiting violently for no apparent reason. Emotionally, I felt fine. My clinic and told me to expect mild depression over the next 10 days as my hormones changed, but that night and all that week I felt nothing…
She went on an airplane to take a trip.
As soon as I settled into my seat on the plane for Denver, everything changed. I stared at Haroon [her boyfriend] as he waved to me from the airport, and I felt like we had been ripped apart. He had been through the whole abortion experience with me and now I was flying halfway across the country to a place where no one knew my secrets. I was shocked at the waves of emotion passing through me. I thought I had felt so little because I was clear about wanting an abortion. I now realized that the emotions had been there all along, only I hadn’t let them come forward…
In Denver, I had nothing to say to anybody and withdrew into my own private hell…
I wanted to know if I were going crazy, if I would always feel so fragile and volatile, flying around in the storm of my emotions. One moment I felt furious – at life’s unfairness, at doctors, or at anybody who rubbed me the wrong way. The next minute, I was overcome by loss. At the same time, I didn’t feel entitled to grieve and I didn’t understand why I should want to, since I didn’t regret my choice. All I knew was that my world turned upside down and that I couldn’t get back to the way I used to feel.…
She did a homework assignment that came back with a bad grade and rude comment.
The next day, the directors held a meeting to air our gripes about this assignment. I worked up the courage to say something, but was interrupted by a student with frizzy hair. She told me I better get used to the way employers are going to treat me and that this was the real world and did I expect to be pampered all my life?
I said nothing in self-defense, feeling my face get hotter and hotter. When she finished, I ran to the bathroom and let out gasps and splutters and tears. I knew that this was an inappropriate place for an outburst, but once I started, I couldn’t stop. Finally, seeing myself in such bad shape, I decided to stop hiding in the bathroom like a criminal.
When the meeting ended, I asked the directors if I could speak to them. They made room for me between them on the couch. I launched into my story and began to sob. I didn’t care that I was drawing so much attention to myself. I was uncorking my secret and someone was listening. The directors felt I needed a therapist. But it was 6 at night. Who was available? They decided that the only recourse was the emergency room, where I could see a psychiatrist. I consented, but was scared. Had my life come to this?”
Eve Kushner Experiencing Abortion: a Weaving of Women’s Words (Binghamton, New York: The Haworth Press, 1997) xvi–xviii
Share on FacebookFrom one woman who had an abortion:
“I could not have had another child. I am glad I took the decision to terminate. But I can never say, hear, or read of that word again, which I can only bring myself to spell out.”
Mary Kenny Abortion: The Whole Story (London: Quartet Books, 1986) 20
Share on FacebookFrom one woman who had an abortion:
“After the abortion, I feel my life will never be the same, that I will always be aware of the guilt, and it has made me depressed. My marriage is shaky; part of me hates my husband for letting it happen.”
Mary Kenny Abortion: The Whole Story (London: Quartet Books, 1986) 20
One study found that 70% of all relationships broke up after an abortion.
Share on Facebook