Category: Women’s Stories

In a book by a pro-choice author who collected postabortion testimonies from a number of women, a postabortive woman named Nora told her story. Nora was strongly pro-choice and anti-Catholic and couldn’t understand her feelings of guilt after her abortion.

From the author:

When Nora had an unplanned pregnancy 8 months ago, her scorn for Catholicism played into her decision. She recalls, “All those films I was shown in Catholic school – those were a big part of my having an abortion, because I was rejecting them.” Nora found those pro-life ideas “bogus,” “wrong,” and “based on nothing.”

She took more than scorn into account when she decided to end her pregnancy; as she was still an undergraduate and valued her education highly, her choice was automatic. She viewed her upcoming abortion simply as a legal right she could exercise and expected to feel nothing. Instead, in the weeks afterword, pain and confusion rolled over her in waves.

Nora says:

When I was really freaking out, I couldn’t even formulate my opinion on it. It was just this feeling of horribleness and you can’t even put everything together and see what you’re really thinking. It’s pure emotional rottenness….I’d wake up in the middle of the night and I’d be crying. I felt really empty inside.…

I thought I was going to go nuts at one point…

I sound like a Catholic here, thinking that this child was real and natural and that I ended his life. I’m disturbed at the process.

From the author:

Nora was shocked that her feelings showed up with a pro-life undertone. She recalls thinking “This is so trite that I’m having this.” She explains, “I was so disgusted with myself for having the feeling that I killed something. I was really surprised that I would have that kind of conservative attitude.” Rejecting Catholicism but still feeling terrible after her abortion presented a conflict. Nora says, “I felt bad for feeling grief, because I thought I was succumbing to that garbage.”

The pro-choice author who collected this story tries to pass off Nora’s guilt as just hormones:

Because Nora’s strong reaction occurred in the weeks after her abortion, her feelings were probably linked to the hormonal shifts a body goes through when pregnancy ends. The drop in hormone levels may have colored her moods with a painful and frightening intensity.

But even she acknowledges that this argument is weak:

This does not tell the full story, however. Neither societal censure nor hormones determine the content of our concerns. To attribute most postabortion reactions to those causes is politically useful, but emotionally too simple.

Eve Kushner Experiencing Abortion: A Weaving of Women’s Words (Binghamton, New York: The Haworth Press, 1997) 7 – 9

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Pro-choice author Eve Kushner interviewed a number of postabortion women for a book she was writing. Most of the women she interviewed had had multiple abortions. What was striking about the testimonies is the pain that seems to be festering under the surface of so many of them, even the ones where the woman denied that they regretted their abortions. Here is one typical testimony:

“Toni is a 23-year-old African-American with an easy smile. She makes frequent eye contact as she rattles off all the feeling she had about her abortions. Only gradually does a dissonance emerge between her animated gestures and her words. As she discusses the 3 abortions she had in the last 2 years – the most recent pregnancy ending 4 months ago – it turns out she is downright depressed. Toni conceals her unhappiness, hoping that if she focuses on the positive, her bothersome emotions will disappear.…

She explains that when she recalls her abortion experiences, “I’ll get deep feelings of sadness and confusion.” The feelings, she adds, are “related to being pregnant and having an abortion.”

Sometimes an event jogs her feelings. She notes, “I’ll be reading a magazine. It’s usually related to birth. I’ll think of how I could have had children, but I didn’t. Then that jars other things.” One night she came home to find her roommates watching an HBO special about abortion experiences. Her roommates felt moved by the story, but Toni became distraught. “I sat there bawling,” she recalls. Afterword, the feelings lingered. The HBO special and the article may have been designed to elicit emotion, but Toni can become upset by the mere sight of pregnant women; usually, she feels guilt and envy at those times. Even reading an ad to contribute a story for this book “shook up all these emotions.”

The intensity and frequency of Toni’s feelings bother her. She says that after her 3^rd abortion, she felt especially frustrated, “because I couldn’t control those feelings. I had these rushes of sadness and anger with myself. It was so many emotions all at once, except for positive ones.”…

Toni explains, “I felt angry at myself, because I couldn’t get over it.”…

“It’s almost 2 years since my first abortion, and I still have feelings about it – sometimes very vivid feelings. When do they die? When do they just become like, “Oh well, I had an abortion and I don’t think about it”?”…

Toni is so afraid of relaxing that she cannot let herself sleep. She says, “I’ve been an insomniac for 2 years, since my first abortion.” Toni explains, “Since my abortion, I can’t sleep in my mind.”…

Toni observes, “In 2 years, I put on 50 pounds, because depression resulted in my overeating.” Eating is an easy way of avoiding troubles and finding temporary happiness.”

Eve Kushner Experiencing Abortion: A Weaving of Women’s Words (Binghamton, New York: The Haworth Press, 1997) 3-5

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A woman who had an abortion talks about the aftermath in the magazine America:

During the next 18 years I never gave the abortion more than a moment’s thought. Hadn’t I made the phone call as soon as I thought I might be pregnant? Hadn’t the nurse at the clinic told me that at six weeks the fetus was a blob of muscle and tissue, not a real person yet? Isn’t the discussion on when life begins being argued in worldwide circles? Because I was so quick to act, the abortion had little effect on me-until I became sober.

It was then I knew I had done something terribly wrong. I couldn’t find a way to make amends for taking a life that God wanted in this world. There was a saying in my recovery group that if the program wasn’t working for you to look back on your life and find something you didn’t think important at the time. After almost two decades of prayer and meditation, living a good life and making amends for harms done, something was still wrong with me. I had a picture-perfect sobriety, yet all was not right. Could the quick abortion in January 1973 when I was 27 be what I thought wasn’t important? Well, maybe.

She went to confession 3 times and confessed the abortion, but found no healing until the priest told her to go to Rachel’s Vineyard retreat, which helped her.

If I were to speak to any woman thinking about an abortion, I would put my arm around her and tell her about my abrupt alienation from my husband, my alcoholism, my drug addiction, the period during which I hated the church I had earlier loved, the dark life of sin. Then I would urge her to choose life.

She named her aborted daughter Jane Marie.

Kathleen, M. H. (2002, Nov 04). Meeting jane marie. America, 187, 17-18

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One woman shared her abortion story in the journal America:

“A terrible, raw guilt had festered in me for many years. Ever since the day I had walked into a trendy women’s health clinic and filled out the paperwork for what I believed was a simple medical procedure. At the time I was an ardent feminist as well as an atheist. I had studied ethics in graduate school and was fully versed in all the philosophical arguments for and against this particular procedure. I firmly believed that abortion was morally acceptable if performed in the early stages of a pregnancy. I firmly believed that a woman’s rights took precedence over the rights of the fetus.

None of the philosophical articles I had read ever suggested that the “procedure” might be any more life-changing than, say, a tooth extraction. Instead, the articles had led me to believe that some “tissue” would be removed. That would be the end of the story–or so I thought. The articles also failed to mention that I might experience searing pain, so intense that I nearly ripped the hand off the woman who stood by my side, her eyes shining with compassion.

Even though I didn’t believe that what I had done was morally wrong, some instinct told me not to tell people afterwards. So I lived under a crushing weight of secrecy. As the years wore on, I found it puzzling that I never encountered a woman who spoke openly of having an abortion. There seemed to be an invisible veil of shame covering the issue, even among women who apparently saw no moral problems with it.

Gradually I discovered that my heart pulsed to a different beat than my intellect. Every time I saw an infant, my immediate reactions were always the same. “How old would my child be now?” I would agonize. And “What would my child have looked like?”

These questions hounded me for years.”

She returned to her Catholic faith, and one day picked up a book about Mother Theresa:

It didn’t take many pages to convince me that she was an extraordinarily holy woman, but I was perplexed by her vehement rejection of abortion. She’s a virtuous woman, I told myself, but very old-fashioned and seriously out of touch with the realities faced by contemporary women like myself.

One day at Mass the priest read Mother Teresa’s favorite scriptural passage: “Whatever you do to the least of these my little ones, you do unto me.” A claw of grief clutched my heart. Only with great effort did I manage to stem the tide of tears rising within me. In an agonizing moment of guilt, I finally realized why Mother Teresa was so protective of the unborn, the elderly and the dying. She knew who Christ was referring to when he mentioned the “least of these.”

I began having flashbacks in which I relived the experience over and over. Each time, I saw myself walking into the clinic. I saw myself climbing up on the table. I felt the crushing pain. I saw the woman standing beside me holding my hand. Wracked with guilt and selfloathing, I wept. How could I have ended my child’s life?

She went to confession and learned that god had forgiven her, but her pain continued.

Finally, she went through a counseling program and started to find peace.

Murray, L. V. (2001, The least of these. America, 184, 23-24

 

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A post-abortion woman shares her pain in a pro-life tract:

It was in 1973, and I became pregnant from a date rape. I tried to hide it from my parents, but they found out, and then the pressure started. “How are you going to go to college with a baby?” “How are you going to support it.” “It’s only a Blob of Blood…it’s not a Baby yet!” And, before I had time to think about what I wanted, my Abortion was over.

The Abortion itself was a living Hell! I thought my guts were being pulled out! It was degrading and I was terrified; and when it was over, something made me ask the doctor, “Was it a Boy, or a Girl?” And he answered, “I can’t tell, it’s in pieces!” The counseling consisted of throwing some birth control pills my way. It’s hard to put into words how the abortion affected me! After that, I became a tramp and slept with any man who offered me sex. I engaged in unprotected sex, and every month that I wasn’t pregnant, I went into a deep depression. I wanted my parents to see what I had become. I dropped out of college and attempted suicide. I couldn’t get sleeping pills, so I used over the counter sleeping pills and booze; When that failed, I then tried to make relationships work with men, any man. I was driven with a deep need to have a child, and, thinking irrationally, I thought that if I was married, my parents couldn’t interfere, so I got married, but I got married for all the wrong reasons. Six months after we got married my first child was born, and I was ecstatic with joy! Then, I got pregnant again, and soon after this, we lost this baby when I was 5 months along. Then the depression that I had dealt with earlier, came back in full force; and I can remember thinking:

“I deserve this…I have sinned against God.” Then, six months later, I was pregnant yet again! I had this need to get pregnant and have as many babies as possible. The hardest thing was to forgive myself for having the abortion, altho when I finally asked for God’s forgiveness, He forgave me instantly.

It wasn’t as easy for me to forgive myself, however; It took time and working through the grief at a Pregnancy Crisis Center in counseling. Today I am working with other women in a Pregnancy Crisis Center in trying to help them to choose not to abort, and sharing, with love and empathy, the other options they can choose; instead of ending their child’s life.

The tracts author then shares this bible verse:

“I call Heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore, choose Life, that both thou and thy seed may live; That thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto Him: for He is thy Life; and the length of thy days.” Deut. 30:19-20

Religious beliefs expressed in testimonies are not necessarily endorsed by clinicquotes

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Pamela’s story:

I am 20 years old, and I always thought this would be too young for me to have a child, but when it actually ‘happens’ everything is so different. I’ve been with my ex only a couple of months, before he broke up with me. He started saying I was different, getting so emotional and stuff… A week after he broke up I found out I was pregnant. When I told my friends, it was obvious for them that I’d get an abortion, and for my ex, it was not even a question. He is the only one I eventually told I wanted to keep it, and he was hysterical, telling me he was not ready for a child (can’t forget to mention he’s a 28 year old insecure about anything that resolves around money, even if he’s doing fine). 

Back then, I thought that, since that’s what he wanted, it’d be better for our relationship. Now that I knew my ups and downs were caused by the pregnancy, I thought he’d forgive me for being such an idiot. I eventually told my parents about it, my mom was very supportive, but on the other hand, my dad kept saying ”you know it would not be good for you, you have so much more to live…” I could see he was devastated. I ended up taking an appointment, without even really thinking about it… trying to make the thoughts of wanting to keep the baby go away. 

The fact of me being a single mom is never something that bothered me. I’m independent, I have a good job, and I don’t mind taking care of it myself. But, the only thought of really being all alone, without having my friends and family supporting me was making me feel so insecure. I was so scared of loosing it all, and now I know I would not have ”lost it all”, because my best friend and my dad (the ones I thought would not support me) would have eventually accepted it, and I know it. 

I went to the appointment, with my ex boyfriend, and did it. I laid, closed my eyes, and fell asleep. When I woke up, I was hysterical. I kept crying, feeling like they’ve taken away a huge part of my body. I felt so empty. In 15 mins my whole life changed. I was getting used of having a little baby inside of me, and it felt like they had just taken away the only thing that was keeping me from falling apart. I was going through a lot when my ex left me. I felt so abandoned. On top of that my best friend, who is also my roommate, would not even understand me while I was pregnant. My food cravings, fatigue and nausea were annoying here.. As if she could not associate all of this with my pregnancy because she knew it would soon going to end, so she did not try to realize I WOULD actually still be pregnant until my abortion. Saying ”I’m going to get an abortion” does not mean it all goes away… So, while I felt everyone was just abandoning me, this little thing right inside my belly was the only thing that gave me a reason to try to be ”OK”. At night, when going to bed, I kept crying, but always felt better when thinking I was not alone. 

After a while, the situation with my ex got worse. I felt so mad at myself for caring about his feelings.. He had no right to tell me what to do with my body… and him being that much of an asshole with me after the abortion felt like a slap in the face. Everything I thought I was, I wanted, and also how people were was all flipped upside down. And that made it all worse, I felt like this would all kill me. I wished I could just go to sleep for a couple of months. Felt like this was just too much, too much in a year, too much for a lifetime… I was still grieving (I’ve also lost someone i was really close too only a couple of months before that), and felt like ”this” experience was way too much for me to handle. 

Now that it’s all said and done, I mad at myself for listening to others instead of my own feelings. I cared about people who could not even try to care for me. Now that it’s over, everyone’s acting as if it never even happened, but every night I go to sleep crying, and wake up the next morning, put on my brave face and try to convince myself everything’s gonna be OK. What hurts the most is thinking I’m never going to go back to that person I was before. It is now part of my story and I have to live with it. I’m mad at myself in a way because I always told my self I’d never be that ”person”. I have to carry these regrets on my shoulders, and everyday I wish this has not been a life-changing experience for me, but it was… 

This abortion changed so much in my life, and in my perception of how I want to live it. Now I am being a little more selfish, thinking about my own feelings first, and I guess being that depressed has its reasons… Everything happens for a reason. I guess when I’ll get pregnant again, this feeling of emptiness will go away, but until then, I know I still have a lot to go through. Unfortunately, this experience really did change my life, and now everything seems so blurry. I am slowly going to heal, and I know it, I know I am grieving, and eventually, the guilt will also go away, but I wish I could just fast forward my life, and make it all go away… 
Pamela 

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A woman on Pro-Woman Pro-Life gives her abortion testimony:

Regretting the abortion didn’t happen right away. I spent over fourteen years thinking nothing of it really.

There comes a point when you cease to see it as “I was never supposed to get pregnant in the first place” to knowing “I was never supposed to abandon that life. And the life I’ve had in the 14 years since the abortion has been an extreme of imbalance for not having that child that was supposed to have been a part of it, supposed to have given me gifts of grace and taught me profound, sometimes painful sometimes joyful lessons.

I’ve struggled to get those teachings elsewhere – teachings that would have come so naturally from raising a child. I’ve spent countless amounts of money on schools and therapies and metaphysical seminars. The underlying ingredient, as we all know, for health and healing is Love. The abortion was around $360. $360 to cut of a life long supply to the most necessary ingredient for healing. Then another $40…50…80,000 spent trying to buy that ingredient back in another form – a form that didn’t require me to be a parent, that let me remain the child.

Not to mention the countless thousands spent in the downward spiral of drug abuse that ensued in the years following the abortion. Never before tonight had I ever connected those two things in my life. Would I have started shooting herion if I’d never had an abortion? Obviously if I was raising a child I’d be less likely to experiment with fringe lifestyles but was the drug abuse a reaction to the abortion? If I’d lost the child through miscarriage or not gotten pregnant at all, would I have avoided a life of drug abuse? Most certainly if I had brought this being into the world in 1997 I would not have resorted to IV drug use by 1999.

I thought I would never have it together enough to raise a kid, would not have anything to offer. I didn’t even consider what that child had to offer me. That is not to condone the introduction of selfishness into the decision to have a child. Those who treat children as tools for their own gain do much harm to life as well. But the act of selfishness I participated it by aborting a life rather than aborting a lifestyle. That can never be undone. I pray with all my heart that every young woman considering an abortion will instead make the choice for the gift of life. It is not up to us to judge the quality of life and thereby determine its right to exist or not. If my daughter or son were alive today he/she would be 14 years old and would most likely have had a challenging quality of life. But he/she would have gotten the opportunity to make of it what he/she chose to. And the opportunity to transform the heart of one woman on earth -mine. That is a miracle I deprived myself and my child from partaking in.
Kristin S.

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