ClinicQuotes

One women tells her story:

“I became active in the pro-choice movement (first as a legislative worker, then as a clinic escort). I suppose in retrospect I was trying to justify what I had done. Then in 1991 I became pregnant with my son. I went for prenatal visits and was horrified to see a real baby on the Ultrasound screen, and also to hear his heartbeat on the Doptone device! I had not realized the heartbeat started so soon; they never told me anything about that at Planned Parenthood, when my parents brought me for the abortion.”

The heart starts beating around 21 days.

The following “letter to the editor” has appeared in many newspapers around the country and was read by Senator Gordon Humphrey on the floor of the U.S. Senate. It appeared in the Congressional Record on pg. S.10651.

To the Editor:

I have read letters to the editor from persons who feel abortion is morally wrong and others who feel abortion is a matter of choice. I would like to present a side of the abortion debate that few people consider. That is the position of one who has had an abortion. This is what the “right to choose” has meant to me: In 1980 I aborted my first child. I was told at Planned Parenthood that this little “blob of tissue” would be as easily removed as a wart. Terminating a pregnancy, I was told, was no more significant than removing a tiny blood clot in my uterus. “Sounds harmless,” I reasoned. Exercising the right to choose, I opted for abortion. At that time no other options, such as adoption or single parenting, were explained. At the abortion clinic, I was not administered pain killers. When the suction aspirator was turned on I felt like my entire insides were being torn from me. Three-quarters of the way through the procedure I looked down and to my right and there I saw the bits and pieces of my baby floating in a pool of blood. After I screamed “I killed my baby,” the counselor in attendance told me to shut up. Suddenly I felt very sad and alone. But the worst was yet to come. I was not forewarned about the deep psychological problems I would encounter in the months and years to follow. I was never told that I would have nightmares about babies crying in the night. Neither was it explained previous to the abortion that I would experience severe depressions in which I would contemplate suicide. I didn’t mourn the loss of my appendix, so why would I grieve the passing of an enigmatic uterine blob? The answer was that it wasn’t a mere “blob of tissue”. It was a living baby. I realized it the moment I saw his dismembered limbs. I realized too late on abortion. By now the reader may be asking him/herself, “Isn’t this an extreme example of an abortion experience?” Actually, no. Mine was a routine suction abortion. Millions have been done. Why do women who’ve had an abortion have a higher incidence of suicide than other women? And why do the chances of losing a subsequent wanted baby double or even quadruple following a “safe, legal abortion”? Since when has death become good for us?

by Karen Sullivan Ables

Mademoiselle, which is not known to be a pro-life magazine, describes a woman’s reaction to her abortion. This particular woman feels that the abortion was the best thing she could have done, but she still suffers emotionally.

“At first, physical sensations overpowered her emotions; soon, however, her emotions came up. Even today, nearly two years later, she says she still thinks about what happened. A lot. She knows she did the right thing. But now, as she did that day riding home with her lover, she feels an ache that is not physical but emotional, as if there were some part of the process left undone.”

“Abortion: The Mourning After.” Mademoiselle Magazine, September 1983