A woman who became pregnant at 18, while her husband was in the armed services wanted very much to have her baby, but was told that her child would be handicapped because of the medication she was taking. Initially, she refused to abort. Her doctor tried to convince her, then sent her home. Over the next few days, he continued to pressure her to have an abortion, telling her that the baby would be deformed. She suspected, in retrospect, that he was afraid of a lawsuit. Eventually, she gave in. This abortion led to a downward spiral of drinking, drugs, and divorce. She became very pro-choice after having three more abortions:
“I talked real openly about abortion. I was pro-choice, and I talked to other women about the value of having an abortion. During my first abortion, I would’ve said that, “no, I don’t think abortion is right. But in my case, since the baby might be deformed, it’s okay.” But with each successive abortion, my attitude got worse and worse. I became increasingly pro-choice, to the point where I would say to other girls, “Big deal if you could pregnant. You can have an abortion. I’ve had three and it hasn’t hurt me a bit!”
I found that in talking to other women about abortion, their decisions to abort satisfied something in me. It made me feel better about what I had done. It was like I was gloating in their misery. If I’d had an opportunity to work at a counseling center to counsel women before their abortions, I would’ve done it. It would have strengthened my own decision to abort.”
She eventually came to terms with the emotional damage her abortions did to her:
“I’ve thought about why I kept doing that to myself, getting pregnant and having abortions in an endless cycle. I felt like I did it because I had to prove to myself that I was right. I had to prove to myself that it didn’t hurt, that I could go through it over and over again. It wouldn’t hurt. The more I did it, the less it hurt, physically and emotionally. I didn’t myself to pain – and to right and wrong. And so finally, with the last one, it didn’t hurt at all… I started to think about my life. Then – something clicked in me. I began to realize that everything I had done – the abortions, drugs, affairs, depressions – had all been the result of the circumstances of my first abortion.”
David C Reardon Aborted Women: Silent No More (Westchester, Illinois: Crossway books, 1987) 85-87
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