My sister regrets to this day the part she played in my getting an abortion. The change of heart came when she became a Christian and found out the facts about abortion.
My mom dismissed the issue and will not face it. She was not aware of the facts about abortion and only knew what the liberal media said. I have written her letters about what abortion really is and the effects of it on me personally, but have never received any response.
How did I deal with my abortion? The only way that can bring true peace and forgiveness. It was against God that I sinned – and only He has the ability to say, "You are forgiven. Go and sin no more." Going to counselors or psychologists will not help. Even if they pronounce you "not guilty" or try to help handle the "grief process" it does not alleviate the root problem or answer to the only one capable of freeing you. My answer is to call on God – pray, cry out, until He frees you from the guilt and pain. So why still cry? In repentance and regret – and He is there with my "broken spirit."
Following is a copy of a letter to the editor of a local newspaper I wrote. They had also requested abortion story accounts to be kept anonymous. Instead of going through it again – for it is traumatic to write in black and white the particulars of killing your baby – I am sending the copy.
Dear Editor:
This is an account of my experience of becoming pregnant and getting an abortion – fourteen years ago this month.
I was eighteen years old and going through my first year of college. I was away from home for the first time in my life making my first "adult" decisions. There are two days that I will to all eternity wish I could re-live but will never be able to: the day I got pregnant and the day I brutally murdered my innocent child.
I told my mother of my pregnancy and she at first said she would help me and help raise the baby. She then talked with my sister who told of a friend who had an abortion and how easy it was. If the government had not made it legal my child would have been alive today as my parents always abided by the law.
I called by boyfriend who also said to get an abortion. I never saw him again.
I went to Planned Parenthood who examined me to make sure I was pregnant and find out how far along I was. They said they did not see any other alternative for me but an abortion and that it must be done as soon as possible (no reason was given to me but I was close to three months along and suction abortions have more complications the farther along you are). They scheduled the abortion with the clinic and even drove me there along with another girl they had scheduled.
They (Planned Parenthood) also scheduled me to see a guidance counselor the day before the abortion, who again did not discuss in depth any other viable options, except abortion. The whole counseling session took five to ten minutes.
Keep the "baby." (Although they told me not to call it a "baby." It was a fetus they said)." "You don’t want to go on welfare and be a single mother." (Although I was an honors graduate with parents who might have helped out had I decided to keep my baby.)
Adoption? "Could you live with yourself never knowing about your child"? Adoption can be as open or as closed on information as a girl and the adoptive parents she chooses could want. There are girls and adoptive parents who live together until the baby is born and go through the birth process together. There are those who write letters to each other.
Abortion was presented as just like having a miscarriage. In a miscarriage, the baby has not developed to where it would be able to survive after birth – whereas this tiny twelve-week-old I was carrying had only to gain weight to be born normally. All its systems were already formed. The baby’s heart was beating and could have been heard with a doctor's stethoscope, but never was.
The suction abortion tears the baby apart limb from limb and does not die instantly without pain. The baby will die from either shock, blood loss, cerebral hemorrhage or just being torn asunder. The baby will try to get away from this vacuum – which is more powerful than a household vacuum cleaner. The facts were never brought up to me.
No mention was made of the risk factor to my physical health after the abortion.
It took the "nurses" about 45 minutes to find any blood pressure. It was such a shock to me. When later I allowed myself to cry it was all I could do, the grief was so great. I am still crying.
No one was there after it all happened. There was no post examination to see if I was even physically ok. Planned Parenthood had their money and I was just another figure in their books. Who could help me to rid myself of guilt? Who would understand the overwhelming grief?
I am married now with two children and one on the way. Each time I get pregnant I wonder about the cost of the abortion on this pregnancy, if I’ll get through it all right.
It is fourteen years ago this month that I had my abortion. It is fourteen years ago this month that I killed my child. And I still cry.
Printed with permission from Priests for Life.
