Abortion Stories

When I was twenty years old, I learned that I was pregnant with my second child. I was paralyzed with fear that my parents would never forgive me and concerned about what people would think of me having another baby out of wedlock.

My boyfriend and a relative insisted that an abortion was the only choice. I made an appointment under a great deal of pressure. I had been raised pro-life, but my fear caused me to believe the lies of those around me.

That day I knew I had taken the life of the only child I would ever carry. I was twenty-five and running wild when I learned I was pregnant. The father of my baby had moved away, and I was alone and desperate. I told no one except my best friend who drove me to the Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Nashville in 1984. I chose the easy way out, so I thought at the time. I’ll remember that day for the rest of my life. The room was cold as was the staff. There was no empathy, counseling, or personal medical attention.

That day I knew I had taken the life of the only child I would ever carry. I was twenty-five and running wild when I learned I was pregnant. The father of my baby had moved away, and I was alone and desperate. I told no one except my best friend who drove me to the Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Nashville in 1984. I chose the easy way out, so I thought at the time. I’ll remember that day for the rest of my life. The room was cold as was the staff. There was no empathy, counseling, or personal medical attention.

I was nineteen, a freshman in college and pregnant from my first boyfriend. A friend told us to go to Planned Parenthood. It was January of 1973 – same month, same year as Roe v. Wade. The counselor from Planned Parenthood sat across from me and said, “You can go to Washington, DC and get an abortion … abortion will be legal and safe pretty soon.”  What I found out was that just because abortion is legal does not mean it is safe. 

Mother’s Day is hard for me. Hearing a baby cry anywhere causes a sudden, sharp pain in my heart. Having to ex-plain to my living children was a difficult thing to do."

In 1986, I was a single mother when I learned I was pregnant again. I was 20-years-old, and I had a two-year-old daughter. The father of my baby told me I had to get rid of the "problem." My best friend decided to help me by making the appointment for me to have an abortion. She drove me to and from the abortion facility.  

On a rainy, windy day in March 1978, I was lied to by an abortion facility in Atlanta. I was informed that I was too far along in my pregnancy to have a D and C (dilation and curettage) abortion and that I would have to deliver a dead infant. As I was leaving, having changed my mind about the abortion, I was told that they had made a mistake – they could take care of my “problem” and I could be on my way shortly.

At the young age of 15 I found myself pregnant and scared. I was all alone, at least in my mind, my boyfriend and I had broken up and I could not tell my parents.

Silence was my companion for nearly 14 years until I found the courage to face the truth.

Flashbacks to the day of the abortion filled my heart and mind. I was in a daze. I was not a scared teenager but an ignorant 40-year old married adult. I did not want to be there, but I rationalized that it must okay because it was legal. Fear overtook reason. I was told that I might die in childbirth. How could we afford a child with one in college, and what about retirement? All the reasons were selfish.

My life has been devastated by abortion. I have had three abortions, and I remember them as if they were only yesterday. I lay on the cold table with no anesthetic for the pain, staring at the ceiling, wishing I were someplace else. It seemed to last forever, and the pain was unbearable. No amount of anesthetic could dull the pain in my heart and mind.

I think if I had a place to go things would have been different.  I was alone.  While I was raised, I was told for years and years that I had an image I had to maintain. I was a professional who was raised in a middle class family.  How could you destroy that; how could you make your family look bad? There was no one that I could go talk to, and yet I knew that it was wrong.  It was a choice that I made.  I couldn’t tell anybody what someone else had done to me.