This is my personal story. I have only told a few people this story
over the last 12 years. It is very painful and shameful for me.
However, I feel, in light of the renewed debate following the Kermit
Gosnell trial, my story might help others to understand why some of us
take the pro-life stance against abortion. Despite the accusations from
the pro-choice groups, not all pro-lifers are religious fanatics who
only care about the unborn while disregarding all other life. Some of us
are not really that religious at all and have come to the pro-life
stance through our own experiences. Some of us know the truth behind
abortion and struggle to expose it every day.
Judge me if you want, but I ask you to read my story with an open
mind and understand that I am in no way proud of my past and suffer a
tremendous weight of guilt every day as a result of it. So…here goes…
When I was a teenager, I went on a wild streak after leaving the
strict home of my father to live in the home of my absent mother and
alcoholic step-dad. In my dad’s house, I was always kept on a very short
leash which didn’t allow me to do anything away from home, including
the movies, spending the night with friends, or even school dances. At
the age of 16, I decided I wanted to live with my mom again after
spending 4 years with my dad. When I got to my mom and step-dad’s house,
mom was running the streets as a prostitute to earn money for crack and
my step-dad was a very hard-working construction boss and alcoholic. In
my step-dad’s house, there weren’t many rules and my curfew wasn’t
enforced because my step-dad was passed out by 9pm every night. After
only a few months, I had dropped out of high school, started dating a
23-year old man, and become pregnant. My dad attempted to straighten me
out by making me go back home with him and my step-mother, offering me a
stable home and support if I would just cut out the baby’s father
and/or give my baby up for adoption or abort him. I was young and “in
love” so I couldn’t have imagined my life without my, then, boyfriend
and giving up or getting rid of my baby was not an option. I chose to
marry my baby’s father at the age of 16 and have my baby in what I
thought would be the perfect life of marriage to the man I loved,
without the heavy hand of my father pushing me to do what he wanted.
I stayed with my husband for 7 years, having another child during
that time, before finally leaving the abusive relationship to be on my
own for the first time in my life. I had never been independent; since I
left a controlling father for a controlling husband before ever having
the chance to be an adult. I had managed to get my GED, decent
administrative jobs, and learn how to pay bills but I hadn’t really
learned responsibility.
I was only on my own for about 6 months before I was on the verge of
eviction and getting fired. One night, I was drinking heavily, as was my
routine on the days that my two kids were at their dad’s house, when an
Army recruiting commercial came on the television. In my stupor, I
decided to call the GO-ARMY number and leave my information for someone
to contact me. I had completely forgotten about my drunken phone call
until I got the call a few days later from a man stating he was with the
local Army recruiting station and would like to sit down with me to
discuss my interest in the military. At first, I laughed off the
recruiter. Me? Join the military and give up my drinking and partying
lifestyle? But, after awhile I considered the road I was on in my life. I
was irresponsible, undisciplined, unhappy, on the verge of
homelessness, and losing the support of family and friends. Maybe the
Army could help me be a better person. A better mom.
So after going through the steps required to join the military as a
mother of 2 children, I left for Basic Training as a future soldier of
the U.S. Army. I left my children and everything I had known in order to
make myself a better person for my kids. That was my main driving
force; for my kids. I completed Basic Training and went on to AIT (sort
of like college for soldiers to learn their jobs).
In AIT, soldiers get many more freedoms compared to the previous
weeks of absolutely no freedom. Once again, I went from being controlled
on a daily basis to having more opportunities to be independent. I was a
good soldier during the week and a binge partier on the weekends. I
mean, why not? I had worked so hard and given up so much for my kids.
Why couldn’t I have a little fun on the side? This led to many sexual
encounters with multiple partners over the course of the 6 months I was
in AIT. But hey, I deserved it. I wasn’t hurting anyone, right?
When I graduated from AIT and went to my permanent duty station, I
found out I was pregnant. I was fairly certain of whom the father was
but had no idea where he was stationed now and knew that my military
career could be ruined if I went through with a pregnancy before I even
had the chance to prove myself as a soldier. I felt I had no other
choice but to terminate. I believed that I would be forced to leave the
military or be labeled as one of “those females” that arrive to their
duty station already pregnant. All my hard work would have been for
nothing.
In the days following, I had contacted my step-dad, asked to borrow
money he didn’t really have, and begged him to come to my Army post in
Georgia and go with me to Florida to have the abortion. Georgia did not
have abortion services but I could drive a few hours to the Florida
abortion clinic, no questions asked. About one week later, I was sitting in the clinic on an exam table
with an intra-vaginal ultrasound, being used to verify my pregnancy,
inside of me. The sound was muted on the ultrasound monitor at my
request because I couldn’t bear to hear the heartbeat of the child I was
about to kill. The doctor was pleasant and accommodating as I’m sure he
had had many women make that same request before because, I mean, who
could hear that and still go through with it? I kept my eyes averted
from the monitor and tried to think about how my life would go back to
normal after it was done. Everything was going to be okay.
About 15 minutes in the room where the procedure was done, in a
half-asleep state but still aware of what was happening, and I was no
longer pregnant. Just like that. A little discomfort for a few minutes,
no worse than moderate menstrual cramps, and my body was back to having
only one heart beating inside of it. I was escorted to a recovery area to wake up and drink a cup of juice
(Because apparently juice is better than a counselor). As soon as I
entered this room and sat down, I began to sob uncontrollably. I
couldn’t believe what I had just done! Had I, the mother of two
beautiful sons, just murdered an innocent life for my own selfish
reasons? Because of my own actions and inability to deal with my own
issues, I destroyed a life that
I had created in a
drunken act of unsatisfying sex with a guy I didn’t even know by
anything other than his last name. This realization hit me like a ton of
bricks. But it was too late. I had already gone through with it.
I just sat in the “recovery room” crying and trying to come to grips with what I had just done.
After about 30 minutes, I left the room to find the comforting arms
of my step-dad who didn’t judge me and even tried to console me with
assurances that I had “no choice” if I wanted to follow through with my
goal to be a more responsible person for my kids. How’s that for irony?
Back then, my life was unbearable for me if I did not have a man to
depend on for direction. So, it’s no surprise that not more than a month
later, I had already met a guy who I thought was easy to talk to and
made me feel comfortable about myself. I was, however, quick to confess
what I had done only weeks before as if I was trying to convince him to
not like me. It didn’t work. He liked, and quickly, loved me, for me, in
spite of my past and I loved him back.
About a year and a half later, I gave birth to my third child at the
Army hospital on post. Her birth was bittersweet for me as I knew that I
never would have had her or met my, now, husband if I had not made the
decision to abort her older brother or sister the year before.
The whole point of me revealing this horrible truth about my past is
not to defend abortion but instead to show that it is possible to have
gone through the actions, events, and decisions that lead to having an
abortion and regretting it with every fiber of your being. I wasn’t
pro-life or pro-choice before my abortion 12 years ago. I didn’t have an
opinion on the topic at all. After the procedure, I discovered that the
act itself had made me pro-life. How could so many women justify doing
what I had done?
Does having had an abortion and being pro-life make me a hypocrite?
I’ll let you make that decision for yourself but I believe that having,
physically, been on the other side of the debate makes me even more
qualified to argue against abortions. I know what goes through the mind
of many women who decide to abort. I know that the decision, for most,
is not based on the life that the baby will be forced to endure if
carried to term; it is based on the selfish scenarios that play out in
our minds when we realize our actions could destroy our dreams or goals.
Those women who choose to abort, not because they are victims of a sex
crime or are at risk of dying if they carry to term, are not thinking
about how hard life will be for the child they carry, they are thinking
about how hard life will be for them when that child arrives. Those
women, who were quick to blow-off the simple and easy act of taking a
pill or making their partner wear a condom or not putting themselves in
the position to make those decisions under the influence of drugs and
alcohol, are not thinking “If I have this baby, he won’t have the things
he wants or needs because I am poor or not ready for this”. No. They
are thinking, “If I have this baby I will: lose my freedom, not be able
to get a good job, have to pay for more food and baby supplies, never
have any time or money for myself, and have effectively ruined my life”.
Abortions are not about the baby; they are about the “mothers”.
Abortions are the way out of admitting you made the stupid decision
to ignore the easier responsibility and act of having safe sex which
resulted in the harder responsibility and burden of having a child.
Abortion is the free-pass a woman gets whenever she makes a “mistake”
and realizes she can’t pay for it, literally and figuratively.
Pro-choice advocates are, in essence, saying that making mistakes and
not paying for them is wrong unless it creates a life. In that case, it
is perfectly fine to screw up because we’ve got this nice little clinic
here that can make everything go away. You don’t even have to think
about what your life will be like if you are an irresponsible sexual
partner anymore. As long as you can get your hands on a few hundred
dollars, you can go back to life as usual.
What is the point of teaching our kids to learn from their mistakes
if we are allowing them the option to make the serious mistakes over and
over without repercussions?
What we
are teaching our kids, especially little girls, is
that, no matter what, keep some money set aside just in case you forget
to take your pill or your boyfriend doesn’t have a condom. If you get
pregnant, you can use that money to get an abortion and nobody will ever
know.
Well, I am here to say that I am the mother of 3 beautiful children
who are alive today; a mother who mourns the death of one more of my
children that I never got to meet because I couldn’t face the
consequences of being irresponsible and careless. I am a woman who
exercised my “right to choose” and regrets it every day of my life. I am
a woman who made the choice to abort and as a result, became
pro-life. I should have 4 children, 10, 12, 15, and 20 years old. But I
don’t. Instead of that 12 year old boy or girl, I have 12 years of pain
and regret. That is what you get from abortion; the all-encompassing
pain of the knowledge that you killed your own child because you
couldn’t face the consequences of your actions. At least that’s what
women like
me get from it.
Not only did I made the mistakes that led to my visit to the clinic
back then but I made the mistake of thinking that decision was all about
me and what I wanted. I made the mistake of ignoring the heartbeat and
the monitor that showed the little life growing inside of me. If I had
been forced to or had the guts to hear the sound of that heart and see
it beating on the screen, I would never have chosen to end the life of
my own child. I was a coward. I live with that every day.
We should not be advocating for any woman who makes a mistake to seek
out abortion as the answer. This is not an acceptable excuse to end a
life you have created.
I know, all too well, how the quick and easy process of choosing to
and having an abortion can lead to a lifetime of regret, horrible guilt,
and what-ifs. A lifetime of imagining what your child would look like
or what kind of personality they would have. It’s torture.
We have got to end the culture of ‘easy way outs’ of responsibilities
and create a culture of ‘use your head’ before you do things that could
end in your life being changed forever.
We have to stop the campaign for abortions to be more easily accessed
with even lower costs. If we don’t, we are ignoring the seriousness of
the decision and how it will affect those involved for the rest of their
lives.
Thank you for reading this story and I hope that, through it, I have
effectively expressed that abortion is not a choice women should be able
to make on a whim.
I am here today, because my mother–despite the fact that she was mentally ill AND raped, on her way home from work one night–decided my life had value, that no matter how I was conceived, I was valuable and worth protecting. I am far from “demon seed”. I am a beautiful licensed minister who volunteers to help the homeless, a wife, mother and friend. Yet, like so many minorities in America, I am the target of hate. My people group (those conceived by rape) are not protected by law like many other minority people groups. Instead, every time a law is passed with a rape exception, a clear message is broadcast that my life has no value. (Current bill being debated with a rape exception is the No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act)