March 09, 2000
I had an abortion on 6 May 1986. At the time I was a backslidden Christian who had spent 5 years at a Catholic school.
Up till this time I would have said that I was anti-abortion. However, when I became pregnant I panicked. I was drinking heavily at the time and had fallen into a rebound relationship. I felt trapped and frightened. Also I had just started University and felt I would be letting myself and my family down. I had a habit of covering up my behaviour and, at 23, the bottom line was I selfishly put my own needs first.
I found out I was pregnant very early on and rationalised that this was okay. The reality was I had to wait nearly a month and was probably 8 weeks pregnant by the time I had the abortion.
The night before I had the abortion I was drinking heavily and threatening to hurt myself. My friend phoned the abortion clinic and I got extra counselling. I had the abortion shortly after the counselling.
Personally, I feel that I should have been told re-think my decision over a couple of days. However, the counsellor really believed she was helping me. That's the problem if you work in an abortion clinic you would have to have this ideology or you could not work there. She held my hand and helped me through the procedure. She also advised me to drop the boyfriend (correct). The problem was that I did not separate the two issues in my mind.
What followed was a nightmare. Initial relief was followed by labour pains when I was at work three days later. I did not realise what had happened until the clinic phoned a week later to say that there was no fetal tissue. I think they thought the abortion may have failed. I lost the baby after 3 days but only realised that that's what had happened in hindsight. However, I believe the baby died during the abortion as my body changed immediately to feeling unpregnant.
During the abortion, I felt I cut all ties with God. Afterwards, I felt dead inside. I felt emotionally disconnected. My drinking increased and my behaviour, when drunk, was irrational. I felt close to suicide. I went to Lifeline and was told I was grieving. How can you grieve for an abortion? I was angry and refused to do this.
For a long time I was pro-abortion and became quite nasty with anyone who was pro-life. This was because I had to jusify my actions. The guilt was unbelievable. Eventually, I buried the emotions and life carried on. Things were never the same again.
Four years after the abortion I realised that my drinking was totally out of control. I began to start looking at the issues that had led me to drink. The penny eventually dropped that I had made a great mistake in having an abortion — if abortion was such a great solution why had the results been so destructive? However, I still felt emotionally stunted. For a long time I thought I was neurotic in the way I had handled the abortion until I read that many of the feelings I have had are shared by many others, and in many cases are worse.
I now believe that abortion is a very bad solution for women in a very vulnerable state. Abortion is presented as an easy fix to a difficult problem. I believe there is a need to help women accept pregnancies. In my case there were plenty of options but I was panicking too much to see them.
Three years ago, I became a Christian, and have recently had to deal with the emotions that were buried. I had felt emotionally flat for a long time. Last year I started experiencing a wider range of emotions than I had in a long time such as laughter and anger. After nine years of not drinking I was also having self-destructive thoughts. I thought I had dealt with my abortion and had received forgiveness, but after attempting to write a letter to the paper all the emotions that were buried came out with a vengence.
I have been working through grief and guilt. I also had to come to terms with the fact I had made excuses for my abortion — eg, I was drinking and the baby would have been damaged. I have had to let go of these excuses. I also had difficulty accepting God's forgiveness and forgiving myself. However, I have received support from reading some good books on abortion recovery and counselling. I have also had support from people at my local church.
I am now beginning to come to terms with what has happened, and accept that I have to take full responsibility for what has happened. The bottom line is that I knew a lot better than other people that what I was doing was wrong. That has made it hard for me to accept forgiveness. However, I realise that God is bigger than I am and that He will take care of my baby. My message is if you are feeling depressed and self-destructive — don't act on those feelings!!! Get some help — there are good books and good counselling available.
I now realise that God wants me to live a full life — not be paying for the abortion for the rest of my life. It has been a real blessing to allow myself to grieve and trust God to look after my baby instead of burying emotion.
One thing that has made me feel better is writing to the clinic. I don't feel I have a cause for a formal complaint. I know I was responsible. However, for many years I have been too shell-shocked to object. I now intend to write letters to politicians and the Abortion Supervisory Committee. How do people know we are not happy with this 'service' unless we complain. However, I am only now at a stage where I feel I am able to do this. I am also prepared, where necessary, to share my story — but I feel the need to be cautious in this. I have spoken to my family and they are happy for me to do this.
So my advice to anyone contemplating an abortion is this: DON'T. There is help available and life can go on with a pregnancy. Carrying on with the pregnancy will result in a living child. Every one of my reasons for having an abortion could have been worked through. Sure my life would have needed rearranging, but I would not have had guilt and grief to work through.
If you have had an abortion: God does forgive. I found it hard to turn to God, but He loves us no matter what. Life can be meaningful again, and God can and does forgive. I know for me the worse thing was the fact I did know what I was doing was wrong. But God's forgiveness doesn't depend on that. I have also found support from the church not condemnation — although be careful who you share with — not everyone can cope.
* Not her real name
