I would like to thank Silent No More Awareness for giving those who regret their abortion experience a voice. If you go to http://www.silentnomoreawareness.org/testimonies/index.aspx you will find 1430 stories of regret and sorrow.
This post is about regret and how it worked for me. I aborted my baby in 1984 when I was 17. I was very mechanical about it and quite frankly the only regret I felt was during the actual procedure. I actually felt the life of my child leave my body and I cried out. The abortionist ordered me to "stop crying, it's too late now." So I did. I stopped crying for a long time.
In fact, the regret started finding it's way into my heart when I became pregnant with my son a couple of years later. First in how I was told I was pregnant. I went to the clinic for a pregnancy test and although it was an unplanned pregnancy, I was married. When the nurse gave me the news, she said "it's positive and if you want to take care of it you'll have to go elsewhere we don't do that here." And not in a private room, but in a waiting room filled with people!
I was pretty angry and I felt accused. But, I remember thinking in my head absolutely not! I will never abort another child! This was when the regret started trickling in. But as I had these feelings, I tried to stuff them back in. "Stop crying! It's too late now."
We didn't have the internet then, so I went to the library. I wanted to find a book with pictures so I could see what my baby looked like as he grew in my womb. All I could find was a children's book. I checked it out and took it home. As I looked at the pictures, I remember thinking "how could I have done that?" Had I really never seen the picture of a baby in the womb? I thought I had but I couldn't remember. More stuffing, "Stop crying! It's too late now."
As this child grew inside of me, so did regret for the child I killed just a few years before. And when they placed him in my arms, I knew what I did was terribly, terribly wrong.
After my son was born, I became overwhelmed with guilt and shame and didn't know what to do or where to go. So, I went to a Catholic Church. There wasn't a priest available but a sister spoke with me. She wasn't particularly gentle with me and I found no comfort there. She said, "God has already forgiven you, what right do you have not to forgive yourself?" Since God was only a vague concept in my head and heart at the time, this just piled the guilt on. I felt I didn't really have a right to these feelings, because I had made my "choice" so this was my consequence. "Stop crying! it's too late now." So I stuffed the feelings back in again and went on.
Even though the regret was coming in waves, I would have still considered myself "pro-choice" if you would have asked me during this time and probably through most of my twenties. I took the stance that abortion should remain legal, but women just had to be educated about it. Of course, I did nothing to advance that idea, I just had the idea.
The point of all this is, the regret wasn't immediate for me. It took time and came in waves as my experience and education revealed to me how wrong that "choice" was to make. The reason this is important to know is that some women who have had an abortion may not regret it at all - for a while. They may even be struggling with regret internally while presenting a completely different external impression.
It wasn't until 20 years after aborting my baby that I found some peace and relief at http://www.rachelsvineyard.org/ and I highly recommend this retreat to anyone, man or woman, who is experiencing regret and pain for choosing abortion. The regret and loss never goes away, but it is possible to make peace with yourself, with your baby and with God.
