At age 52 I got pregnant. My husband and I were not using contraception because I was in the midst of menopause and did not think pregnancy was even a possibility. He was very clear... no more children. Making a decision was deeply painful and emotional for me. After much thought and many tears, I chose an abortion. It is still a sensitive subject... but I did what seemed right at the time.

~L

I had an abortion when I was 18 years old. I had just moved back to the US (where I was born) from India. A few months into suburban living in the midwest, I was stalked and raped by a stranger in my town. I had various levels of trauma: being in a land so foreign from my childhood home in India, understanding what safety meant for girls in this world, my parents blaming me for getting raped, the actual pain from the rape itself (the stab wounds and bruises), and constantly reliving the horrors of that night in my memory. I would scrub my body rigorously everyday following this terrible event in efforts to get every cell of my perpetrator off my body.

Despite taking the emergency contraceptive which they gave me at the Rape Crisis Center I got pregnant, and found out a couple of months later. I felt like this nightmare was never ending. I chose to terminate the pregnancy. The layers of fear, trauma, shame I held for years took many more years to resolve and heal. My abortion was a part of that healing and letting go of something I wish never happened to my body, or anyone else’s.

~ P.B.

Words cannot describe how grateful I am that I didn't have to have Mark's child. He was 46 when he got me pregnant. I was 22, and who knows what number in his history of dating women much younger than himself. He was not a good person, but I was young and impressionable, and he impressed me with his good looks and wealthy Upper East Side lifestyle. When I told him I was pregnant he sent me $900 for the abortion and made up excuses for his lack of any other kind of support, physical or emotional. All I remember him saying to me was, "This has never happened to me before." He would be a terrible father, and the world is better that he doesn't have children. Because draconian policies were not in place at that time, a past somehow more progressive than our present, I was free to continue on my life journey. I was free to learn and grow from my mistakes, to move on and find my perfect partner, my now husband, a wonderful man who will be an amazing father, with whom I can't wait to build the family of my dreams.

~ C.M.

Fifty years ago in late 1960s I was in college. My girlfriend became pregnant and neither of us felt ready to be parents or even get married. So we wanted to terminate the pregnancy. Abortion was illegal everywhere at the time, so the only alternative was the back alley method. The woman helped us injected a solution to induce miscarriage. We went back to our apartment and basically had a do it yourself abortion which fortunately turned out okay. I understand that we were some of the fortunate ones and things turned out okay. This is not the case for everyone. I had to dispose of the four month old fetus, a fully formed little child. This was not a pleasant experience at all. I certainly regretted our cavalier and irresponsible lack of birth control. But for us it was the abortion was the right choice. Of course it would have been better if we could have gone to a legal and safe clinic instead, and had this taken care of as soon as possible instead of waiting until we had our chance to get the procedure done later into the pregnancy.

~ BH

I was 14, almost 15 when I got pregnant. The decision I had to make was agonizing. My mom said she would support me no matter what I chose to do. My father said "I don't want my baby to have a baby." (I was his youngest child at the time.) My boyfriend who was 4 years older wanted the baby.

In the end I chose an abortion. 

Ten years later the same boyfriend and I chose to have a child and we welcomed our only son. He is the light of our lives.

I am so grateful to have access to safe abortion, and the freedom to choose when to bring a child into the world.

~D

When I was 25 I spent a year in a foreign country, learning the culture and language, traveling and teaching English. I have visceral memories of a Spring day, walking through a cobblestoned town in the North of the country, wearing a red spring dress, my long hair down and uncovered. A local guy, about my age, got out of his car and began to walk and talk with me. He asked me to go out with him that night. I agreed and for the rest of the day looked forward to going on a date with a local.

He picked me up and we went out to walk around the city, to eat street food and to flirt, each of us trying to decipher the other's language. He drove me home that night and before I could get out of the car, he was on top of me, pulling down my pants, forcing himself inside of me. I tried to get him off, but was unable to overpower him. I resigned myself to stop struggling, to freeze, to wait until this forced nightmare was over.

But this is a story about abortion, not about rape.

Shamed and feeling like I had done something wrong, I didn't speak about this with my roommate or anyone I was in contact with.

About a month later, feeling tired and as if seasonal allergies were taking all my energy, I found out that I was pregnant.

While I was amazed that my body could actually be holding life, I was also alone as a student and volunteer in a foreign country. I was 25. I was single. And I could not imagine telling my future child his or her origin story, about who his/her dad was and how s/he came to be.

With the help of a social worker I was able to think through my options and what I needed to do. The social worker helped me to get an abortion and to heal from the experience.

While there are so many more layers to this story, the main point here is that I am not now the mother of a 25-year-old who would have been born from a forced, nonconsensual sexual rape. The child would have been born from trauma to a traveling mom who had no means to support the child. I am grateful that I had access to a safe abortion.

And while I am sad to have had the experience, I have no regrets about terminating this unwanted pregnancy. I have had a good life and have a healthy child, for whom I was ready.

-EH

I was gang raped in this very neighborhood when I was only thirteen. After this horrific incident my mother took me to the Rape center where I received a rape kit and was given the Medical Abortion Pill. The entire experience was extremely traumatic, as I unfolded feelings of shame, guilt, loss and emptiness. Until this day I am grateful that I was given that abortion pill. I am not sure how I would have been able to raise a child at 13 in addition to dealing with all my post traumatic stress from the rape as well as other childhood trauma I had experienced.

Despite being torn open by multiple men in this event, needing medical attention, emotional support, love and security...something everyone should have, one thing I can say is that I felt unsupported by the medical system, law enforcement and legal system in general. I do not remember anyone coming and speaking to me about my RAPE besides detectives, who weren’t particularly supportive. The system made me feel like it was my fault, like I was not victim enough, and like my story did not matter. Going through trial was like reliving what happened, and I constantly needed to prove what happened to me happened. Now I know that victims just want to be believed!

In addition to not feeling heard by strangers in a court room my own family made me feel that it was my fault that I was GANG RAPED. They blamed me for being the “troubled child”, and told me I deserved this.

Today, I share my story to speak to how taking the pill was one of the many things which not only saved my life but my sanity. I also share my story to talk about how the various systems don’t support women and female bodies. There is a lack of support in every step, even when you are a victim of gang rape.

What I would like is for medical and legal staff to be trauma informed. For the medical system to support victims of crime. And for women to have access to safe abortions and bring a child into the world when the time felt right.

~ GV

When I was 15 I had an abortion. I had a boyfriend, and though I was not ready, we had sex. The first time it happened, I got pregnant. I never regretted the abortion and I'm so thankful I didn't have the child that he planted the seed for since I was so young and had so much learning and growing to do, as well as a whole life ahead of me that would have been completely altered by being a mom. Throughout our relationship I got word that he had been cheating on me with 13 girls that I knew of. Thank goodness I didn’t have his child! And that I didn't have to become a mom before I was ready. In fact he had sworn on the unborn child that he didn't sleep with one of the many that I knew of. Once I became my mom at 33 I realized the importance of me not traumatizing my child by passing on my unresolved issues and past traumas. My son is a reflection of me having him when I had vast life experience. I am very thankful for this and do believe that it is of utmost importance that women have the choice to do what they want with their bodies. That is not to be decided by anyone else. Thank you for reading my story.

~M.Y.