Anon: “My abortion didn’t hurt me, people did.”
I want to share my story because its often a perspective that gets ignored in this conversation. While I understand and support the idea that abortion does not cause emotional turmoil, I also experienced a lot of emotional turmoil surrounding my abortion. But there’s definitely some clarification that needs to be made about that.
For one, sadness =/= regret. I have never, not even for a second, ever regretted my abortion. It was clearly the right choice for me and it saved me from a fate which I don’t believe I would’ve survived. I am so eternally grateful that I had access to a safe, legal abortion and I will forever fight for that right to stay in existence. My abortion saved my life and I would do the same thing if I had to do it over again. I felt relieved after my abortion.
But I also felt sad. I felt sadness, pain, guilt, fear… I withdrew into a deep depression, I kept my abortion a secret, I suffered alone… But this is what needs to be made clear: I was not sad because of the abortion! The abortion did not cause this! The termination of the fetus did not cause this!
Being told by hundreds of people for years that I am selfish, irresponsible, I murdered my child, I’m “not unpregnant, just a mother of a dead baby,” that I’m going to Hell, that I’m a sinner, that I’m wrong and immoral and a slut and I should’ve kept my legs closed… After all the shame that pro-lifers placed on me, all the pain they caused with their hurtful and malicious words, all in the name of “caring”…… THAT is what made my abortion hell for me. Having to keep it a secret because I didn’t know who would hate me because of my abortion, THAT is what made it hell for me. Keeping it quiet because I was afraid someone might *physically harm* me for having an abortion, THAT was what made it hell for me. Hearing people continually judge me and say terrible things to/about me and people in my situation, THAT is what damaged me.
The abortion did not hurt me. People did.
That’s the big flaw in the “abortion is emotional hell” argument. It’s easy to blame abortion for the emotional pain that SOME (a very small amount!) of people experience, but if you actually talk to people who have abortions and listen to what they say, instead of judging and making assumptions and saying hurtful things to/about them, you discover that their pain isn’t usually brought on by the procedure. It’s brought on by the way other people have shamed them because they had that procedure.
I never regretted my abortion, but I surely was made to feel pretty badly about myself for it for a little while. The good news is that I have grown thicker skin and am no longer affected by these things, and I have a MUCH healthier outlook on myself and the abortion now. I no longer allow myself to be shamed. I had an abortion and I AM NOT SORRY!
(via prolongedeyecontact)
