OPINION:
My heart pounded. I shivered, the coldness of the room exacerbating my jittery nerves. My boyfriend, just inches away from me, felt miles away.
The clinic door swayed open and shut as patients filtered in and out. Each time, I could hear the faint chant of prayer from outside. The calming supplication to God in the words that I, as a lifelong Catholic knew so well, contrasted sharply with the bleak silence within the drab waiting room.
In my heart, I knew that I should go to them.
But I couldn’t. An invisible weight glued me to my chair, imprisoning me in the cold, loveless waiting room, accompanied by the man who just days ago I had believed to be in love with me.
My name was called. As if in a dream, I followed the nurse into a room and lay on the procedure table. Never being introduced to the person about to end the life of my child and without any explanation of what was about to occur, the “quick and easy” operation began. The loud humming of a vacuum suction rudely and brutally killed the stillness of the room — just as it killed the life inside of me. Those next excruciatingly painful minutes seemingly lasted a lifetime. And then it was done.
Emancipated from what I thought was my problem, shame, not relief, consumed me. I followed the nurse into a separate room where several recovering women lay on hospital gurneys. Some were crying, some moaned in pain. Their blank and expressionless faces haunt me to this day. Left alone in our recovery, the only interaction from the staff was when they escorted us to leave at which they told us if we had any complications to contact our physician. Little did I know that shortly after being home I would be hospitalized for an infection related to my abortion.
It would be years before I recognized how easily I had been manipulated by those whom I had sought out for help. Knowing how to play on my fears as a scared and ashamed 18-year-old college-bound student, Planned Parenthood successfully peddled to me the same lie that has permeated countless headlines and tweets this past week: that abortion is the best option, and that it is necessary for women to succeed.
The palpable rage and furor of the pro-abortion movement over the leaked draft of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson this week reopened the wounds I have carried the past 42 years since I had my first abortion and the two more that followed it. As pro-abortion zealots seethe with rage over the possible overturning of Roe, and clamor about the downfall of so-called “women’s rights,” they ignore the pain and suffering of so many post-abortive women like me.
Our stories are inconvenient to them.
My abortion left me depressed, anguished and guilty for years. It changed the trajectory of my life, leaving me struggling with self-loathing, guilt and horrific depression, and my hopes and dreams of college collapsed. Like one dead, I engaged mindlessly in drinking, drugs and promiscuous activity. I had two more abortions.
After years of suffering, I finally found healing and forgiveness in my faith and in attending abortion healing programs. I now advocate for women and their unborn children, to let women know that they have options other than abortion.
Thankfully, the vital work of thousands of pregnancy care centers and maternity homes around the country has helped women to recognize that there are alternatives to abortion and that there are support systems in place to help them choose life. If I had known about these organizations and the powerful work that they do to help women in situations like my own, my sons and daughter would be alive today — even if that meant the ultimate sacrifice of giving them up for adoption.
Pro-abortion advocates often advertise abortion as a risk-free procedure. To them, women face two options: To have their baby, and all the economic, emotional and physical burdens that come with that or to have an abortion and forget about their child forever.
Yet as humans and mothers with innate biological ties to our children both in and out of the womb, we must recognize that women don’t work like that. Countless post-abortive women have shared their stories with me, and like mine, their experiences fundamentally conflict with the carefree image the abortion industry depicts. The anguish of losing a child, and knowing that you chose to end their life, is suffocating. My abortions did not bring me success or empower me as a woman, in fact, took away the most beautiful empowering gift a woman has, that of being a mother.
Since 1973, Roe v. Wade has mainstreamed such a narrow-minded view of women, pitting a mother against a child in an unnatural and painful struggle that leaves one “adversary” dead and the other to suffer the consequences of that struggle for years. It shouldn’t have to be like this.
As a post-abortive mother, I hope that the Supreme Court votes to overturn Roe v. Wade and sends the regulation of abortion back to state legislatures around the country for popular opinion to decide.
Thanks to advances in ultrasound technology, in-utero surgery and treatments for babies done well before they are born, and overall increased understanding that the unborn are separate, living human beings, Americans are more pro-life than ever. A majority of Americans oppose extreme pro-abortion policies such as those advocated by national leaders of the Democratic party. According to a Marist Poll from January 2022, 71% of Americans support more protections for unborn children than are currently in place in law.
Americans largely support the pro-life measures that have been in the headlines over the last year with 50% of Americans supporting protections for unborn babies at 6 weeks when their heartbeat can be detected, and 54% favoring drawing a line at abortions after 15 weeks, the limit in question before the court and a point by which research shows babies can feel the excruciating pain of abortion.
I hope and pray that the Supreme Court Justices stand strong despite the intimidation and threats from the pro-abortion lobby and move to overturn the tragedy of Roe v. Wade so that no woman has to suffer as I did.
Women deserve better than abortion.
Women deserve honesty, and the empowerment to choose life.
• Andie Pearson is the directory manager for Her PLAN.
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