I was 19 and had been living with my fiancé for almost a year. I had turned my back on my Christian beliefs, my family, and my friends all in the name of "love." His reaction to the possibility of my becoming pregnant was, "If that's how you plan to get me to marry you, then you're crazy!" Fortunately, I wasn't pregnant; but a month later, I was.
   This time he spoke of his undying love for me and how he wanted us to have children but how unfair it would be to "all of us" at this point. "Don't you want our kids to have everything we can give them? All the things we never had? Lots of toys? A big house?" And then he mentioned an abortion. I was confused, afraid. I couldn't stand the idea of disappointing my parents. Moving in with him was one thing. A child born outside of marriage would be quite something else.
   I wanted to keep everyone as happy as I possibly could. According to what I could find on the subject, it was really no big deal. No real medical risk just a routine outpatient operation. I'd be home by mid-afternoon. After all, it wasn't even a baby yet. I was never told anything about the risks, not about the pain, and certainly not about the development of the tiny human inside me.
   The day came. The people were very matter-of-fact as they showed me the tube to be used in the suction procedure and "counseled" me. They drew blood, prepped me, and finally stood beside me as a strange, uncaring man took away my child. However, they weren't there a year later to take away the pain when I would hear a baby cry and yet there was no baby. Mine was gone.
   Since then I have denied it, accepted it, and hated it. I have wanted to talk about it, yet refused to discuss it. I hated myself for what I did and hated the "Right to Life" people for making me aware of it. It is shattering to find out after having an abortion that the "blob of tissue" actually had fingers and toes. I went up and down trying to deal with what I had done. I couldn't tell anyone. Then I finally found the answer for me.
   I took it all to Jesus and asked Him to forgive me and to heal me. He has brought me to this point and made me able to face it in hopes of helping someone who is where I once was.

Then we were taken, one by one, into a small room where the abortion would take place. The abortionist was cold. Never said a word. Just put me in the position. The sound was horrible, as was the pain. After it was over I was taken back to the small cubicle where I had left my clothes. I was not told anything about the mental anguish and the physical pain I would feel.
   Finally we drove home, and on the way I fell asleep. I guess maybe that was my way out. We arrived at my house. My boyfriend awakened me with sort of a slap. He said, "You're home." That's all he said. My seven-week-old baby was gone.
   Mine has been pain and shame, and I stand here today and say, "Abortion is wrong!"

The decision to abort my baby is a decision I'll regret the rest of my life - it's irreversible. Later I learned about fetal development and slowly began to realize what I had done. I finally began to let myself grieve for the baby I had aborted.
   First I had denied, then I was angry, then I grieved, and now I've largely resolved it. As part of my healing, I've had to accept my responsibility for the act, accept that I played a part in killing my own baby.
   Yes, it still hurts; but I tell my story in the hope that the truth will shine through.

Had I been counseled properly concerning the pain I would feel and the facts about the development of my unborn child, I doubt that I would have chosen abortion. I was not forewarned of the health risks or the deep psychological after-effects of abortion.

I was a bright college student and had a promising future ahead of me. But following my abortion I became deeply depressed and suicidal. I had never mourned the loss of my appendix, so why did I grieve over the passing of this "uterine blob"? The answer is, of course, that it wasn't a mere "blob of tissue." This was a living baby, and I realized this the moment I saw his dismembered body - but I realized it too late.

I did ask the family planning counselor about the possibility of emotional or physical risks and was told that women feel relieved after abortion and that it was much safer than childbirth. And that's all I was told, even though, at the time, I told the doctor I really wasn't sure I wanted the abortion.

I know now that if I had basic information about abortion, I probably would have resisted the pressure to abort and would have carried my baby to term. Then my baby would not have lost his or her life and I would have been spared this endless anguish.

No one explained to me that I would undergo so many emotional, psychological, and mental after effects. By the way, I was chosen in a class of 30 students as "the most stable." Those people at the clinic, though, never told me about the beginning of life, of the fetus growing. They just told me about the "blob of tissue" to be vacuumed out.

They never told me about the depression, anger, anxiety, fears, and self-hatred that I would experience after the abortion. They didn't tell me I would lose sleep and my appetite for weeks or continue to be uneasy around babies, children, pregnant women and people in general because I thought I was such a terrible person. They never told me I'd hate myself, that I'd have suicidal thoughts.

But the saddest thing for anyone affected by abortion - the saddest thing is that it's irreversible.