I had an abortion nine years ago. It still haunts me to this day. The abortion providers convinced me that abortion would fix my situation. They convinced me that it would open up doors to great opportunities. But really, it tore me apart to my core.
Before that day when I sat in the clinic with a positive pregnancy test, I had never heard the word abortion. Surely, I had no idea what it meant. They portrayed it in such an elegant way—as if it wasn’t something that involves death, but will give you back the life you want. This is absolutely positively wrong.
I chose abortion out of fear. I was so focused on the fear of having a child that I never feared what I would feel after aborting my child. I made this decision very quickly.
It was scheduled for two days before my eighteenth birthday. I was not legally an adult and was still under my parents’ guardianship. I went as far as presenting myself before a judge and making my claim of why I needed to be emancipated from my parents in order to have this process accelerated. We discussed my dream to go to college after high school and how that would not be possible with a child.
I was on a mission. I was so distracted by the process to abort that I never took the time to acknowledge the pregnancy as a human growing inside of my womb. I refused to look at it this way and I was not told otherwise.
I made a decision prior to arriving at the abortion clinic that I would NOT look at the ultrasound. I wouldn’t admit it at the time, but I knew that if I saw the baby that was growing inside me I would NOT be able to proceed. I thought I had outsmarted the truth.
As a woman, I have been designed to procreate. This involves my anatomy, but also my heart and mind. I left that clinic empty, alone, and hopeless. The choice to kill my child in the womb should have been unthinkable. I wish I had known then what I know now. Abortion can and will destroy a woman’s soul. It destroyed my soul.
I never went on to college after high school. Instead, I became a drug addict my senior year of high school. I had lost all hope. I used everything I could get my hands on to numb the pain. My life completely spiraled downhill following my abortion.
It took a lot of time, a great amount of courage, and some pretty amazing people to help me come to terms with the truth. All I saw for years, when I looked in the mirror, was a murderer. Five years after my abortion, I finally confessed my sin to God.
I believe God has taken my baby to heaven, but it has been four years since then and I am still struggling to truly feel his forgiveness. Before my abortion I never knew who Jesus was. But through desperation I finally accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior of my life and for that I am forever thankful.
The Lord takes broken things and makes them beautiful. If there is one thing that I am sure of to this day, it is that women should be encouraged to choose life. Choosing life will empower women more than abortion ever will.
This article was originally printed in identity magazine issue #002, summer 2018.