My abortion story

[Anonymous]

CW child sexual abuse


I was raped by my stepbrother from ages 11-14. Yes some states offer exceptions for rape or abuse. But how would prove that? As a middle schooler who would I have to disclose my abuse too? Would my stepfather (also abusive) have found out? My life would have been ruined if I was forced to carry my step brother’s baby to term.

[Anonymous]

There are now reports that Missouri doctors are forcing women with ectopic pregnancy to wait until the tube ruptures to do anything. So waiting until they are actively bleeding to death. Makes it much, much more likely they'll die and for a pregnancy that will never ever be viable, ever. Ectopic pregnancy has a 100% fatality rate if untreated. The chance of a baby being born is 0%.

This frankly is just senseless murder.

[Anonymous]

I stand with you, OP. I needed a D&E (abortion procedure) after my fetus died at 18 weeks. My body did not go into labor, and I would have gone into sepsis. It was the saddest time of my life. I would never wish pregnancy on someone who didn’t want it, because even if you do, you can be faced with unbearable loss and pain. Your body, your life, your choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I stand with you, OP. I needed a D&E (abortion procedure) after my fetus died at 18 weeks. My body did not go into labor, and I would have gone into sepsis. It was the saddest time of my life. I would never wish pregnancy on someone who didn’t want it, because even if you do, you can be faced with unbearable loss and pain. Your body, your life, your choice.

And I should add at that point in pregnancy, it still meant a change of providers and a rush to find care. I weep for the women who won’t be able to get medical treatment like I did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For all the talk about why women have abortions, we haven’t talked about why women have babies. Let me share a family story. My grandma had 12 children, her siblings and friends also had tons. It’s a story that played out all over the “pro life” 1950s and continues in fringe Catholic and evangelical circles today.

Their children were brought into the world because their husband came home drunk or high on his one supply, rolled on top of them for 45 seconds, and knocked them up. The children from these pathetic liaisons aren’t particularly wanted, aren’t really loved, and are barely cared for by the older siblings and anyone who might take an interest, such as a pervert priest. Their children aren’t a blessing but a thing to be endured while on this earth in the hope that something better follows.

These women were and are miserable and suffering, and their kids were and are miserable and neglected - a misery that often gets passed own through generations. This is who is voting to end your choice- miserable people who made miserable decisions and want you to be miserable too.

Indeed. This is what Catholics actively want to happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See, here's the thing. An "abortion story" that goes something like "I didn't want to have a baby so I had an abortion" is every bit as valid as all of these stories about fetal abnormalities and everything else because MY BODY MY CHOICE. Nothing else matters.

Why end the life of a tiny human being who no longer needs you? Allow her to continue her life without you. What’s the payoff in being violent?

Why are you lying? People don't get abortions on healthy pregnancies willy-nilly after the point of viability. They might end a pregnancy after 27 weeks for tragic reasons, but at that point the baby is delivered. Even in few weeks before viability, most pregnancies that are deliberately ended are tragic situations like this one. Read this woman's story. Even at 19.5 weeks it was a delivery, by c-section, not a D&E.

Oh good, yet another story just like the OP's with absolutely zero evidence or indication that mother's life was remotely in jeopardy. Pregnancies end spontaneously at many points in pregnancy and end naturally without danger to the mother--sorry, pregnant person--all the time. And by the way, if the fetus is just a sack of cells and only a "potential for life" as most posters on here keep claiming, why all the worry about the "baby" "suffering, suffocating?" You can't have it both ways. You can't say it's only a "potentail for life" and then claim it's to prevent their suffering in the uterus if it's not really a person. I speak from experience very much like this story. I was never in danger, the pregnancy ended on its own. My twins lived and breathed in my arms for a short time on earth. My healthcare takers knew better than to sedate me, knowing that it was important for me to be in the moment and remember my children. I don't have the PTSD that the storyteller here does--and I didn't even have a child to go home to. Just an empty sad house. But hard things happen to us, and if you're a normal person, you grieve and move on. This story is BS.

Medical intervention sometimes requires risk assessment of what may happen even if it isn't happening yet. That is why an ectopic pregnancy should be removed upon identification rather than waiting it out - or maybe you would choose to for yourself, but that's you.

That is why high risk folks are advised to get vaccinated for COVID. Or why some women with high familial risk if breast cancer choose to undergo mastectomy. There are millions of ways people make medical decisions in consultation with their doctor and may take initiative to do something preemptively rather than ride it out.

When it comes to an unviable and potentially unsafe pregnancy, waiting it out may be ok or it may not. But a woman should be able to choose and just because you may choose differently for yourself what to do based on your beliefs or risk perception depending on the scenario does not give you the right to make that choice for another woman. You are also not a doctor - the only group who should be advising on the real risk to the woman.

But people who get prophylactic mastectomies don't say that it saved their lives. It potentially saved their lives and gave them peace of mind. They cannot say definitively it saved their lives and neither can that person in the Twitter story. It's disingenuous and specious and not a good argument for choice. Either you believe in choice or you don't. The need to claim it saved your life (when there's no proof it did) certainly devalues the women who make that choice for other reasons. It seems like there are a few camps in the pro-abortion movement. Those who think it should be allowed only when it is needed to save or--in the OP's case, maybe possibly, in some universe, saves--the mother's life and those who think the choice should be a woman's no matter the circumstance. For the record, I am in the second camp and just over hearing from dramatic women whose arguments are specious.

What are you even talking about. If you have the BCRA gene, you will get an aggressive breast cancer that will kill you. Not a probability, a guarantee. A mastectomy before that cancer inevitably grows and spreads absolutely saves your life.

DP here, but that is absolutly not true. BRCA gene increases your risk, that is it. I have it. Multiple doctors have me doing a careful watch and see--that is the recommended treatment, actually. I cannot believe how ignorant people here are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For all the talk about why women have abortions, we haven’t talked about why women have babies. Let me share a family story. My grandma had 12 children, her siblings and friends also had tons. It’s a story that played out all over the “pro life” 1950s and continues in fringe Catholic and evangelical circles today.

Their children were brought into the world because their husband came home drunk or high on his one supply, rolled on top of them for 45 seconds, and knocked them up. The children from these pathetic liaisons aren’t particularly wanted, aren’t really loved, and are barely cared for by the older siblings and anyone who might take an interest, such as a pervert priest. Their children aren’t a blessing but a thing to be endured while on this earth in the hope that something better follows.

These women were and are miserable and suffering, and their kids were and are miserable and neglected - a misery that often gets passed own through generations. This is who is voting to end your choice- miserable people who made miserable decisions and want you to be miserable too.

Indeed. This is what Catholics actively want to happen.

This is why a Catholic doctor created the pill. It is natural btw, he purposely made it natural. They are hormones that naturally exist on our bodies. It mimics what god has our bodies do.

But Catholics need more Catholics so we don’t lose control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See, here's the thing. An "abortion story" that goes something like "I didn't want to have a baby so I had an abortion" is every bit as valid as all of these stories about fetal abnormalities and everything else because MY BODY MY CHOICE. Nothing else matters.

Why end the life of a tiny human being who no longer needs you? Allow her to continue her life without you. What’s the payoff in being violent?

Why are you lying? People don't get abortions on healthy pregnancies willy-nilly after the point of viability. They might end a pregnancy after 27 weeks for tragic reasons, but at that point the baby is delivered. Even in few weeks before viability, most pregnancies that are deliberately ended are tragic situations like this one. Read this woman's story. Even at 19.5 weeks it was a delivery, by c-section, not a D&E.

Oh good, yet another story just like the OP's with absolutely zero evidence or indication that mother's life was remotely in jeopardy. Pregnancies end spontaneously at many points in pregnancy and end naturally without danger to the mother--sorry, pregnant person--all the time. And by the way, if the fetus is just a sack of cells and only a "potential for life" as most posters on here keep claiming, why all the worry about the "baby" "suffering, suffocating?" You can't have it both ways. You can't say it's only a "potentail for life" and then claim it's to prevent their suffering in the uterus if it's not really a person. I speak from experience very much like this story. I was never in danger, the pregnancy ended on its own. My twins lived and breathed in my arms for a short time on earth. My healthcare takers knew better than to sedate me, knowing that it was important for me to be in the moment and remember my children. I don't have the PTSD that the storyteller here does--and I didn't even have a child to go home to. Just an empty sad house. But hard things happen to us, and if you're a normal person, you grieve and move on. This story is BS.

Medical intervention sometimes requires risk assessment of what may happen even if it isn't happening yet. That is why an ectopic pregnancy should be removed upon identification rather than waiting it out - or maybe you would choose to for yourself, but that's you.

That is why high risk folks are advised to get vaccinated for COVID. Or why some women with high familial risk if breast cancer choose to undergo mastectomy. There are millions of ways people make medical decisions in consultation with their doctor and may take initiative to do something preemptively rather than ride it out.

When it comes to an unviable and potentially unsafe pregnancy, waiting it out may be ok or it may not. But a woman should be able to choose and just because you may choose differently for yourself what to do based on your beliefs or risk perception depending on the scenario does not give you the right to make that choice for another woman. You are also not a doctor - the only group who should be advising on the real risk to the woman.

But people who get prophylactic mastectomies don't say that it saved their lives. It potentially saved their lives and gave them peace of mind. They cannot say definitively it saved their lives and neither can that person in the Twitter story. It's disingenuous and specious and not a good argument for choice. Either you believe in choice or you don't. The need to claim it saved your life (when there's no proof it did) certainly devalues the women who make that choice for other reasons. It seems like there are a few camps in the pro-abortion movement. Those who think it should be allowed only when it is needed to save or--in the OP's case, maybe possibly, in some universe, saves--the mother's life and those who think the choice should be a woman's no matter the circumstance. For the record, I am in the second camp and just over hearing from dramatic women whose arguments are specious.

What are you even talking about. If you have the BCRA gene, you will get an aggressive breast cancer that will kill you. Not a probability, a guarantee. A mastectomy before that cancer inevitably grows and spreads absolutely saves your life.

DP here, but that is absolutly not true. BRCA gene increases your risk, that is it. I have it. Multiple doctors have me doing a careful watch and see--that is the recommended treatment, actually. I cannot believe how ignorant people here are.

Wait and see JFC

Breast cancer: About 13% of women in the general population will develop breast cancer sometime during their lives (1). By contrast, 55%–72% of women who inherit a harmful BRCA1 variant and 45%–69% of women who inherit a harmful BRCA2 variant will develop breast cancer by 70–80 years of age

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you OP.

My abortion story is this:

I was 37. Married with two kids, age 11 and 8, using birth control. Got pregnant, decided I didn’t want to be pregnant, terminated the pregnancy.

My family is perfect as-is, and another one was not right for us. And I had kids young so that my middle aged years wouldn’t be spent caring for littles.

I personally do not believe a fetus (or an embryo) is a human being. I have a human right to make those choices for my life.

And this is why we can't have nice things.

Stories likes these hurt the cause and are exactly why conservatives push for restrictions. I feel so badly for the women who are at risk because of reasons like the above.

Are you the OP? Either way, this is why the whole premise of this thread is so damaging. OP and others don't reallly believe all women should have choice and control over their own bodies, only those whose lives may be in danger by carrying the pregnancy. It is a terrible argument for abortion rights.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See, here's the thing. An "abortion story" that goes something like "I didn't want to have a baby so I had an abortion" is every bit as valid as all of these stories about fetal abnormalities and everything else because MY BODY MY CHOICE. Nothing else matters.

Why end the life of a tiny human being who no longer needs you? Allow her to continue her life without you. What’s the payoff in being violent?

Why are you lying? People don't get abortions on healthy pregnancies willy-nilly after the point of viability. They might end a pregnancy after 27 weeks for tragic reasons, but at that point the baby is delivered. Even in few weeks before viability, most pregnancies that are deliberately ended are tragic situations like this one. Read this woman's story. Even at 19.5 weeks it was a delivery, by c-section, not a D&E.

Oh good, yet another story just like the OP's with absolutely zero evidence or indication that mother's life was remotely in jeopardy. Pregnancies end spontaneously at many points in pregnancy and end naturally without danger to the mother--sorry, pregnant person--all the time. And by the way, if the fetus is just a sack of cells and only a "potential for life" as most posters on here keep claiming, why all the worry about the "baby" "suffering, suffocating?" You can't have it both ways. You can't say it's only a "potentail for life" and then claim it's to prevent their suffering in the uterus if it's not really a person. I speak from experience very much like this story. I was never in danger, the pregnancy ended on its own. My twins lived and breathed in my arms for a short time on earth. My healthcare takers knew better than to sedate me, knowing that it was important for me to be in the moment and remember my children. I don't have the PTSD that the storyteller here does--and I didn't even have a child to go home to. Just an empty sad house. But hard things happen to us, and if you're a normal person, you grieve and move on. This story is BS.

Medical intervention sometimes requires risk assessment of what may happen even if it isn't happening yet. That is why an ectopic pregnancy should be removed upon identification rather than waiting it out - or maybe you would choose to for yourself, but that's you.

That is why high risk folks are advised to get vaccinated for COVID. Or why some women with high familial risk if breast cancer choose to undergo mastectomy. There are millions of ways people make medical decisions in consultation with their doctor and may take initiative to do something preemptively rather than ride it out.

When it comes to an unviable and potentially unsafe pregnancy, waiting it out may be ok or it may not. But a woman should be able to choose and just because you may choose differently for yourself what to do based on your beliefs or risk perception depending on the scenario does not give you the right to make that choice for another woman. You are also not a doctor - the only group who should be advising on the real risk to the woman.

But people who get prophylactic mastectomies don't say that it saved their lives. It potentially saved their lives and gave them peace of mind. They cannot say definitively it saved their lives and neither can that person in the Twitter story. It's disingenuous and specious and not a good argument for choice. Either you believe in choice or you don't. The need to claim it saved your life (when there's no proof it did) certainly devalues the women who make that choice for other reasons. It seems like there are a few camps in the pro-abortion movement. Those who think it should be allowed only when it is needed to save or--in the OP's case, maybe possibly, in some universe, saves--the mother's life and those who think the choice should be a woman's no matter the circumstance. For the record, I am in the second camp and just over hearing from dramatic women whose arguments are specious.

The end result is doctors being on situations that require a woman get sicker before they can save her based on risk assessment - which is how these decisions are made. Your argument sounds lime you support that - wait it out until she's lost enough blood, gotten an infection, become septic, etc.

+1 That’s happening right now.

This is what people voted for- particularly in Missouri….now they see this, will they change their voting habits or no? I despair that people still won’t care.

[Anonymous]

…and also why “life of the mother” is a useless exception— by the time it cab be “certified” it’s too late (you have to septic or about to bleed to death, etc). The choice should always be left to the person whose body is at stake— not the State 🤬

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate that this thread was taken over by the anti-abortion nuts.

It's important, IMO, for women to share their stories. My own mother, who is very conservative, was very anti-abortion until she was with me when I was faced with the reality of my life versus the life of the fetus.

#1 - I was 27 & the baby was very much wanted. We'd been married 3 years and TTC for about 18 months. I started spotting & then it quickly turned to heavy bleeding. Rushed to my OB who confirmed what I knew, I was miscarrying. I was only 9 weeks so the OB wasn't worried about me continuing at home on my own, so I was discharged. I had to get rushed back to the ER later in severe pain and got a D&C.

#2 - I was just shy of turning 29 the next time. I made it to 18 weeks that time. No heartbeat was detected during my scan. a D&C was done.

After #2, I found a specialist who diagnosed me with what several other OBs had missed: bicornuate uterus. Mine isn't as "split" or well-defined as a traditional bicornuate uterus, mine is more of a heart shape of sorts but there is separation.

I had one more miscarriage with D&C at age 32 and then my husband got a vasectomy. I couldn't go through it anymore.

D&C's are terrible and painful. No one is using abortions as a means of birth control.

2-3 people in the posts prior to yours admitted they'd done just that!

Do you have reading comprehension issues? The PP said she was using birth control but got pregnant anyway, not that she was having lots of unprotected sex and figured she could always abort if needed. It’s a backup. I agree it should not be a primary form of birth control, but most people would never use it as their primary because it’s not always easily accessible to everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you OP.

My abortion story is this:

I was 37. Married with two kids, age 11 and 8, using birth control. Got pregnant, decided I didn’t want to be pregnant, terminated the pregnancy.

My family is perfect as-is, and another one was not right for us. And I had kids young so that my middle aged years wouldn’t be spent caring for littles.

I personally do not believe a fetus (or an embryo) is a human being. I have a human right to make those choices for my life.

And this is why we can't have nice things.

Stories likes these hurt the cause and are exactly why conservatives push for restrictions. I feel so badly for the women who are at risk because of reasons like the above.

DP but frankly I am atheist and I do not believe a fertilized embryo is a baby. Especially at less than 9 weeks old. Which is when most abortions happen. I cannot believe people expend this much mental energy and effort arguing over something I don’t even believe is real. I have kids and I love them dearly, but they were not people at 9 weeks old.

[Anonymous]

Both the American Medical Association and the American Medical Colleges have stated that this will jeopardize women’s lives— even with the “Medical emergency exceptions” allegedly in place. I wish they would instruct everyone to ignore the bans en mass.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01760-6?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20220630&utm_source=nature_etoc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20220630&sap-outbound-id=B1AD8103BEC9053A081EE6CFAB85363267B37D22



<<Abortion is now either severely restricted or banned in 9 states, a figure that is expected to rise to at least 26. This is a shocking and unacceptable denial of human rights. The American Medical Association, which represents physicians, rightly describes it as “a brazen violation of patients’ rights to evidence-based reproductive health services”. >>

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See, here's the thing. An "abortion story" that goes something like "I didn't want to have a baby so I had an abortion" is every bit as valid as all of these stories about fetal abnormalities and everything else because MY BODY MY CHOICE. Nothing else matters.

Why end the life of a tiny human being who no longer needs you? Allow her to continue her life without you. What’s the payoff in being violent?

Why are you lying? People don't get abortions on healthy pregnancies willy-nilly after the point of viability. They might end a pregnancy after 27 weeks for tragic reasons, but at that point the baby is delivered. Even in few weeks before viability, most pregnancies that are deliberately ended are tragic situations like this one. Read this woman's story. Even at 19.5 weeks it was a delivery, by c-section, not a D&E.

Oh good, yet another story just like the OP's with absolutely zero evidence or indication that mother's life was remotely in jeopardy. Pregnancies end spontaneously at many points in pregnancy and end naturally without danger to the mother--sorry, pregnant person--all the time. And by the way, if the fetus is just a sack of cells and only a "potential for life" as most posters on here keep claiming, why all the worry about the "baby" "suffering, suffocating?" You can't have it both ways. You can't say it's only a "potentail for life" and then claim it's to prevent their suffering in the uterus if it's not really a person. I speak from experience very much like this story. I was never in danger, the pregnancy ended on its own. My twins lived and breathed in my arms for a short time on earth. My healthcare takers knew better than to sedate me, knowing that it was important for me to be in the moment and remember my children. I don't have the PTSD that the storyteller here does--and I didn't even have a child to go home to. Just an empty sad house. But hard things happen to us, and if you're a normal person, you grieve and move on. This story is BS.

Medical intervention sometimes requires risk assessment of what may happen even if it isn't happening yet. That is why an ectopic pregnancy should be removed upon identification rather than waiting it out - or maybe you would choose to for yourself, but that's you.

That is why high risk folks are advised to get vaccinated for COVID. Or why some women with high familial risk if breast cancer choose to undergo mastectomy. There are millions of ways people make medical decisions in consultation with their doctor and may take initiative to do something preemptively rather than ride it out.

When it comes to an unviable and potentially unsafe pregnancy, waiting it out may be ok or it may not. But a woman should be able to choose and just because you may choose differently for yourself what to do based on your beliefs or risk perception depending on the scenario does not give you the right to make that choice for another woman. You are also not a doctor - the only group who should be advising on the real risk to the woman.

But people who get prophylactic mastectomies don't say that it saved their lives. It potentially saved their lives and gave them peace of mind. They cannot say definitively it saved their lives and neither can that person in the Twitter story. It's disingenuous and specious and not a good argument for choice. Either you believe in choice or you don't. The need to claim it saved your life (when there's no proof it did) certainly devalues the women who make that choice for other reasons. It seems like there are a few camps in the pro-abortion movement. Those who think it should be allowed only when it is needed to save or--in the OP's case, maybe possibly, in some universe, saves--the mother's life and those who think the choice should be a woman's no matter the circumstance. For the record, I am in the second camp and just over hearing from dramatic women whose arguments are specious.

The end result is doctors being on situations that require a woman get sicker before they can save her based on risk assessment - which is how these decisions are made. Your argument sounds lime you support that - wait it out until she's lost enough blood, gotten an infection, become septic, etc.

+1 That’s happening right now.

This is what people voted for- particularly in Missouri….now they see this, will they change their voting habits or no? I despair that people still won’t care.

Who are the doctors who are refusing to treat women with ectopic pregnancies?

The law is NOT ambiguous on this. Which state doesn't provide an exemption for ectopic pregnancy?

I am pro-choice but these stories, and their circulation in pro-choice circles, and their "this is what YOU voted for," makes me fearful that there is a certain contingent of adamantly pro-choice medical providers who are trying to prove a point.

I am very, very dubious that any ob/gyn would be fearful of prescribing methotrexate for an ectopic pregnancy based upon current laws-- or, if needed, performing laparoscopy.

Expectant management IS considered a valid treatment for ectopic pregnancy in the early stages, FWIW. About half of ectopic pregnancies resolve on their own.