I am speaking with you as a result of something I did when I was eighteen years old that took the life of my first child, and unbeknownst to me, shaped the years from then until now.

I was eighteen, in my second year of college. I had just lost my father a few months prior and my boyfriend resigned upon hearing the news of my pregnancy. Lacking any other idea, I went to a Planned Parenthood. I came out with an appointment for an abortion. There was no talk about anything else. Oh-except for how I was going to provide payment. I had no income, so I was instructed to sign some forms, and poof! All taken care of! 

I had no idea at the time, but only five months before I arrived there, in January of 1981, in my state, Medicaid began funding abortion. So the taxpayers of America gave their hard earned dollars that day, to Planned Parenthood, who “assisted “ me in putting my first child to death. But if course, I was assured at that time, that “it” was only a clump of cells. Actually, my baby was at seven-weeks gestation, the size of a blueberry, his or her heart was beating, and arms and legs were forming.

The abortion experience itself was dehumanizing. Nobody spoke much to me. I never even saw the face of the doctor. What I did see was the collection jar into which the “contents of my uterus,” were forcefully vacuumed. There was a lot of blood. I went home and tried my best to conceal how much blood I was losing. To keep up appearances, I went to church the next day with my mother. Many people commented on how white I was, I just made excuses and said I wasn’t feeling well.

I thought I felt relieved. During the years I was having my children, I had an awakening. When I would experience the thumping of their feet as they ran about the house, I realized that the one who I had aborted was not there to run around with them. There was a very real void. There were all my healthy beautiful children with peanut butter and jelly on their faces and dirt on their knees and the smell of their freshly washed hair right in front of me. That I could see, hear, and touch them, uncovered the truth of what I had done. I am infinitely grateful to God, who still blessed me with seven healthy, beautiful children, and the ability to carry and give birth to them. But He wasn’t done yet.

I had a drive that sent me looking for something, and it affected my relationships. I had two failed marriages, one of them abusive; suffered from depression and even a time when I felt suicidal. Yet, still, I didn’t link all this to the abortion. It was Christ, and His church that ultimately came to me and brought me out of the rut I was running in. I converted to Catholicism, met and married my husband. I grew and read, and learned more about the culture of death. We both did local pro-life work. But I still didn’t ever talk about my abortion.

It was in watching this very event on TV, and this group of brave women holding their signs saying right out to the world, “I regret my abortion,” that made me realize I needed to join you and add my voice to yours, and lend credence to what so many are still feeling, and hope to all those who have the opportunity to avoid this life-destroying decision.

God Bless you.