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Have you had an abortion?
It was meant to save my life, but instead almost destroyed it.
I graduated from high school in 1973, which is when abortion became safe and legal. I got married in 1975, and got pregnant about 6 months later. I, of course, was very excited. When I broke this news to my husband, he said, "What are you going to do about it?" My husband insisted that I have an abortion. He took me to the abortion clinic for a free pregnancy test, and he and the abortion clinic began working together to steal my first child, my joy, my music, my very life away from me. I did not want the abortion. Sometimes abortion is a form a spouse abuse. The ladies at the abortion clinic told me that it wasn't really a baby, but more like a fish. My health insurance did not pay for maternity benefits, but did pay for abortion. My husband said that having a baby was like playing Russian roulette, because you never knew if you might have a special needs child (not the wording used back then). The clinic ladies told me that I could have that baby later, when my husband went along with the idea. They said I could go back to school and finish my degree (which they knew I wanted to do), and then have the baby. I wanted the baby. My husband finally succumbed to breaking a glass window at our rented home with his fist, and giving me the silent treatment to get me to make an appointment at the abortion clinic. And he came back with me to get the process started. After he left I began shaking my head back and forth in pain, saying I could not do this. They told me, "It's too late." My baby was gone. Afterward, I was sent to a dark room, with old, ripped couches for the cramping to stop. Other women were moaning in this dark room. I couldn't see their faces. And that represented my life. They were nice, and the rooms were clean, before the abortion. But I had gone through with the procedure, and now my life was relegated to a dark room with old furniture. So . . . this happened three times with my husband. The first time I begged and pleaded to keep the baby and suffered abuse. The second time I got pregnant, about a year later, I went dutifully to the abortion clinic, thinking that he would see me trying to be a good wife, and he would say that I could keep the baby. That didn't happen. The third time, about a year after that, I kept putting off the appointment. I used business at work as an excuse. So, when I went in, I was past the 14 weeks that the clinic said they could do the abortion, so I thought I would be "home free." They went ahead with it. The young doctor performing the procedure looked horrified and left the room. The clinic lady started to help me up off the table and I told her that the doctor wasn't finished yet. She assured me that he was. I continued to have some kind of heavy bleeding. About a month later I hemmorraged at work and passed gray "meat" into the toilet that clearly contained part of the umbilical cord. I called the abortion clinic and the lady there got angry at me for not following up with my check-up there. She said I had had an incomplete abortion and I could have died. You see, I never went back for my post-abortion check-up. I could not face the clinic again so soon after the abortion. The fourth time I got pregnant, my husband was threatening to leave me if I did not have the abortion. I just kind of curled up into a ball and went into survival mode. I was ready to let him leave. Unfortunately, he didn't leave. I had to divorce him later because I saw him giving our two-year-old the "silent treatment." He continued to be dangerous and abusive until I remarried a man who knew how to use a gun a few years later. So . . . I had been told lies by the abortion clinic. I never had those three babies again. They were gone. I didn't know where they were, but I thought about them every day. Sometimes I thought about them in horrific scenes. TWENTY YEARS LATER I went through post-abortion counseling at a local Pregnancy Center. I finally was able to forgive my x-husband, the Supreme Court for making abortion legal (my ex could not have made me have an illegal abortion). They hardest person to forgive was myself, because "how could I go on with my life after denying my own children's eyes to see the light of day?" Somebody asked me why I kept getting pregnant. I found that answer at the Care Net Women's Center. It is common for women who have miscarried or been aborted to want a replacement child. Now I know that my babies are safe with Jesus in Heaven, and that I will see them when my days are over. I finally went back to school at the ripe old age of 48, and finally finished my music degree. I think it is very important that people like me tell the truth and shame the works of darkness. The truth will set us free. Abortion is based on a whole bunch of lies.
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