"When I woke I was crying. I didn't understand why, but I knew that I felt
a tremendous loss. ... Years later in nursing school I realized I had been lied to."
 

Debbie's story

I have had two abortions. The first was when I was 16. I had been married for three months when I realized I was pregnant. My husband was opposed for financial reasons to our having a baby, and asked me to have an abortion. Being newly married and only 16, I felt that I had to prove I could hold my marriage together.

I went to a doctor and told him that I had to have an abortion. He asked me why, and I told him that my husband insisted. He didn't offer any alternatives or give me any information on fetal development, and I, being so young and foolish, hadn't asked.

The abortion was done in a hospital, under general anesthesia. When I woke, I was crying. I didn't understand why, but I knew that I felt a tremendous loss.

When I was taken back to my room, I began bleeding heavily. I told the nurse that I had never bled like that before, and she said, “Well, you've never had a baby before.” At the time I didn't understand that comment. Now I know the point she was trying to make.

My second abortion was three years later. I was working in a hotel as a maid, and while at work, I was raped at gunpoint.

When I suspected that I was pregnant, I went back to the doctor who had tended me in the emergency room. I remember sobbing and crying so hard when he told me the test was positive. In that moment of shock, the doctor told me that my only choice in a situation such as this was abortion. He was very kind. He held my hand and comforted me, then made a phone call to make an appointment for me with an abortion clinic.
 

The feelings that I had experienced with my first abortion came back to me, but I thought that this would be different. After all, I had been raped, and couldn't possibly love this child.

The doctor told me abortion was safe, easy, and painless. Having been asleep the first time, I had no reason to dispute this. I didn't know that the bleeding I had experienced after the first abortion had not been normal.
 

I asked whether the baby would feel any pain. He said that at this stage (8 weeks) it wasn't a baby, but a cluster of cells, unable to feel anything.
 

When I got to the clinic (I think it was three days later), I was asked to sign a form releasing the doctor and clinic from any responsibility in the event of complications. I  asked what complications this was referring to. I was told that as with any surgical procedure, there was always the slight chance of problems, but that this very rarely happened. 
 

I was awake this time. They used the suction method to kill my baby, and the pain was horrendous. I hadn't expected to feel the emotional trauma this time, but it was worse than before. I was taken to a room to rest and couldn't stop crying.

The “oh so rare” physical complications began immediately. I began hemorrhaging and cramping severely, and was given an injection to lessen the bleeding and told to go home to bed.
 

One week later, while at work, I began hemorrhaging again. I went back to the clinic and was told that I had probably retained some of the tissue, but that it would pass.
After three months of bleeding off and on, I went to another doctor, who was outraged at my condition. He did an emergency D&C to remove the retained placenta, then told me that my uterus had been significantly damaged by the abortions and their subsequent infections. He said there was much scar tissue in my uterus, and that any future pregnancies would probably be difficult.

In the years to follow, I was divorced and remarried, and became a Christian, a mother, and a nurse. It was when I went through nurse's training that the reality of what I had done became clear to me.

While studying fetal development, I realized that I had been lied to. At eight weeks, those "clusters of cells" had a remarkable resemblance to a baby. They had hands and feet, a heartbeat and brain waves, which was most important to me because that meant that those babies did indeed feel the pain of their horrible deaths.

I now have two little girls. During both of my pregnancies, I had a condition known as placenta previa. Both were high-risk pregnancies followed by very difficult labors and deliveries.

Eight months after the birth of my second daughter, at the age of 23, I had to have a hysterectomy. The damages done by my abortions were so severe that my childbearing days were over. All of this occurred because of my two "safe and legal" abortions.
 

Had I been told the truth about the risks that I was taking with my body, and about the developing persons inside of me, I know that I would not have made the decision to destroy life. There are those people who can deliberately take the life of another person, but that is not my nature. Yet I must live with the truth, because that is what I have done.

… I still feel that I probably couldn't have loved the child conceived of rape, but there are so many people who would have loved that baby dearly. The man who raped me took a few moments of my life, but I took that innocent baby's entire life. That is not justice as I see it.

Much too late, I realized that those "clusters of cells" were fine creations, developing in God's perfect way from the moment of their conception.