A woman took to Twitter on Tuesday to share why she regrets an abortion she had nearly 30 years ago.
In a series of tweets that gained a great deal of attention, she said that, in 1989, when she was just 16, she and a friend both suspected they were pregnant, so they went to a Planned Parenthood clinic for pregnancy tests.
I'm going to do a personal rant today, that may shock , but I think it needs to be done. I hope you read it in the spirit I write it. pic.twitter.com/UzGxjgTcpk
— A Girl Has No Name (@Mellecon) September 19, 2017
“My friend and I walk into the clinic. It looks like a regular clinic. The lady asks us at the desk what we want. Pregnancy tests, we both say at the same time,” she wrote, adding that they both paid for their pregnancy tests because Planned Parenthood “is not cheap.” Both tests came back positive.
“My friend is crying. I’m not. I love the father,” she wrote, adding that she believed she and the baby’s father were like Romeo and Juliet.
“My parents have kept us apart, now they can’t,” she explained. “The nurse asks me first what I plan to do. I puff out my chest and say, ‘I’m keeping it.’”
She wrote that the nurse then informed her that the clinic didn’t offer prenatal care. She and her friend then spent the next hour and a half trying to “brainstorm” how they would come up with $400 for her friend’s abortion while they waited for a five-minute consultation with a nurse about the procedure.
She wrote that her baby’s father wasn’t happy to hear her news.
“I rush home, I call the ‘man’ who loves me,” she wrote. “I say ‘we’re pregnant.’ We can be together. He screams in the phone ‘F***, get rid of it.’ Your parents already threatened me with statutory rape charges. This is proof. ‘I don’t want it, and we’re done.’ I’m stunned, but defiant. This is my baby. I can do this. I’m already in love with it. I’ll find [a way].”
She wrote that she then turned to her parents, hoping she could “get them on board to support me.” She sat them down and told them the news.
“My father is oddly quiet,” she wrote. “My mother is not.”
Her mother called her an “immature slut” and said she embarrassed her.
“My mom has a way of cutting me down to size, and she’s right,” she wrote. “I’m immature. I thought he loved me, but I already love the baby growing inside of me.”
She then offered to put the baby up for adoption: “My liberal dad snorts, ‘nobody wants a mixed baby. Your baby will languish in foster care. Is that what you want?’ My mother screeches ‘You’re out. You keep the baby, you’re out of this house. In fact, get the f*** out now.’”
She wrote that she left her home and wandered around in the dark for hours asking herself, “How the hell am I going to do this?” She wandered back into her house around 2 a.m and found her mother sitting up waiting for her.
“I guess because you’re back it means you’ll do what I say,” she said her mother told her. She added that her mother’s demeanor had changed and she is “almost giddy.”
“I feel physically ill,” she wrote, adding that her mother told her not to worry, and the procedure would be done at a hospital instead of the “nasty” Planned Parenthood clinic.
She was taken to see the doctor before the abortion. “He’s cold,” she wrote, adding that he told her the procedure “will be simple and quick.” He did an ultrasound, but turned the screen away from her.
Three weeks later, she arrived at the hospital for the abortion.
“I am brought into a surgical room and given a pill,” she wrote. “The pill makes everything hazy and unreal. My feet are in the stirrups and my mind is racing over all that’s happening. Then I hear it. It sounds like an evil vacuum. And I feel the pressure. My mind screams, ‘No,’ and then I start to scream ‘No, No, No, No, No, No.’ This isn’t right. This isn’t right. This vacuum is killing. It’s sucking the life out of me. I’m killing my baby. ‘No’ I’m sobbing.”
“The doctor tells me to quiet down, it will be over soon. I don’t. I can’t,” she continued. “I’m killing someone. Not anyone, but MINE. Again, he assures me it will be over soon. Little did I know, the nightmare for me would never be over. The vacuum continues. I feel violated, more violated than when I was raped 2 years earlier. It’s finally over.”
She wrote that she was wheeled out of the room, sobbing and crying out “my baby, my baby, my baby.”
“I know I’m loud,” she wrote, adding a nurse came in and told her to “shut up” and said “You’re disturbing the other patients.”
“Apparently, I don’t deserve the respect of a patient, and I agree,” she wrote. “I’m scum. I’m a murderer.”
She said no one was permitted to see her in recovery, but she had an aunt who worked at the hospital who snuck in.
“She sees my state and holds me while I cry,” she wrote. “To this day, she’s the only liberal family member who is pro-life. I have always wondered if that was the moment for her.”
The hospital sent her home, even though she was “bleeding and cramping.”
“I lay down in the bed [and] let my mother hug me,” she wrote. “The woman who gave me life, but wouldn’t let me.”
She wrote that nearly 30 years later, the procedure still haunts her.
“‘You were just a kid,’ people tell me,” she wrote. “I wasn’t though, the moment I became pregnant, I was a mom. And [moms] protect their children no matter what. I failed.”
She said that she is reminded every year on the anniversary of the procedure — June 8 — and “every time I heard my kids heartbeat, or even their laughter, that one is missing. One is dead. Because I was given a ‘choice.’ I love you little one, I always will.”
The story prompted Twitter users to share their own stories of regret.
I lost my niece or nephew, too. It devastates everyone.
— JRM11SixØl-/ (@Bobs_wifey) September 20, 2017
Your story resembles mine. 27 years later, I still cry on October 4th. My choice was taken away.
— C H R I S T Y (@AquaRuby) September 19, 2017
2) I held my daughter in my arms, I finally understood "sanctity of life". I knew I had murdered my child. The pain never goes away.
— Leah Kostiuk (@KostiukLeah) September 19, 2017
Thank you for sharing. Many people can't believe that we still carry this pain and guilt, but it's nice to know that I'm not alone. Hugs.
— iFünf (@MrsFreedomFirst) September 19, 2017
A wonderful woman saved me this fate 51 yrs ago. I'm grateful every day.
— Zwack for All (@jabsjj) September 20, 2017
i was robbed of fatherhood by a vindictive ex who got an abortion as if it was nothing. Im still broken from it so i feel ur pain
— Rob M (@BEARS_FAN_4_LYF) September 20, 2017
Thank you for sharing, my sister was 15 when my parents made her have one. They became ProLife shortly after, it hurt us all in many ways.
— Kristin Faller (@KristinFaller11) September 20, 2017
@Mellecon Thanks for sharing. I've heard a similar story from female friends who were once young, scared, pressured & ultimately regretful.
— Crowbi wan Kenobi (@Crowesq) September 19, 2017
Did YOU miss it? Last night, dozens of women shared stories of how ABORTION tormented them.
This is why ==>> https://t.co/ztQA1C6E03
— Katie Yoder (@k_yoder) September 20, 2017
So much love, and some many heartbreaking stories of both men and women effected by abortion. #SilentNoMore
— A Girl Has No Name (@Mellecon) September 19, 2017
(H/T: Catholic Vote)
