All I Wanted Was My Baby

Jill's Story

Note: The following testimony is excerpted from the book Giving Sorrow Words: Women's Stories of Grief After Abortion by Melinda Tankard Reist.
 

My boyfriend and I had been going steady for over 12 months, sure we were going to wait until we got married. I was 16 and a virgin, but we saw each other every day and one time the petting went to the point of no return. I had just had an appendix operation and I thought that was why my period was late. Think again: sure enough, I was pregnant.
 

By three months my pregnancy was starting to show. My boyfriend and I were really happy about it and I bought my first maternity dress. One Sunday night, instead of going to church, we decided to tell my parents. Their reaction took me totally by surprise. They told my boyfriend, whom they never liked anyway, to get out. Their only words to me were, "You are having an abortion"
 

ABORTION! That was something that had not even entered my head. I loved this baby growing in me; I didn't want to kill it. But I wasn’t asked what I wanted.
 

The next step was an appointment with the family doctor. Yes, no worries—hadn't he arranged the same thing for his daughter when she got into trouble? Anything to help a friend.

Dad told me how one of his girlfriends had become pregnant and had an abortion and years later had thanked him that she had. I didn’t want to know; all I knew was they were trying to kill my baby.
 

My boyfriend and I were going to run away. I saw him waiting outside in the car that night but Mum and Dad just wouldn’t go to sleep so I could sneak out and in the end I fell asleep.
 

A couple of days later Dad and I flew to Sydney (Australia). We went to see another doctor and I was taken to a hospital with chandeliers. I can still picture them as if it was yesterday. The nurse came in to give me my pre-med needle. I begged her to let me see the doctor. "You will see him in the [operating room]," she told me.
 

A group of about 15 women were sitting in the waiting room. There were two open doorways and one closed door that led to the operating room. A nurse continually walked past one doorway with a stainless steel bucket with a lid on it. I had nightmares about that bucket for years. Even though it has been almost 23 years, everything is so clear in my memory.
 

Continue reading ....
 

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News Briefs
 

Federal Funds for Abortion Would Put More Women
and Their Unborn Babies At Risk, Critics Say

-- Experts Say Executive Order Won't Override Abortion Funding in Health Care Bill
 

Critics are saying that the passage of the controversial health care reform bill will leave more women and their unborn children at risk for abortion. Despite an executive order from the President saying that taxpayer funds will not be used to pay for abortions--an order described by Planned Parenthood as "symbolic--experts have said that the order doesn't annul provisions in the statute that allow for such coverage.

Carenet, a leading chain of pregnancy resource centers, has said that more services will be needed to help women and girls avoid abortion, citing research that abortion rates increase when public funds are used to pay for abortions. Given that most most women don't want abortions if they have other viable options available to them, and that most do not receive proper counseling before abortion even when they feel rushed or uncertain, this would likely increase unwanted and coerced abortions as well.

Numerous studies have found that having an abortion puts women at greater risk of physical and psychological problems, including suicide, substance abuse, clinical depression, anxiety disorders, sleep disorders, breast cancer, subsequent preterm birth (which puts their future children at risk of cerebral palsy and other problems) and more. Women are also more likely to suffer from depression and other problems even when their pregnancy is unplanned or unwanted.
 

Seattle Mom Angry at School for Sending Daughter
for Abortion Without Her Knowledge

A Seattle mother is angry that a health clinic at her daughter's high school sent the 15-year-old for an abortion during school hours without the mother's knowledge.

The mother, known only as Jill, told the media that she had signed a consent form allowing her daughter to receive treatment at a school based clinic at Ballard High School, but she didn't imagine that included abortion. She says the school gave her daughter a pass and sent her to an abortion business in a taxi during school hours for the procedure. Although Washington does not require parents to be notified before their minor daughter has an abortion, the mother says the school was out of line by facilitating the abortion.

Research shows that teens who abort are more likely to feel pressured into abortion, to report being misinformed in pre-abortion counseling and to experience more severe psychological stress after abortion. They also face physical and psychological trauma, which could also put them at risk if their parents don't know of the abortion. To learn more, and for resources to raise awareness about the risks to teens, see our special e-newsletter edition on teens and abortion.
 

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