I honestly have no regret about the choice I made to have my abortion a little over two years ago. I was with someone who was awful for me (a man who cheated on me with a married woman even though we lived together), I was still a student in college, and I was far from financially independent. Even now, away from that emotionally abusive relationship, a college graduate with a great job, I'm still not in the right place for a child. I want my child to have a full family and not a mother who's never home. I want my child to have as wonderful of a childhood as I had. The reasons that made me feel my abortion was the right thing to do may seem like excuses to other people and they would have their child anyway.
Despite whatever reason I had, the true reason I know I did the right thing is the comfort and peace in my heart with it. It's a knowing that goes deeper than situational, surface justification; it's a spiritual knowing on another level. If you do not have this deep knowing, and you are seriously struggling with the idea of having an abortion then abortion really may not be the right path for you. You really may regret it. Having an abortion in the midst of confusion and fear is natural, but to be second guessing it deep in your heart and not feeling right about it in your soul is a big red flag that this might not be the right choice for you.
The only thing that really bothers me is that so few people really want to talk about abortion. I'm not talking about abortion debate-- plenty of people feel free to speak about whether they think abortion is a woman's right or if it's a sin, etc… but few people will talk about abortion as they have experienced it. I have two sisters, a mother, and a best friend who have all had abortions and we've spoken briefly about it but not much further. I know my best friend seems entirely OK with it, I know it hurt one of my sisters very much, I know my other sister regrets it slightly because she never had children again after, and I know it saddened my mother at the time but she's at peace with it now because she got to have a wonderful huge family of 5 children-- the youngest one adopted… it was like she came full circle and took a wonderful baby into her home from a woman who decided to hold onto a pregnancy. In my case, I think adoption can be even more difficult than abortion, to have to hand over your baby to someone else after it's really living and breathing, fully formed right in front of you. Adoption takes incredible strength.
But I have read other stories on here and I see how much pain women have experienced because of their abortions and how conflicted they are about whether or not they did the right thing. Once it is done, if you feel it was the wrong choice, please don't hate yourself. Allow yourself to feel that anguish and that hurt but don't waste the rest of your life wishing you could turn back time. The best thing you can do is talk-- get that pain outside of you and share your experience-- you should never have to feel alone. Even though I don't regret my abortion at all, I still wish I could talk about it more. I don't take what I did lightly and I feel like I never got to discuss it enough. I felt like I had to go through it alone (my then-boyfriend was out of town during the procedure) and I still feel like I carry the experience alone. It was a very big choice I made, a very big thing I had to go through... a very scary, very real life experience and I just wish more people would talk. Thank you all for talking.