Women Speak Out for Abortion Rights

They range in age from 22 to 78, married, single, divorced, from San Clemente to La Habra and everywhere in between. Some are mothers; others aren’t. But they have some common bonds: Most have had abortions. All have been touched by the issue. And with only two exceptions, they believe abortion should remain legal.

We don’t pretend that our sampling is a scientific one; it isn’t. We simply asked Family Life readers who have had abortions how they now feel about the decision. And we asked all of our readers to speak out on the issue as it affects them personally.

The response was overwhelmingly lopsided in favor of abortion, surprising considering Orange County’s reputation for conservatism in most matters. As a county, we may have been strongly behind George Bush in the 1988 presidential election, but if these letters are any indication, we tend to disagree with the 41st President’s anti-abortion stand.

“To start off, I’ve had about a dozen friends who have had legal abortions,” writes Christina, 22, of Newport Beach. “Some of these friends have even had two.

“I’ve just recently had an abortion, and I’m not proud of it. It’s a very dramatic experience for any girl or woman to go through. I was lucky because the place I went was very private. . . . The people were very considerate and nice to me.

“Most of my friends went to a clinic where they had to wait 3 hours before the operation. They also had to wait in a large room, in paper gowns, with a dozen other girls. And this was a legal clinic! I couldn’t imagine what clinics would be like if abortions became illegal! I don’t regret my decision because I didn’t have a choice in my situation. I’m only 22 years old and the father is just a good friend. I have too many future plans to stop and have a child right now, and also I couldn’t afford it.

“I can’t see the point in (outlawing) abortions. What people don’t seem to understand is that some girls will have to have them either way, and if they have to go to some quack of a doctor to get it done, they will. It will be twice as expensive and extremely dangerous. And I feel that instead of killing an embryo or whatever it really is, the lives of young girls and women will be at stake.”

Trina, who lives in Fountain Valley, doesn’t have to imagine what it would be like if abortion was illegal. She can remember.

“The year was 1969. I was 33, housewife and mother of four. We had a car, a camper and six dogs. Life was looking up. My family was complete. I was using an IUD.”

Trina said she was upset when she found out that she was pregnant. “I didn’t want another baby.” After her doctor ordered an X-ray to see if the IUD was still in place (it was), she was sure he would do an abortion.

“Nope. After all, it was conservative Orange County. But if I was willing to go through a psychiatric evaluation up north. . . . I was distraught, depressed and despondent, but I wasn’t about to subject myself to a psych evaluation. So my doctor wrote a phone number on a piece of paper and wished me luck. It was the Clergy Counseling Center.

“Much to my surprise and relief, my own minister was the local counselor, and he quickly set me up with . . . a clinic in Mexico City.

“The rest was like a cheap cloak-and-dagger story. Get cash. Set up appointment. Fly to Mexico City (by myself, hubby had to baby-sit while mom ‘vacationed’). Call another number. Wait in front of hotel in cold gray dawn for a blue car. Have procedure. Go sightseeing with another woman I met at the clinic. Stash medication in bra for trip home. Make appointment for husband to have vasectomy.

“There was never much thought about the rightness of this issue. This was a mass of cells that needed to be removed. . . . And I have always felt that viable life was that which could survive independent of the mother. . . .

“In the intervening years I have had no regrets. I have worked as a nurse for the past 13 years and continue to support freedom of choice.

“I work with families where grandmothers are raising the babies of their teen-age daughters. I report several cases of child abuse a month. I see the overcrowded conditions at the Orangewood (Children’s)Home. . . . I read the statistics on teen-age pregnancy and child abuse. The world is full of unwanted babies. The pain they and their families and those who work with them suffer is far greater than what some would say is suffered by an aborted fetus.”

“No one, not even pro-choice advocates, are ‘for’ abortion,” writes an anonymous 36-year-old woman. “Nobody likes it.”

This woman said she had an illegal abortion in Laguna Beach in 1968, when she was 16 and a sophomore at Corona del Mar High School. “I drove down to Laguna with the only two people I have ever told about my abortion, my two closest girlfriends. They waited in my car while I entered the dark and rather dingy office. No one was there except the doctor. I paid him $300. He asked me my name, and I gave him a phony one. I was frightened to death. . . . And abortion was illegal, so I didn’t know if the police were watching him.

“I spent the night in the bathroom of my girlfriend’s house in total pain and fear. It was the most agonizing night of my life. It sounds so gruesome to say this, but I flushed the fetus down the toilet that night. The doctor had asked me to bring it back to him, but I could not bear to even look at it. . . .

“Do I regret having that abortion? No way. When it was all over, I had never felt such feelings of relief. I had been given another chance at life! I was able to go on to college, to travel extensively, to fall in love with a wonderful man. I lived the life I had dreamed of for myself, not a life I was condemned to follow because of a terrible mistake.”

Another anonymous voice, from La Habra: “Five years ago, when I was 25, I had a legal abortion. . . . I’m not sure what my life would be like now if I had not had a choice. I was able to finish school and become financially stable. I plan to begin a family in the next year. . . . I see too many unwanted, abused, neglected, suicidal, unhappy and emotionally disturbed children in my work as a psychologist to think there could be a benefit to forcing a woman to have a child.” “I am a 78-year-old woman,” writes Gloria, from Santa Ana. “I have had two abortions and never regretted it, nor had one minute of guilt. I also have raised five children. I think these pro-lifers are interfering in something that is none of their business.”

And, from Kay of Fountain Valley: “I have never had an abortion, but I held my daughter’s hand during hers. Unwanted pregnancy is an unfortunate fact of life. Unwanted children should not be.”

Next week, we’ll hear from the dissenters, including a woman who is still in anguish more that 11 years after her abortion.