‘Do I Choose for a Baby ... or for Me?’

Abortion is not a frivolous choice. No woman sets out to create potential life and then destroy it. Yet every year, 1.4 million American women and 50 million women worldwide make the decision to have abortions.

We have respectfully listened, without judgment, while women told us their emotionally varied stories and how they came to exercise their right to end unwanted pregnancies. We have learned how that experience affected their lives in the days and years after their abortions. And we are continually reminded that an abortion experience rarely ends on the day of termination.

Julie was 39 when she discovered that she was pregnant. “It was the most painful shock of my life. I had twin teenage girls ready to leave for college. After devoting nearly two decades to raising kids, it was finally time for me to enjoy my independence and have time alone with my husband. And now this.”

Julie’s pregnancy was not the result of reckless sexual abandon. Her birth control failed, plain and simple. Like many women who take precautions that misfire, she felt confused, angry and responsible. “You always hear that birth control is not 100% effective, but you never think, my birth control is not 100% effective.” But with 30 to 40 years of fertility in a woman’s life, possibly 480 ovulation cycles and a compelling sex drive, the odds are in favor of a pregnancy, whether planned or unplanned. And whether they are pro-choice or anti-choice, Jewish or Catholic, rich or poor, women of every ilk have told us that their response has been abortion.

In our interview, Julie reiterated the truth we have heard many times, that the abortion procedure was not the source of her discomfort. In fact, ending her pregnancy provided a sense of relief because her life plans could proceed. Julie’s feelings of discomfort were linked to the unique circumstances of her life, her marriage and approaching middle age.

“Had I chosen an abortion at 18, it would have been a different experience, because for me, my teens weren’t about childbearing. It would have just been ‘tissue,’ ” she said. “But at 39, I had stable finances and David was a great husband and father. I knew we could have cared for another child. So this pregnancy was never just tissue, it was a future baby. And ending the pregnancy became a moral decision: Do I choose for a baby I don’t want or do I choose for me? I chose for me--me and David.”

We interviewed Julie eight years after her abortion. When we asked how she felt about the decision now, she responded with thoughtful candor. “While I never doubted the rightness of my decision, I naturally still had lots of feelings about it. This was a sad thing for David and me. We grieved the loss, but we also moved on with a brand new time in our lives that we had been looking forward to.”

Most women, like Julie, understand the reasons for their decision and take advantage of the opportunities it gives them. Life calls for all sorts of difficult choices, and 43% of American women have made an abortion one of theirs. “It was a hard choice,” Julie said, “and we are at peace with it.”

The political left tells women: “You don’t feel anything, your abortion was only a procedure.” The right tells women: “You don’t just feel sad, you feel traumatized.” So women like Julie may begin to fear that because they have natural post-abortion feelings, something must be wrong with them. But there is nothing wrong with them, and there is nothing wrong with having feelings.