"In March, thousands of anti-abortion protesters rallied against the two proposed laws in Springfield, filling the Capitol to capacity. One speaker was Nancy Kreuzer, of west suburban Glen Ellyn, who said she had an abortion at 22 weeks in the early 1990's, followed by pain and regret.
When the daughter she very much wanted was diagnosed with hydrocephalus and Down syndrome, her doctor advised terminating the pregnancy, she said.
"There were so many signs that the scars from that abortion existed," Kreuzer said in a phone interview. "It wasn't until years later...in a flashback, I recalled sitting there and remembering the movement of my child in my womb. And then you leave and there's no movement."
She said she named her daughter Melanie. If she could do it over again, she said, she would carry the pregnancy to term.
"Being able to grieve, to hold the child, to go through all the normal avenues of grieving that are so important to us as human beings, I think it would have been an entirely different thing," Kreuzer said, a regional coordinator for the national group Silent No More, which speaks out about the consequences of abortion.
"She was sick, yes, but that didn't make her any less human. I thought, had she lived what a not-so-perfect baby would have meant. I thought of some of the Down Syndrome children that I do know and what their contribution is to us as a society. It's huge. And we're losing that."
Kreuzer, 63, said she keeps a picture of the ultrasound from that pregnancy on her bedroom dresser.
"I think what I really want is for abortion to never have to be considered," she said. "Because I don't want another woman to ever have to go through what I did. And I certainly don't want her pre-born baby to go through it."