As a sophomore in college, I had a dating relationship with a junior. We hung out in his dorm room a lot. Making out led to heavy petting and exploring. He promised to use a condom if I said okay for sex. I had never had a pelvic exam and was embarrassed at the thought of asking for birth control pills like some of the other women. I was naïve about how sex physically occurred, but I felt peer-pressure to be "initiated." One night I said yes, and we had intercourse. It hurt. He did not use a condom. I got pregnant, and I remember how anxious I was. He offered to marry me, but I said no. I no longer trusted him. I said that I needed to get an abortion. My symptoms started immediately: morning nausea and breast tenderness. It was December and I rushed back from Christmas break to get a pregnancy test at the student health center. It was positive.
My older cousin got pregnant in high school, married then, eventually divorced after 2 children. Before I went to college, my dad told me that if I got pregnant at college, he would take me to Switzerland for an abortion, but it turned out that I could get one in New York state and dad did not even have to know. My mom was kind of out of the picture at that point, with issues of her own. My college health plan paid for the abortion!
After the positive pregnancy test, I saw an Ob-Gyn and told him that I wanted to have an abortion. He did not counsel me or advise me. I think he did not like his role in this. Maybe he thought I would be troublesome. He just said that they were sending the girls from school to Poughkeepsie NY for abortions. I forget how I got scheduled. My boyfriend drove me there, 76 miles across Connecticut, on snowy roads in January in a borrowed yellow VW bug. I was depressed, solemn, brave, determined. I wept all the time. We went to the clinic. It was cold. Everyone stared at the ground, subdued like me.
They took me to a cold room where I was told to undress from the waist down. I remember the clothes I wore. I thought I wanted them to know that I was a nice girl, a child really. The doctor came in and explained something to me. I signed a paper. The abortion was my first pelvic exam. They used a local anesthetic injection in the cervix and suctioned the products of conception, that is, my baby from my womb. It was painful. Then, my boyfriend drove me home again, lying down with my head in his lap.
I stayed in bed for several days. Then I resumed school. For months, I walked long hours in the nearby cemetery and cried. I used a diaphragm and spermicidal jelly to continue the sexual relationship. For a time, I took birth control pills. Twice I thought I might have had unprotected sex and requested and took the morning after pill which at that time was diethylstilbesterol. I did not know if I was actually pregnant. The following year my boyfriend started staying away and seeing other people. I took an overdose of NoDoz to show him how distressed I was. The relationship did not survive. I wanted to leave school. Somehow my friends and advisors got me to stay. I graduated in 1974.
Two years after my abortion, I was diagnosed with stage III ovarian dysgerminoma. I had total abdominal hysterectomy, external beam radiation therapy, and chemotherapy with follow-up surgery after 2 years. I was terrified I might die, but I am blessed to be alive today. Alive but claiming to be childless. The sad thing is that if you had asked me as a child what I wanted to be, it was a mom. Even with college education, I still expected to be a mom.
I did not marry until I was 38. My spouse was a man who did not seem to mind not having his own children. He was 27. I later discovered that he did not really like children, was same-sex attracted, and drank too much, too often. He developed health problems. So, I postponed and then abandoned the idea of adopting a child from China. I took care of him until he left me and then married someone else. We were married for 27 years. After he left, I was devastated. I decided to get as much counseling as I could afford.
From the time of the abortion, I felt like a caged bird. Caged by silence, guilt and shame. I realized that something about it was terribly wrong. "My body, myself" brought me no comfort. I had chosen the death of my child; that did not seem natural or normal. I informed my parents in 1974. Later, my healthcare profession challenged me such that I acknowledged the immorality of abortion. In 1987, I had a religious experience that led me to tell a friend about my abortion and convert to the Roman Catholic faith. I confessed to a priest in 1987. I was slowly expanding the circle of those who knew about my abortion, but it was still a private matter.
When I applied to volunteer at Path for Life in 2019, I was required to take their 6-week Bible study for women who have had an abortion. It was helpful to share and hear the experiences and reactions of other women and to discuss my child. Two years later, when I attended a Rachel’s Vineyard Retreat, I discovered the burden of unrealized, unrelinquished grief that I had been carrying for 50 years. I wept so much that there were large sections of the retreat that I forgot completely. When I went on a second Rachel’s Vineyard Retreat, I realized I was carrying grief for all the children I might have had in addition, if I had not been sterilized by my cancer treatment. It mingles with the grief I feel over the loss of my husband.
I told my very pro-choice, best friend in 2024, and she was kind and supportive. How amazing she was! Where did I get that courage? Rachel's Vineyard. When I heard that 1 in 3 women in the U.S. have had an abortion and 1 in 6 women in church have had an abortion, I remembered my sister and my niece telling me about their abortions afterwards. I had no chance to warn them or help them. Imagine all these women who have had an abortions, in secret prisons of silence, shame, and pain. It breaks my heart.
For years I have loved the one child that I know God created in me. I named him during my cancer years and wrote to him, prayed to him, imagined him. But I was very angry with myself, embarrassed, ashamed, silent. I felt so much pain for my role in killing my child. I was so distant from God. It all might seem hopelessly sad except that I love the Truth, that I am a mother, and I have been forgiven. Praised be Jesus Christ! I asked my child to forgive me, and I think he has. There are no grudges in Heaven. Instead of a secret prison of silence, I know a secret saint in Heaven.
Spending quiet time contemplating my bond to my child fills me with joy. I entrust him to the Lord and His Mother. I ask him to help the sick, the hungry, and the lonely, to pray for our family, to talk to those in Heaven, to pray for the innocent caught in natural disasters and faraway wars, and to pray for me. Maybe you will meet him one day. He would be 52 now. I love him, so I am silent no more. His name is James Peter.