I was 17, pregnant and on my way to college. I was afraid to be a mother at such a young age and with someone I didn’t plan on marrying. I was embarrassed people would know I was having sex. A family member told me she had an abortion and she would help me get one.  I didn’t even know what abortion was but I agreed.  She thought she was helping me but it was the most harmful decision I have ever made.  My parents were never notified even though I was underage. The abortion clinic workers, strangers, felt they knew better how to help me even though they were just meeting me for the first time and would have only a couple hours interaction. I didn’t know how much abortion would affect my life in such a negative way. I believed my family member that it would take care of my problem. I was 13 weeks pregnant and the abortion experience was so traumatic. I now know what a 13 week old fetus looks like and I shudder.  I felt relief afterward but deep down I was so broken that I started my college career drinking and being promiscuous.  I didn’t feel I deserved anything good, especially a healthy relationship. And so the cycle continued and I aborted three more children.  I remember my last abortion with vivid detail. I heard the loving, pleading voices of the sidewalk counselors. I wish I had turned back but the drive to preserve myself and not my child won out that day. The feelings were dark, painful, lonely and empty.  I knew nobody in the building really cared about me and no alternatives were offered.  I was so far from God and feeling so alone in the world.  I ignored the undeniable fact that I was carrying a beautiful miracle of life inside me. I did NOT walk in exercising my reproductive right. I walked in broken and trying to cover up my guilt and walked out even more broken and guilty.

God brings good out of the awful. I have truly found forgiveness and peace through Rachel’s Vineyard, Silent No More, the Catholic Church and the Truth. Abortion hurts. Abortion took the life of my children. Yet God and my family still love me because I finally faced my sins, repented and amended my life.   God has done great things for me and that is why I will always be Silent No More.