when i was in my early 20s, i got pregnant. i was in a long-term relationship and desperately wanted to carry the pregnancy to term, but my partner at the time did not feel ready to be a parent. because i wanted to make the situation work and my partner felt as though the situation was fundamentally flawed, we butted heads about how to proceed. in the end, i got an abortion i didn’t want because i felt incredibly pressured to do so. i felt like the choice had been taken away from me, and for years, i was bitter and angry, blaming my ex partner for the way things turned out.
but recently, i’ve really started to heal from this situation, to see it for what it truly is, rather than just from a place of emotion. i got an abortion. i did that. my ex pressured me, but ultimately, i made the decision. granted, that decision was influenced by the fact that i lived with my ex and his father, that i had no real space to rear a child and lacked the support i would have needed, but i, as an independent, autonomous individual, decided to go through with the procedure. there was no threat of violence or houselessness, no ‘do this or else’. in the end, i did something i didn’t want to do, but no one really made me. and that’s hard to live with. because even though my ex didn’t want to be a father, i desperately wanted to mother the child growing inside of me. i wanted to raise them, to love them, to bandage their wounds and dry their tears and hold them close. i wanted to make lunches and make mistakes and do my damndest to fix them. i wanted to be everything for my child that I had deserved but never gotten in my own childhood. despite this, I got an abortion.
my ex partner never told me i had to get an abortion. he didn’t threaten to leave me, he didn’t threaten to kick me out. instead, he just talked over and over about how he wasn’t ready, how he couldn’t afford it, how he didn’t know if he wanted to be a dad. he’d say ‘’what about my future?’’, and i’d think, ‘’you never stop to think about mine’’. what i should have done is have my baby anyway. what i should have done was say ‘keep your future and I’ll keep mine. i’m going to have this baby myself’. but that’s not what happened.
i regret my abortion. my child would be almost 3 years old if I hadn’t gotten it, and i still think about that every day. i think of what they would look like, what their laugh would sound like, and sometimes at night I lay awake and think of how different things would be had i just had the courage to do what i truly wanted. see, the thing is, i feel like i betrayed myself by getting an abortion. not because ‘it’s a sin’, not because ‘abortion is murder’, but because i went against the very essence of what i knew i wanted, i said yes to something when every part of me was screaming to say no. since my abortion i’ve learned to advocate for myself, to set boundaries. i’ve learned to say what i really want, to act in ways that align with that. if the situation were exactly the same now as it was back then, even with all of the struggles i’d face, i’d never get an abortion, not because of some fundamentalist moral qualm but because it isn’t what i want for myself.
these days, i’m learning to honor myself, my wishes. i’m looking forward, making choices for present-and-future me instead of just living solely in the past. for so long, i swore that my abortion was my ex’s fault. now, i acknowledge that placing blame solely on my ex was inaccurate and unfair. to some extent, he did pressure me, but i acknowledge that he wasn’t trying to hurt me, to control me because he felt like he had the right to do so, he was just panicking and trying to see a way out of a situation that would lead to a life he didn’t want for himself. if i can accept that i should have the right to decide if, when, and why i get an abortion or be a parent, then i should also accept that he, another independent, autonomous person with individual wants and desires, should also be allowed to decide if he would be a parent. my abortion is not my ex’s fault. it’s not mine either. it’s no one’s ‘fault’, it’s just something that happened. i made the choices i made with the tools i had at the time, as did he. we were just two people, doing our best, and our mismatched desires are not indicative of him being a bad person, and they’re not indicative of me being one either. i’m not ‘bad’ because i got an abortion (despite what anti-abortionists might say). i’m not even ‘bad’ because i went against my own desires, prioritized the feelings of someone else over my own in a situation in which only one party was guaranteed to come out happy. but i am regretful. i wish i had never gone to the clinic, never taken the pills, but i did. it happened. it’s reality. and even though i regret my abortion, even though i’ve spent countless hours crying to my partner or my therapist or just to myself, even though i never wanted to do it and even though i’d never do it again, i will always fight for the right of others to have access to affordable, safe, and sanitary abortion care. (abortion is a human right).
even though i regret my abortion,
i’ve found a path forward. recently, i decided that i will someday become a mother. the child i have or adopt will never replace the child i aborted; their unique and individual soul will never be replaced, and i recognize that. but by making the choice to be a mother, by truly listening to what i want, i am taking tm power back. i am reclaiming the right to live how i want. my autonomy has always been mine, despite how others have made me feel. my life has always been mine to live, exactly as i see fit.