Don't Have an Abortion! Anything but That!

Below I share, in my own translation and slightly abridged, part of one of the many testimonies collected by the Association of Victims of Abortion in Spain.

“My name is Rosa. Getting pregnant was not in my plans, and much less in my boyfriend’s. I worked for a company, and for some time we had both been having financial difficulties, so we believed we couldn’t take care of a child. The pressure on me came from work, because I found out that if I said I was pregnant I would be fired immediately.

“In January 2004 I decided to end my pregnancy at an abortion clinic. I made the appointment by phone and they told me the abortion would cost 380 euros… When I got to the clinic there were many women waiting. It looked like a cattle shed. One by one they went in to see the doctor. We paid in advance, with no receipt…

“When my turn came, the gynecologist only told me it was a six-week pregnancy. He never used the words child, baby or fetus. He gave me an injection so I wouldn’t feel dizzy and a pill to calm me down. The psychiatrist who saw me after the gynecologist assured me that my case fell within the three legal grounds and that I had to sign a consent form explaining what could happen to me. When I read it, it listed the possibility of death, the risk of an incomplete abortion and uterine perforation. I was surprised and asked her whether any of that could really happen to me. She said it was very rare, that there was no risk, but that they were obliged to put it in the form. The sedative was already taking effect, and I couldn’t even answer when she asked about my psychiatric history.

“Then came the procedure. It was all very quick and cold. Horribly unpleasant; when I remember the feeling of the suction device, I start to cry… It is outrageous that doctors are allowed to do these things. How can a doctor do something so horrible, when they are supposed to care for our health and our children’s?

“I immediately began to feel bad, physically and psychologically. That same night I cried with sadness and regret, and I went on like that for days. I asked myself, and I still ask myself: why did they let me do this? Why was everything so fast? Why is it so easy to have an abortion? Why did no one tell me anything about what could happen to me afterward? Why did my boyfriend let me do what I did? Why didn’t he support me?

“I was having hemorrhages, and I went with my boyfriend to the professionals at the Association of Victims of Abortion. There a doctor and a psychologist helped me… I asked the doctor what the procedure had consisted of, since all I had felt was a cold instrument being put into my uterus and a lot of pain. With an anatomy atlas she explained what had been done to my uterus with the suction device and why I was now bleeding. She told me about the after-effects such a procedure can leave on the lining of the uterus, with the possibility of repeated miscarriages later, or placenta previa…

“If anyone asks me, I will tell them without hesitation: don’t have an abortion! Anything but that! It’s not a question of faith or creed; it’s a matter for parents. Abortion wounds us in the depths of our being; it goes radically against who we are and what we can do. It is not right for the State to allow such a brutal procedure in which we parents kill our child. Sooner or later everyone realizes the mistake of abortion.”