The downside of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade has been the rise of chemical abortion and the way it allows abortion sellers to circumvent state laws designed to protect unborn children and their mothers.
While exact numbers are hard to pin down, the accepted wisdom is that chemical abortion now accounts for more than 60% of the abortions in the United States.
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Since former President Joe Biden allowed deadly abortion pills to be prescribed online and delivered by mail, chemical abortion has become the new “back alley” — though few abortion advocates would admit to that. But stories abound about men ordering pills and forcing them down the throats of women pregnant with much-wanted babies. Just in the last few weeks, a Louisiana man was arrested after he allegedly forced his 17-year-old daughter to swallow the poison pills. Her baby was delivered by emergency C-section at 23 weeks. In Illinois, a reluctant father was sentenced to seven years for giving pills to his pregnant girlfriend without her knowledge.
FIGHTING BACK AGAINST THE ERASURE OF UNBORN CHILDREN
Despite its frequent and criminal misuse, at-home chemical abortion is portrayed as a safe and private alternative to surgical abortion. In reality, it is a hideous procedure for which women are not prepared, as a new study published this month in the journal PLOS One makes clear.
Researchers wanted to gauge if women who had chemical abortions were prepared in advance for the amount of pain and the blood loss involved with the hourslong procedure, and whether they understood when and how to find help.
It comes as no surprise to anyone in the pro-life movement that many women felt completely unprepared for what they were about to experience, especially if they ordered the pills through a telehealth visit and received them by mail.
But what struck me as I read the study was the level of regret the women felt during and after chemical abortion. For this part of the study, the researchers combed public online forums, including Netmums and Reddit, where women talked about their abortion experiences.
“The most prevalent emotions mentioned by women were regret, guilt, grief, anxiety, and depression. … Regret, both immediate and delayed (such as several months after the medication abortion), was one of the most frequently noted emotions,” according to the study.
Their posts are heartbreaking.
“I wish I could go back and change everything,” one mother wrote. “I’m miserable and I can’t stop crying. I feel suicidal.”
“All I can think about is being with my poor baby who is all alone and scared and how I should never have let them go,” wrote another. “I still have the Pregnancy+ App downloaded on my phone and check for updates and progress, I still make baby names lists and I sleep clutching the pregnancy test which is the only physical reminder I have of my baby. I am completely broken and cannot imagine a future.”
The trauma of seeing the bodies of their babies also sent women to seek help online.
“I ended up seeing the fetus, which has totally broken me. I didn’t expect to see its little tiny toes and hands perfectly formed,” one mother wrote. “It’s completely made me feel rock bottom.”
Even mothers who came out of the abortion believing it was the right choice expressed regret.
“I had a medical abortion in April 2021 and have been struggling with guilt and shame ever since,” one mother wrote. “… I know the decision for an abortion was right but I really struggle with the guilt.”
Through my work with the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, which I co-founded in 2002, and Rachel’s Vineyard, I know that regret following a surgical abortion can take years, even decades, to surface. With chemical abortion, the remorse can be nearly instantaneous. Rachel’s Vineyard retreat leaders all over the country have noted that women are looking for healing soon after their chemical abortion experiences.
The reason is not too hard to puzzle out. A first-trimester surgical abortion is performed in a matter of minutes, on an examination table in an office with all the trappings of a healthcare provider. Chemical abortion takes place in a mother’s home. It lasts for hours and sometimes even for days and ends for too many women with their tiny baby expelled into the toilet.
At abortiontestimonies.com, Patricia from North Carolina wrote, “The worst part of my experience was when I was sitting on the toilet and I felt myself pass a clot that felt strange. I looked into the toilet and saw my baby. It had a head, body, and tiny arms and legs. The shame and guilt that I felt at that moment, as I was forced to flush my aborted baby down the toilet, is impossible to describe.”
Solome in New York shared a heartbreaking testimony: “After hours of hurting, I finally felt a huge physical relief, and the pain was immediately gone. I managed to get up. When I turned around, I saw the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever seen my entire life. I saw my child. It was at that moment that it finally sunk in properly. I really had been pregnant. I had been carrying the life I created inside of me until that very moment.”
WHO COUNTS AS A HUMAN BEING? WHAT THE CHEMICAL ABORTION DEBATE IS REALLY ABOUT
If chemical abortion accounts for some 60% of the 1 million abortions that take place annually in the U.S., that means 600,000 women undergo this procedure every year. Most of them are unprepared for how physically taxing it will be and the regret that will overwhelm them when they see their tiny child, expelled in violence and blood from what should be the safest place on Earth.
If you or someone you know is suffering after an abortion, healing is available. Go to AbortionForgiveness.com to find a program nearby.
Janet Morana is the executive director of Priests for Life and the co-founder of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign.
