Adults helped arrange and hide her abortion, leading to 22 years of self-hatred

Sadie Olson grew up as a child of divorce, estranged from her father from the time she was 12, due to his explosive temper. This led to her searching for love, which opened the door to sexual exploitation — and later, a high-school romance leading to pregnancy.

Non-Parental Adults Helped Arrange a Secret Abortion

“It was a very difficult time in my life,” Olson told Live Action News. When she became pregnant, she went to a “free” clinic without her parents' knowledge, where her pregnancy was confirmed.

“I was a sophomore in high school who was scared and panicked,” Olson said. “I confided in the school nurse whom I trusted about the pregnancy. She told me I would ruin my future and my life if I didn’t have an abortion. I used her phone to schedule the abortion.”

She found out from a staff member at the abortion clinic that she didn’t have to tell her parents about the abortion if she got a judicial bypass. “I missed a class period to go to court to get the judicial bypass,” Olson said. “The school nurse wrote me a note so I could be excused.”

The courthouse was just a block away from her school, so Olson was able to walk to the judicial hearing, but the abortion clinic was an hour’s drive away, meaning another day of missed school along with arranging transportation.

“I had to find a ride to the clinic and that meant paying for gas," Olson said. "All I had at the time were two dollar bills my grandparents had stashed in Easter eggs. I had saved that money and was now using it to pay for a trip to the abortion clinic.”

“My boyfriend and I never discussed what we wanted to do,” Olson said. “We just never had that conversation. But after getting the judicial bypass, I confided to his mother, who was supportive of the abortion. She told me the baby was nothing more than a ‘blood clot’ and I believed her because she worked as a nursing assistant.”

Her boyfriend’s mother solicited donations to help pay for the abortion that killed her own grandchild. A friend stepped up and contributed money.

"My Soul Felt Very Different"

The staff at the abortion clinic had prepared Olson for the protestors she encountered when she was taken to the facility. She was terrified of them; to her, they were the enemy and she was fearful they would harm her. As she searched for the entrance to the building, she saw the group pacing back and forth on the sidewalk.

Olson said, “I heard a woman shout, ‘They murder babies in there.’ My boyfriend was trying to protect me and when I finally entered the building and the door shut behind me, I heard the buzzer going off repeatedly as the protestors tried to open the door. I didn’t realize at the time they were trying to help me, not hurt me.”

She was accompanied by her best friend’s older sister and her boyfriend, along with Olson’s own boyfriend — but no one was with her during the procedure.

After her boyfriend paid for the abortion, he left and she was alone. She felt the urge to flee but resisted; she felt she needed to follow through with her end of the bargain, feeling obligated to those who helped her get to the clinic without her parents’ knowledge.

“By having the abortion, I thought I was preventing a life from coming into existence, when a life already existed inside of me,” Olson said. 

She was ushered into a room for “counseling” where she completed forms with the oversight of a staff member where Olson asked what God might think of her abortion. 

Olson said, “The woman responded with another question: 'Doesn’t your God forgive?' At the time, I struggled with whether God existed, but her response was enough to reassure me... yet after the surgery, my soul felt very different. I felt what I had done was wrong but wasn’t sure why.”

Reconciliation with God

For 22 years after her abortion, Olson struggled with self-hatred and lack of self-respect. She had been living a reckless lifestyle and thought she was beyond God’s reach. 

“I was on a self-destructive path until someone invited me to attend a healing retreat,” Olson said. “I didn’t want to go initially but did. While there, I finally made the connection that I had ended the life of a human being. I realized that women were not created to kill their babies.”

The turning point came when someone at the retreat made a startling statement that resonated with her.

Olson said, “She said, ‘God didn’t just grieve our babies, he grieved us, too.’ That was the moment I was fully transformed because I realized that God didn’t hate me; He loved me. I just wept.”

That God offered forgiveness, not condemnation, allowed Olson to fully surrender her life to him. She had finally found the healing that had eluded her for over 20 years.

Making a Difference

“After the retreat, I felt convicted to become active in the pro-life movement,” Olson said. “I started by deleting some of my social media platforms and started liking pro-life, Christian groups.”

She received a sponsorship from Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust paving the way for her to travel to Washington, D.C., to learn about activism.

During Olson's life journey, she experienced two more unplanned pregnancies, but decided she would never again have an abortion. Today, she’s the single mother of two sons (one adopted in 2021) and a daughter. 

She is now focused on putting pressure on healthcare regulatory boards to shutter abortion clinics that are operating against standards of care.

“If I can help make a difference, anyone who has a heart for pro-life activism can also make a difference,” Olson said.