TRAUMATIZED: They wish they’d never taken the abortion pill from Planned Parenthood

Many women have experienced pain, regret, and physical and mental trauma after taking the abortion pill. Some of those women who obtained the abortion pill from Planned Parenthood have shared their stories for the pro-life Silent No More Awareness campaign. 

According to its own president, nearly 70% of Planned Parenthood’s abortion business comes from the abortion pill— a drug that has contributed to the deaths of an estimated 7.5 million babies in the U.S. since 2000. The abortion industry ignores FDA safety requirements for the drug mifepristone (200 mg) and sells the abortion pill to women with deficient counseling and follow-up care, despite the drug label’s black box warning about the risk of potentially deadly sepsis complications.

Some Planned Parenthood affiliates offer the abortion pill to pregnant women beyond the FDA-approved gestational limit of 10 weeks, and some prescribe the abortion pill through virtual appointments. 

She delivered an intact baby into her toilet

Patricia was raised a conservative Christian and was hesitant to abort the baby she shared with her boyfriend. She decided to visit Planned Parenthood after her boyfriend agreed to go along with any decision she made. She was already a single mother of a seven-month-old son and was financially dependent on her mother. 

“My experience with the staff at [P]lanned [P]arenthood was not a great one. They were all very cold and uncaring, which I guess should be expected from an abortion clinic,” Patricia wrote on the Silent No More Awareness website. 

Patricia decided to take the abortion pill because she viewed it as an ‘easy way out.’

When Patricia asked the Planned Parenthood doctor if the abortion pill would affect her body negatively, he allegedly told her there was nothing to worry about, that she would have “some bleeding, and possibly clotting,” and that complications resulting from the [abortion] pills were rare.

Patricia claimed she quickly realized the abortionist had lied:

The next day, at home alone with my infant son, I took the abortion pills. Within one hour I knew that everything the doctor had told me was a lie. I was bleeding so heavily, I believed I was dying. I was passing clots the size of baseballs, and I was in the worst physical pain of my life, worse than childbirth.

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.

Three weeks after taking the abortion pill, Patricia allegedly “woke up from a nap covered in blood, and still bleeding.” The abortion had been incomplete, and she required emergency care for the removal of the parts of her deceased baby still in her womb:

About 3 weeks later, I woke up from a nap covered in blood, and still bleeding. I rushed to the ER where I was informed that my body had not passed all of my former pregnancy. A doctor used several giant q-tips to scrape my insides, and I had weekly visits to my OBGYN after that to confirm that my HCG levels were steadily going down.

Patricia wrote that she suffered from depression and shame due to the abortion even after her body had healed and she gave birth to a second son. It was only after Patricia gave her life to Christ that her shame was lifted.

Pressured by her boyfriend to take the abortion pill, she was heartbroken

Jessica had been dating her boyfriend for a few years when she found out she was expecting their child. She wrote at Silent No More Awareness about her hesitation and immediate regret during the abortion process.

“I reluctantly took the first abortion pill in the Planned Parenthood office…I cried hysterically for the hour drive home, wondering how I could be so cruel to kill my own baby,” she wrote.

Back home, when she suffered “excruciating pain” and gave birth to her dead baby on the toilet, she was heartbroken by what she saw:

Not long after I took the second pill I felt nauseous and light headed and stomach cramps started. I felt so weak that I just wanted to lay down, but I was in excruciating pain with heavy bleeding, and I felt that sitting on the toilet was best.

I birthed my dead baby into my toilet. I was heartbroken when I saw that it had tiny fingers and toes.

Jessica described the chemical abortion as being as painful as her previous “two unmedicated full-term births.” She wrote that she and her husband have found forgiveness with God, but she still struggles with regret, urging other women not to choose abortion:

Abortion is murder. Abortion is selfish. Abortion is taking an innocent life. Abortion is absolutely wrong, no matter the circumstances. If you have an abortion you will regret it. That regret never leaves.

In fact, I feel regretful almost every day when I look at my children and wonder what their sibling would have been like.

I hope I will see my baby in heaven, as unworthy as I am, because I didn’t fulfill my motherly duty of protecting him or her.

After she took the abortion pill, she had a botched abortion and an ER visit

Melanie described taking the abortion pill as a heartless and impersonal process, writing at Silent No More Awareness. She claims that she didn’t speak to a counselor at Planned Parenthood before taking the pill that would end the life of the preborn baby she shared with her boyfriend, who thought abortion was best:

The women waiting for the pill were all in a large room. We were pulled one by one and asked by a Planned Parenthood worker, not a counselor, who asked, ‘Are you sure?’ I said, ‘I guess.’ Then I was hurried out. I was in shock and thought, ‘This is not happening. Surely something will happen and it won’t happen.’ I told myself, ‘I’m dreaming.’ But no.

I was called into the back room. It was dark, the furniture was old. There were tiny white cups with one pill inside each lined up in many rows. The doctor looked at me, explained the pill, and gave me a cup. I looked at my boyfriend and I took it.

I was still in shock as I quickly got out of there. It seems like I have been running since that day. Physically I felt no pain, but I was confused. We arrived at the hotel where I would take the other two pills to induce the abortion.

After taking the second set of abortion pills (misoprostol), Melanie experienced labor pains which she claims were unexpected for her because Planned Parenthood hadn’t prepared her for them:

On January 26, I took the second set. Hours later the cramping began. I took one pain pill. They gave me a total of eight. I have been given more for a toothache. I had nausea, diarrhea, and the stomach pain really unnerved me. Then I bled. At first it was a small amount. I felt more cramping. I was thinking, ‘This feels like labor. They did not mention this!’

 I had two sons and I knew labor pains. My uterus was contracting. I began to notice clumps that seemed to get bigger. I could feel them come out of me. This is no period! I was in the bathroom alone watching this happen; the blood coming out began to look like red ribbons.

The next day I was still bleeding quite a bit. I lay in bed looking at the walls. The depression was setting in.

On January 28, we left the hotel. I vividly remember walking with a limp and very weakly. I was not the same anymore.

Allegedly, weeks later at her follow-up appointment at Planned Parenthood, staff performed an ultrasound on Melanie, which revealed that parts of her baby were still in her womb. She was still cramping and bleeding, and she claims she told the staff. Instead of performing an emergency D&C on Melanie, the nurse practitioner gave her more pills (likely misoprostol) to expel the baby’s body. 

“I kept the pills and never took them. I was terrified. I left without scheduling a follow-up appointment. They never gave one to me,” Melanie wrote. 

In early March, after experiencing continual cramping which was so bad that she was “unable to drive,” Melanie went to an urgent care center and then to a hospital, where an ultrasound again revealed parts of her baby’s body were still inside her. She needed an emergency D&C procedure, and she was told by an OBGYN she may need a hysterectomy at just 33 years old:

On March 17, 2011 I was wheeled into surgery at the hospital. I held the nurse’s hand as she and the other nurse wheeled me into the surgery room. At this point I felt traumatized that I walked around with remaining parts of my unborn child inside me. The last thing I remember is the large bright surgical light.

Following her traumatic ordeal, Melanie continued to experience “sharp pains and cramps sometimes.” She was “unable to work” and could “barely leave the house.” A few months after her abortion and D&C, Melanie says she attempted to take her own life. She suffered rage following her abortion but found solace in sharing her story. 

“I think of Planned Parenthood and the callous treatment of women,” she said. “I intend to tell as many women as I can.”

It’s time to defund Planned Parenthood

With stories like these, along with so many of Planned Parenthood’s legitimate health care services plummeting over the past decade while its abortions and taxpayer funding have increased, many are asking, “Why are taxpayers still funding this abortion corporation?”

Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report from 2022-23 reveals 392,715 abortions in a single year, the largest number ever, while it received nearly $700 million taxpayer dollars. That equates to the deaths of 1,076 preborn babies every day, nearly 45 every hour, and one every 80 seconds in 2022-23 — from Planned Parenthood alone, which commits the lion’s share — 40% — of all abortions in the U.S. as a single entity.

While the true number of preborn babies killed and the complications suffered by the women who took the abortion pill may never be known, dozens of women have spoken out about their experiences with the abortion pill. Learn about them through the I Saw My Baby series, the Abortion Pill Kills report, the Can’t Stay Silent series, and through interviews and articles.