Woman attempts suicide after fiance pressures her into abortion, abandons her

An article in Us News and World Report, a publication not known for being pro-life, tells the story of Nichole Anderson, who attempted suicide after being pressured into abortion by her fiancé, who then left her.

Anderson wanted to keep her baby, and tried to get her fiancé to support her:

At night, after Nichole Anderson found out she was pregnant, she would take her boyfriend’s hand and lay it across her stomach. “Can you feel our baby growing inside me?” she longed to say. But he would snatch his hand away. He wanted Anderson to get an abortion. Their wedding would be in September, nine months away. It was enough to prepare himself to become a husband, let alone a father.

When Anderson went to the abortion facility, she was offered a chemical abortion using the drug methotrexate. Methotrexate is less commonly used in medical abortions than mifepristone but works in a similar way. In Anderson’s case, the methotrexate was used with the second drug in the common abortion pill regimen, misoprostol.

According to the article, the methotrexate shot “would end the growth of the fetal tissue” and the misoprostol would “induce contractions and expel the fetal tissue.”

The abortion regimen was extremely painful for Anderson, and the depression that followed her abortion was worse:

The following week, Anderson was in such physical pain that she could barely walk. For the rest of the month, she continued to bleed spottily. But worse was her depression. She tried to talk to her boyfriend, but he always changed the subject.

READ: What you need to know about abortion you can learn from women who have had one

Her fiancé, who had convinced her to have an abortion for the good of their marriage, abandoned her:

A month after the procedure, [her fiancé] told Anderson they were through. She says she envies his ability to walk away from the situation. “If I could have stopped what I felt and walked away, I’d have done it, too.”

Anderson began hemorrhaging soon after he left. She ended up in the emergency room with complications.

Sometime after that, she attempted suicide by cutting her wrists, but survived. Her suicide attempt was directly related to her abortion and subsequent abandonment by her baby’s father.

Anderson sought help at a pregnancy resource center, where she learned she was not alone in mourning an aborted baby. She has begun the healing process:

In September, Anderson finally put away the crib she had kept in her room for several months. She painted a watercolor that reminds her of the ultrasound of her fetus and hung it in her apartment. Around her neck is a gold charm in the shape of a baby, set with an August birthstone, the month her child would have been born. “I don’t want another woman to have to feel this,” she says, explaining her decision to discuss her abortion. “It’s time for women as a group to stand up and say, ‘This hurts me.”

Anderson is not the only woman to attempt or commit suicide after an abortion. One study found that women who had abortions had a 6-7 times greater suicide rate than women who had not aborted. Other studies have also shown a link.

Source: Elise Ackerman, Cheryl L. Reed, Ilan Greenberg, Natela Cutter and Jill Jordan Sieder “Who Gets Abortions and Why” Us News and World Report January 19, 1998

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