Women pregnant by rape: Abortion ‘just added more layers of trauma’

Many people assume that abortion is the best answer for women who conceive in rape. But as these women’s stories show, abortion often only serves to add to the survivor’s pain.

Deana Schroeder was drugged and raped at 17. She says that when she learned she was pregnant…

… my family, counselors, and doctors took control. They intended the best. They wanted to help me. And even though there are literally no studies showing any benefit from abortion, they had total confidence in the social myth that abortion is the best option, even the only option, in cases of sexual assault.

Even many pro-lifers approve of abortions in cases of rape. So surely it must be the best choice, right?

But for Deana, it wasn’t. “Not in my case,” she says. “It just added more layers of trauma, self-doubt, grief and guilt. The negative impact lasted for years.”

READ: Pregnant from rape, Victoria now says ‘my daughter saved me’

Another rape survivor, who told her story at LifeNews, wrote:

I knew abortion was wrong and went against everything I had believed up until that point. At the same time, I had no ability to process what was happening in my life. I couldn’t even tell anyone. I was shocked, embarrassed and disgusted with myself. In the week that followed, anger and fear built up in my heart until I felt I had no other option.

But she suffered after her abortion:

I put up a good front, pretending that everything was fine. In reality, I had found my way to a secret life of drugs, alcohol and just about anything else I could do to numb the pain I felt inside my heart…

Now, nearly five years removed from the decision to have my abortion, I can say with some certainty that I regret it to the fullest extent possible. My heart hurts deeply with the wounds that came from my assault.  But the pain of knowing that I will never meet my child hurts more deeply. While I continue to wonder how I could have coped with having a baby from rape, I know that killing him did nothing to heal my pain.

READ: Those of us who conceive in rape will not be bullied into silence

A woman who identified herself as Cheryl wishes more people understood that abortion doesn’t solve a rape victim’s problems:

I just wish society would realize the long-term effect that abortion has on women even in the case of rape. You know, to further traumatize a woman the way I’ve been further traumatized. I just don’t want this to happen to no one else.

The website AbortionConcern.com, now down, had stories from post-abortive women. One woman who had an abortion after rape remembers her abortion as traumatic:

The clinic staff made me feel not only like I was on an assembly line, but if I stopped to look at information, or if I looked like I was scared, and/or having second thoughts, they became impatient. One nurse even raised her voice to me; like how dare I question her.

I barely whimpered — almost like a sad little kitten — and this woman berated me and made me feel so scared and lost…

Physically, the abortion hurt almost to the point [where] I was seeing little white spots on the ceiling and the operating room was beginning to softly spin…

I wanted to scream out, “No!!! Stop!!! You’re hurting me, and you’re killing my baby!!! Please stop!!!”

… Fourteen years later, and I still don’t know if it was a little boy or girl baby I aborted. I’ve often suspected “it” (my baby) was a girl …. I ache to hold my baby. And ache that I cannot.

Abortion Procedures: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Trimesters

Another woman, who was date raped, also described a terrible abortion experience:

The abortion itself was like a living hell. I thought my guts were being pulled out. It was degrading and I was terrified. When it was over, something made me ask the doctor, “Was it a boy or a girl?” He answered, “I can’t tell. It’s in pieces.” The counseling consisted of throwing some birth control pills at me. ….

It’s so hard to put into words how the abortion affected me…I …slept with anyone and everyone. I engaged in unprotected sex and each month when I wasn’t pregnant, I would go into a deep depression. … I dropped out of college. I tried suicide…

When that failed, I then tried to make relationships work with men, any man. I was driven with a need to have a child.

She married and suffered four miscarriages. One study has found that women who abort are 85% more likely to have a future miscarriage.

All of these women turned to abortion after rape, hoping it would solve their problems and ease their pain. Instead, it made things worse.

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