Abortion Stories

Abortion has been permitted in Canada for 50 years. Today, we have a much better understanding of how abortion affects women, men, families and society as a whole. Our organization hears from countless women and men have been deeply damaged by abortion.

If you are considering an abortion, or have had an abortion, please know you are not alone. There is hope. Confidential counseling and healing services are available. Please call:

Project Rachel: 905-526-1999 or 1-888-385-3850

Second Chance Ministries: Angelina Steenstra, 905-430-7990 Angelina@Second.ca

National Office of Post-Abortion Reconciliation & Healing 414-483-4141 Email noparh@yahoo.com

The following stories are taken from the website, Abortion Changes You.

I am 24 and on Wednesday I am having an abortion.

I am 24 and on Wednesday I am having an abortion. I am 2 years from finishing my Social Work degree. I am single and I do not exactly know who the father is. There is a list of three names. I told all three of them and at first they all denied being capable of being the father.. I didnt do this on my own. It had to be one of them. At first, I wanted to continue with the pregnancy. Do it on my own. But as time went on I realised it wouldn’t be right. I felt bad that my child wouldn’t know their father. That my child wouldn’t have a male role model. So through the pressures of the men and realising it was right for me and the baby I decided I am going to abort. I have never felt so alone. I have so much support and it is wonderful but when its you and your decision ultimately it is so isolating. I know I will regret this. I know I will wonder what could have been. I will grieve for the loss of the child that could have been. I am devastated beyond words. But I am doing whats right for me. I know it will get easier. But right now everything feels broken.

So I’m sure my story may be different

So I’m sure my story may be different or maybe even the same. 29 years ago I was 18 years old and had just lost my dad 3 months earlier to cancer. It was a no brainier back then that the person I was with was a fling and I got pregnant. So after I got 1/2 the money, we never spoke again. Now 28 years go by and we have Facebook. He friends me and I actually tell him that I’m the last person I’d think he’d friend. Long story short, I asked him to call me a couple of months ago. We talked for about an hour about what happened and he of course is so different now. Two months ago we both ended up at a funeral of a mutual friends father. Since then we’ve reconnected and it has brought so many feelings. I find myself crying and thinking about the what-if’s. It’s making me crazy. I’m married now and have 3 wonderful children, as he has 2. They are all almost over 18 but the feelings I had for him so long ago have resurfaced. What do I do?

She would have been maybe 17 years old

She would have been maybe 17 years old or so. She would have had golden brown tanned skin with thick golden ringlets and greenish hazel eyes. She would have been my brother’s daughter with his girlfriend at the time. She was an ivory white English girl with blonde hair. My brother is a black American guy living in the UK. We were all living in the UK at the time but had come to America to visit. My bro brought his English girlfriend to meet the family. He actually had 3 sons by his ex and that was a complicated relationship. She hated anyone my bro got involved with and did her best to try to mess him up. She used his 3 boys against him constantly. Anyway we liked the new girlfriend and welcomed her into the family. At the time of the visit I didn’t realize she was pregnant…until months later after they broke up. The only clue was that we all went to an amusement park and I was surprised she wouldn’t ride the roller coasters with me. She had a good reason not to ride. She was pregnant with my brother’s baby but she didn’t want to tell us. Sadly my brother and her decided his life was too complicated with his crazy ex to bring a new baby into the world. They decided to not have their baby. I only found out months later when my bro finally broke down and confessed why the broke up…the pain of the abortion was too much for them. I would have been this baby’s Auntie. I’m not sure why I feel like she was a girl…i just do. She would have been so beautiful. I have not spoke to my bro about this for years…that girlfriend is long gone. She was the best girlfriend he ever had. I miss that baby that never got a chance to be born.

My story.

My story. When I was young, I had an all-too-intimate knowledge of what it was like to grow up with a drug addicted parent… in fact, I had two. Neither of my parents sought out help, they refused to change their ways and instead carried on, doing the best they could to raise their children while under the influence of drugs. I wish they had realized the impact of their choices, that growing up this way wasn’t “normal.” It was dysfunctional chaos that led us to hate not only them but ourselves in the process. I would’ve given anything for them to understand the repercussions and aftermath of growing up with drug-addicted parents. I write this as someone who’s mother is no longer in my life because she chose drugs over her daughters, whose father makes himself a mere ghost in my life and isn’t supportive or involved in any of my goals or achievements. I can’t tell you the last time one of my parents asked me how my day was, how I was doing in school, or how work was going. So here is to you mom and dad because these are the effects that haunt me each day. Even when I am surrounded by people I love, I still feel alone. Regardless of all those who support and love me, I still feel alone. I feel like it’s just me against this crazy, messed up world. I could really use a parent once in a while for advice and support, or even just to know I can lean on them when life gets tough. There are days I spend drowning in my depression and others where I can’t get out of bed to face the world. Knowing I don’t have that unconditional love from a mom or dad on days when I need it most can makes me feel like the loneliest person in the world. As I grow older, I have struggled with finding ways to practice self-love because I was never taught it growing up. There are times I feel like no one will ever understand completely. I don’t know too many people who don’t have their parents in their lives. I see most of the people around cherishing their parents and all they’ve done for them. I feel like everyone around, despite any problems life may throw their way, they can always lean on their parents no matter what. But I don’t have that and I never will. And when I want to cry about it or vent, I feel like nobody will ever understand what it truly feels like. The trauma I faced when I was younger left me with a heavy heart that is hard to walk around with each day. And as much as I want a perfect life, it seems impossible at times because I am afraid my past will haunt me forever. I always feel like something is missing. It always feels like there’s this hole in my heart, a giant void that will never be able to be filled properly. I find myself seeking out “replacement” parents in a lot of people, trying to find a different connection or bond that’ll maybe take the pain away, but I never exactly find what I am-looking for. When I have big news, I know I can’t call my parents or share this happiness with them. It just feels like a huge part of my life is missing and I feel shame that I don’t know how to fix it properly. Instead, I apply self-sacrificing behaviors to my daily life in an attempt to patch together the holes of my childhood. I go out of my way to make everyone around me happy, I give and give until there is nothing left in my heart, then I find it in myself to give a little more. But it seems like there’s nothing in this world that could replace the love from my parents that I am missing. The good memories are the most painful. I hang on to the good memories for dear life. Any of those fleeting, happy memories I have, I try to cling to. I replay them in my head when I am feeling down or angry, trying to make sense of it all. But in a way, these memories only cause more pain because I know life can never stay that way and will most likely never be. I have learned how to do everything on my own and continue to live that way. Everything is much more complicated because I didn’t have a parent there to guide me or offer advice. I was forced to figure it out on my own and that’s a hard habit to break. The only person I can depend on is myself, that’s why I can be stubborn and stuck in my ways but trusting others isn’t easy for me. Feeling helpless and useless is something I have become used to. I can’t make my parents want to get help for themselves, I don’t know what else to do, and as a result, I have become self-loathing and wish I could’ve done more. But the truth is, there really was nothing myself could do to change them. But that doesn’t stop me from feeling helpless in a world where everything is spiraling out of control. This has lead me to grow up feeling useless and burdensome to those I care about. My emotions are confusing. I feel angry and sad all at the same time. I have so much pent up anger from all the neglect, abuse, and broken promises. But at the same time, I am sad that this is the reality of it all. I am sad they can’t see life the way I do. I tend to create an alternate life that I envision where they get the help they need, move on, and have a happy life with me in it, but ultimately that’s not the reality. I feel so many different emotions about it all, and it varies day by day. Because of this, I had to grow up not knowing how to properly express my emotions. I bottle things up because the last thing I want to do is make anyone feel the pain I am feeling. I constantly wonder how different life would be if my parents weren’t addicts. It’s a sad, sad truth, but I always have these thoughts in the back of my mind- what if my parents weren’t addicts? What if they were in my life, what if they were involved and supportive? How different would I have turned out? What if I could share my happiness with them? What if I never had to worry about them doing something stupid or hurting themselves? How different would life be if they were just my parents, my role models? What kind of person would I be today? These questions don’t go away with age, they follow me throughout our life. I am afraid they will even affect how I raise my future kids, trying my absolute hardest to be the exact opposite of how my parents were. And here I sit with complete numbness because I feel like them by having an abortion. I’ve always told myself that I will not be like them and that I will be the mother that I desired for as a child. Why did I throw that away so fast? I knew what I was doing was wrong in my heart because I constantly feel the pain, but it was so easy for my ex boyfriend (the child’s father) made it seem like it would be the best decision and it would benefit our lives apart, but now I truly see it only benefits his and has destroyed mine. I didn’t even have time to truly think what I wanted, but it seemed so easy with everything else crumbling that I had to do it. He has 2 young sons and he didn’t want my child? How could he be so heartless and selfish. That was MY baby. I guess you can say I do have daddy issues. All I want is to be loved and that’s what I would search for in men no matter the cost. He said he would paid for the procedure and he did. I was afraid if I kept the child then I would have to continue to have him in my life. I didn’t want that. On top of that, I don’t have any financial security and I was about to be evicted out of his house in just four short days. So how could I even have time to think about what I truly wanted and not him. What did I have to lose anyways because everything around me was falling apart? I will tell you what I lost, and that is my ability to feel life. I feel numb inside my body. I look around and nothing seems to make me happy or sad. The things I enjoyed doing no longer excite me. I just want to feel something… why am I suffocating in a world with plenty of air. I don’t know how to be alone because I put myself in situations so I didn’t have to be…I’ve always been with someone to fill that void no matter what it cost. I have been so reckless that I would throw my own life away for theirs. I didn’t care as long as I felt some type of love and want. So now after all of the heartbreaks and self destruction and selfishness has cost me to be alone. I feel like I have no one and I truly have no family to lean on. I just want to call someone mom or dad to help me through this but all I have is myself. I can’t find reasons to why my existence matters when all I have is myself. So I need guidance to help me find my feelings again and most importantly I want to know who I truly am.