Having an abortion is never an easy decision to make, here’s what I did, and why

BY DIANA  (a pen name to protect the author’s privacy) — Twenty years ago I had an abortion, and while not regretting my decision or thinking about it overly much, once in a while I wonder what happened to the soul that was never allowed to be.

To be clear, I am totally pro-choice; I used to volunteer at an abortion clinic, ushering women inside, past a gauntlet of gory anti-choice placards and foaming-at-the-mouth zealots. Yet when I became pregnant and decided not to go through with the pregnancy, I didn’t go to a clinic, but to a hospital where I was totally unconscious during the procedure.

All my actions were cloaked in secrecy, even the friend who collected me from the hospital afterwards didn’t know the truth about why I was there. I told no one about my decision to terminate: not friends, family, or the father of the potential baby.

It probably would have been better if I had someone that I could have confided in, but I have a hard time trusting people (even now) so there was no one that I thought I could open up to.

The father was another issue, because at the time I had two lovers and wasn’t sure who the father was. This scenario might make a good storyline in Mamma Mia, but in real life . . . not so amusing.

If I had known for sure who the father was, would it have made a difference in my decision? I don’t think so, since I wasn’t “in love” with either man, and even when I was pregnant, I didn’t feel any maternal feelings (at least that I recognized at the time).

As the years flowed by I would sometimes think, ‘Oh, she’d be ___ years old now.’ Always thinking it would be a she, for some reason. I didn’t think about it constantly, but every so many years, I’d do a mental time check.

Years later a lover confided that his ex-girlfriend had an abortion the same year as I had. We used to fantasize that the two babies’ souls might have found each other in heaven.

As someone who picks up insects that make their way into my house, and who deposits them outside rather than squishing, it’s strange that I would end my potential baby’s life without agonizing over my decision. It seemed very clear to me from the beginning what I had to do.

I had a WASPY upbringing, so I think at the time I thought that this pregnancy would bring shame to myself and my family. It’s more common nowadays for young girls to keep their babies; the stigma of being an “unwed mother” has definitely lifted, which is wonderful.

In my family sex was never spoken about, and in fact, my father asked me to leave the room if something the least bit salacious came on the TV while we were watching it together. This is not to make excuses for terminating . . . If I had really wanted a child, I’m sure that nothing would have stood in my way. Surely not the fact that I had . . . *gasp* . . . sex to create one.

But the question remains, if everything that lives has a soul, which I’m inclined to believe, where does my would-be baby’s soul reside? Perhaps only in my memory, and on this page.

Diana has a degree in anthropology from an Ivy League university.

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