Colleen’s Story

It was back in 1969-I was dating the man that I am now married to and now we have 5 children. I found out I was pregnant and neither of us were in any way ready for a baby-I was 18 and he was 20. This was before abortion was legal and I had no choice but to tell my parents; my father was a doctor and arranged one for me. My mother took me to a building that was mostly vacant and on one floor was the doctor’s office-the procedure took 3 days-packing was put in and then my uterus was scraped-the pain was horrible and luckily I had no bad after-effects. Thankfully abortion became legal and I was in the position where I had to make that decision 2 more times after we were married. I have never regretted in any way that I had these abortions. For me, at the time it was not possible to go through with these pregnancies and I know I made the right decisions each time. There is no comparison in having an illegal abortion and a legal one-I never want to see it go back to the days where girls had to sneak around to have an abortion. It is not an easy decision, but for me I know it was the right decision.