This person wishes to remain anonymous, due to personal and professional persecution and prejudice.

Abortion is a very controversial subject. I am pro-choice, but I respect the opinions of those women who are pro-rights.

I had a rough childhood, which consisted of sexual abuse at a young age. The sexual abuse caused me to act out during my teen years before I understood why I exhibited self-destructive behavior. I experimented with drugs and alcohol, and I was a promiscuous girl. I thought sex was the equivalent of love and I had no respect for my body or my soul, for that matter.

It was a dark time in my life.

When I was eighteen, I got entangled with some scary people—like dangerous scary, and I was unable to get away alone. During that time I became pregnant. Suddenly I was nineteen, pregnant, and living with a parent again. I had to be physically rescued from the people I had become involved with and taken to another state. The parent I moved in with had a spouse who had just experienced a nervous breakdown, so I went from a dangerous environment to another unhealthy environment. I had done drugs and drank alcohol, and I feared that the child I carried could have had long-term effects from what I had done. My choices were to bring a child into the world, put the child up for adoption or to have an abortion. I had an unstable home life, no college, no job experience that would adequately support a child, and I was suffering from PTSD after what I had been through. I did not feel that I had a choice, so I chose to terminate the pregnancy.

The day of my consultation, the clinic did an ultrasound, and told me the fetus looked healthy. The tech even showed me the tiny fluttering heart. There was a chance that I could have a normal child. I had already made my decision, and I knew I was not ready to be a GOOD mother. I could have been a mother, but at that time in my life I had to grow up myself before I could ever be a real parent.

The image of that little peanut with the fluttering heart was all I thought about up until my mom took me to the clinic for the procedure. So many things ran through my mind. I am not the type of person who makes excuses for her decisions. I knew that I had screwed up and that my reckless behavior caused the pregnancy.

I was killing my child.

I shoved that thought into a box in my heart and sealed it up. I had to. There was no other way I could go through with it. I had initially thought I could describe the procedure, but I just can’t. This happened many years ago. I still remember every detail like it was yesterday.

My decision took a piece of my soul that I will never get back.

Every year I have thought about that child and what would have been. I wish I would have had the baby. I wish I would have put the child up for adoption. There are so many loving couples and individuals that long for children. But I made another choice. I had to forgive myself, and I have asked for God’s forgiveness many times. I have to stand by what I chose, and I have to remember that the decision at the time was due to the condition of my emotional and mental state at the time. I can’t express how much this experience hurt, how much regret it has caused, and how I wish I could go back in time.

If you are contemplating the choices regarding your pregnancy, I hope this story will help for you to see both sides. It is not an easy out, and the scar will never completely go away.