All in California

"I was married, the mother of two girls, and found myself with another unplanned pregnancy."

Sharing Truth
Two Abortions, California, Texas

“We had a very emotional conversation that day, and my mom had the ultimate courage on telling me about her two abortions. My mom was 17 when she had her first abortion, she had me when she was 21, and she had her second abortion at 26. This was something I never knew about, and it was something she never talked about, but that conversation helped me in making my choice.” Read more.

"He never once thought about how this could affect my mental health."

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Three Abortions, California

“All he cared about was how he wanted this second child. He wanted a playmate for child number one, who is on the spectrum, which within itself is a lot of work with them being a toddler and having that disability. So once the second abortion was done, he really went overboard and in some ways is trying to trap me, though I have been using a birth control that works for me and happy that I was able to have such.” Read more.

"I didn't have the tools to navigate these situations due to my upbringing in a culture that didn't talk about sex or womb trauma."

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Three Abortions, California

“It was when I was seeking my third abortion that I realized I needed real, deep healing around the relationship choices I was making and what they cost my body, as well as some generational trauma I was carrying. My mom was forced to give up her firstborn. She was an immigrant from Peru, experiencing domestic violence, and she gave birth at a Catholic hospital where they didn't speak Spanish. They highly encouraged her to give up her child, which I feel is more coercion when you don't know the language. It's a secret she kept for 31 years, so there's womb trauma on my mom's side.” Read more.

"I knew this was the worst possible environment that I could bring a child into."

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Multiple Abortions, Massachusetts, California, U.S.

“Making the decision to have an abortion is a complex and quiet calculus. Even when it feels uncomplicated, there are nuances. As a woman of color, I grew up like with so much stigma around not being an unwed teenage mother. Now that I'm older I wonder why I got so fixated on there being only one way –married—to have kids.” Read more.

"When I told him I was pregnant he screamed at me for two hours as I cowered on the couch."

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Three Abortions, California, U.S.

“My third abortion was only a few years later, in a new relationship with a good guy. He was a hard no and I just wasn't going to have and raise a child by myself that the child's father didn't want. That was the hardest one. But it was still the right choice. I wanted my child to be wanted and loved and at least start its life with a stable home.” Read more.

Video ~ "I knew my future would be limitless because I had the abortion care I needed when I needed it."

Sharing Truth
Two Abortions, California, U.S.

Watch and listen as Erin describes how her abortions allowed her to get an education, land her dream job, and thrive in a career of helping others. Her abortions also let her fulfill one of her deepest values as an immigrant. “I feel this it’s my honor but also my duty to build a life where I can give back,” she says.Watch and listen.

"We both knew that we couldn’t take care of yet another child because we were both still so young and he too had already had a child from a previous relationship."

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Four Abortions, California

“A year later I got pregnant by him again. This time I decided to keep it. I felt I wasn’t emotionally strong enough to go through another abortion although I was still so incredibly young. Four months after we had our child, I got pregnant AGAIN!! I didn’t want to have another abortion but I did anyway. Me and my child’s father separated for about 8 months after the second abortion.” Read more.

"Considering our society's lack of support for pregnant women, especially single, unstable, poor ones, imagining that motherhood would have turned me into a model citizen is magical thinking."

Sharing Truth
Six Abortions, California, U.S.

“In my 20s, I had 6 abortions in 7 years. I got pregnant while using condoms, diaphragms, cervical caps, and the sponge. Furious, I had my tubes tied, and even then I got pregnant once more. I felt I owed it to society not to burden the world with more people like myself - traumatized by a bad childhood that no amount of therapy seemed able to fix.” Read more.

Podcast ~ "The day I had my first abortion was the best day of my life because it gave me the life I've had ever since, and I've had a wonderful life."

Sharing Truth
Two Abortions, California, Audio

“It’s important to share our stories so that people understand. It’s particularly important for young women who are faced with these choices to feel it’s an OK choice to make. It’s not a selfish choice. It’s a choice you are making for the good of your future, your children’s future and society’s future. “ Click the green title to access the audio.

"As someone who has been sexually active since 1991, having many pregnancies is not odd."

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Four Abortions, Maryland, Michigan, California

“The abortion was a quick, painful experience and I remember being angry to see that my boyfriend had left the waiting room to go to McDonald's while I was having the abortion. It was raining that day and we drove to a house of a friend and I chilled out for the day. I felt angry at my boyfriend for not having to suffer. I felt sad but not exactly because of the loss of pregnancy. In retrospect, the fact that the experience was unprepared for, unprocessed, and unsupported made it so much harder than it needed to be.”

Click the green title to see the whole story.

"We were made to watch a film explaining what an abortion was — just in case I had mistakenly stumbled into Jimmy’s Leg Removal Emporium."

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Four Abortions, California, U.S., Humor

“My first was in New York in the early ’90s, when I was 24, at a clinic. It took a whole day, during which I was herded around to a series of freezing rooms with a fairly large group of women — maybe 15 of us — in these absurdly short robes they’d given us to wear. When sitting or walking, I had to hold mine down with two hands. “Yes, Miss, please, how do we get this thing to cover our hoo-has?” one of the women in my group shouted out to one of our handlers. As they put me under — abortions accompanied by general anesthesia are called “twilight” — I was still giggling about the hoo-ha joke.”

Click the green title to see the whole story.

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