was pregnant again. It was 1978, and abortion had been legal five years. The
words "free pregnancy tests" drew me into the family planning center that day. I
medical procedure called abortion, an unwanted and untimely pregnancy could be
solved by the removal of that tissue. I thought our lives could be back to normal
“very soon.”
At the time my husband and I were living on his limited income as an enlisted
Marine. He felt we could not afford another child. Shortly after that visit, I walked
into an abortion facility. What I remember from that day is that the pain was so
horrendous that I became unconscious. When I awoke, I was numb and in shock.
What was supposed to be quick and simple lasted all day.
When I returned home, I bled heavily for three days. At the age of 17, I did not
know this was called “hemorrhaging.” I had never been sick a day in my life. I
struggled between laying there and possibly dying, or facing the fear of telling
someone I had had an abortion. For the first time in my life, I experienced a type
of shame I had never experienced before. I chose not to go to the hospital.
Miraculously, I survived.
Although I did not have the skills to communicate what had happened to me, I
knew I had been lied to, I knew that what was inside of me was more than tissue,
and there was no one to talk to. Shame, silence, and anger took control of my
life.
My next two pregnancies were not normal. For the first time in my life, I started
to develop documented physical illnesses, migraines, seizures, depression, PMS,
suicidal thoughts, and psychiatric hospitalization. I was unable to enjoy my
birthday ( July, the month I had my abortion) with my three sons. I dreaded
Christmas because my aborted baby’s due date had been December 7 (Pearl
Harbor). Secretly, I believed that I did not deserve to receive love from anyone. I
missed moments of bonding with my other children that I cannot get back.  
For the next 25 years, shame and silence dominated my life. It has just been
within the past year and a half that I have been able to break free from the
chains of silence and shame by publicly speaking the truth. Abortion is not a
quick simple solution; it is a choice that destroys lives. It is a choice I will always
regret.
When abortion on demand became legal 31 years ago, women were told abortion
was a simple, safe solution to an unwanted or untimely pregnancy. This is not
the truth. It's a choice I wish I had not chosen.
My son at 18-years-old was in the USMC in Iraq. I wasn't  so much worried about
his safety, as I am about the safety of unborn babies in mothers’ wombs in
America. The statistics for my son's survival are greater than the statistics for
the survival of a child supposedly in the safest place of all, “His mother's womb."  
Cynthia's bio

mother of three sons and
was a Marine wife for 14
Sawyer Business College,
Anaheim, CA in 1979. She
attended Oklahoma State
University 1992-1995,
Still-water, OK, majoring in
Special Education.
She has served on mission
trips to Houston and Corpus
Christi, Texas with the
OSU--Baptist Student Union
while at-tending College.
She resides in Tulsa,
Oklahoma.      
Cynthia , Oklahoma
Art by Cynthia
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