Women have continued to reveal why they don’t regret getting their abortions, amid the overtun of Roe v Wade on Friday.
The decision to overturn the landmark came after Politico shared a draft of the ruling, last May, written by Justice Samuel Alito, who said: “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.”
Although Alito said that Roe’s choice to get an abortion was “wrong,” recent studies have shown that women who do get the procedure do not regret it afterwards. In a March 2020 study conducted by Social Science & Medicine, researchers found that within five years after getting an abortion, 95 per cent of people do not regret their choice to do so.
Following Roe v Wade being overturned, BuzzFeed shared a series of conversations with women who have got abortions and how it was a monumental decision that they were ultimately happy with.
One woman, who went by the name u/gavebossmypassword in the BuzzFeed community, said that even though she was in a “stable” relationship with her now-fiancé, she decided to get a surgical abortion, as she didn’t want a child. She also noted that she didn’t have any “doubts” after getting the procedure and knew that she had to get it for herself.
“I wasn’t happy or sad, and I wasn’t unsure or scared. I didn’t have doubts or wonder if I was doing the wrong thing,” she said. “Afterward, I was happy to know it was over because I knew I didn’t want a baby inside me. I just went home, had pizza, and went to bed early due to the painkillers and mild anaesthesia I was given. The next day continued on like any other.”
“I was OK with my choice then, and am still OK with it now,” she added. “It was a selfish decision. It would have been even more selfish to bring an unwanted child into the world.”
Another woman, who went by u/peachy175, addressed how she was an “older woman” when she got pregnant, right after having her third child. However, she said that she knew “right away” that she couldn’t have a fourth child, as she’d be 63 when her child was 18, so an aboriton was the easiest decision for her to make.
“I’d been a mother literally all my adult life, having had my first when I was 17,” she explained. “My significant other isn’t in the best of health either. It was an easy decision to make together.”
A third woman shared how she got an abortion for the sake of her family, as they’re “very conservative” and had already “ostracised” her for having a child out of wedlock. However, after being welcomed back into the family, she had got pregnant out of wedlock once, which she told no one about expect “one cousin”.
She acknowledged that abortion was the best option for her because she didn’t want her or her child to feel the “pain” that she’d felt before when shunned by her family the first time.
“I chose abortion because I am positive my siblings would have repeated their behavior again and this time my living child would be old enough to witness it, understand it, and feel the pain that my family members caused,” a women who went by laura78millikan explained.
A fourth woman, who went by u/Haceldama on BuzzFeed, said that getting an abortion was “euphoric” for her, as it was something that would have kept her trapped in an abusive relationship with a “much older man”. She confessed that since she knew that she wouldn’t be free of him, if she had his child, her first thought was taking her own life.
However, she later realised that getting an abortion was the best choice for her own safety, as she didn’t want him to find out about the pregnancy and couldn’t consider adoption, because he “would never sign away his child”. And although she said that she “doesn’t think about [the abortion] often,” when she does, it something that gives her “relief”.
“It is my belief that my child waited for me to give her a better father,” she said. “I know that both of our lives are a thousand times better than they would have been had I had her with my ex. [To be honest], I doubt I would have survived to the end of the pregnancy.”
On 24 June, the United States Supreme Court officially eliminated the constitutional right to get an abortion in the country.
The ruling came after six conservative justices voted in favour of a Mississippi law, which outlaws abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy. The decision ultimately resulted in the overturn of key precedents established by the 1973 decision in Roe v Wade and the affirming decision in 1992’s Planned Parenthood v Casey.
Although each state gets to decide whether they want to ban aboritons or not, 13 states will move to immediately or quickly outlaw aboriton with so-called “trigger” bans being put in place. The ban of the procedure could also potentially force women and girls to carry pregnancies to term.
You can find a list of abortion funds and pro-choice organisations to donate to and support here.
