QuestionI'm a senior in highschool and are five months from graduating. About two days ago my boyfriend and I had unprotected sex, I was supposed to get my period yesterday and today it still hasn't come..is that normal? I don't know and I'm very concerned. So, I did what I was best at and I started to research the possibilities i'd have if I were pregnant. I couldn't bear the thought of giving my baby away and never being able to get it back, so adoption was out( I spoke with my bf about it also, he agreed with me), I then began looking at abortions...I'm pro- choice myself so I did look into it and the safest, less disturbing form of abortion I found was aspiration..it seemed very quick and less painful and had no scarring I needed to worry about healing, umm I guess what I want to know is how high are my chances of being pregnant and if I did decide to get an abortion, is aspiration the best? What are the emotional downsides?
Thankyou in advance for your time and consideration of our questions.
AnswerHello, chelsea,
You're welcome.
I am so glad you came to me before you did anything. So many of the women don't come and talk to me until they have experienced damage, sometimes severe and life-threatening.
So you will be able to graduate well before your due date. I don't know what the policy is in the area where you live, about pregnant students. However, there is help available, so before you do anything, please get all the information you can get about your alternatives. You don't necessarily have to choose adoption. It is a good, but difficult, choice. But the fact you couldn't do it tells me that you know you will love your baby, and that your wanting to reject your baby is a temporary problem. Abortion is forever, however. You can't take it back.
And by the way, I had a baby while I was in college, and I not only got good grades for the semester I gave birth, but I got my degree.
If the only time you had sex with your boyfriend was two days before your period was due, then the chance you are pregnant is very, very remote. A woman ovulates about 14 days before her period starts, if she has one. It is much more likely that you haven't had your period because you are under a lot of stress, worrying about being pregnant. There could also be other reasons.
Any method of abortion can cause you serious harm. The major harm that an aspiration abortion may cause is infection. The instruments they use are very difficult to clean and sterilize, and abortionists are notorious for not keeping their instruments clean and sterile anyway, and I'm talking about in the United States. You would not only increase your chance of getting such an infection, but you could easily become sterile from the infection. You could get a sexually transmitted disease, including HIV, if the abortionist used the device on a woman who had any of these before he used it on you. Any kind of abortion can also make you more likely to get triple negative breast cancer, which kills 1/4 of its victims. It is very difficult to treat. If anyone closely related to you has had breast cancer, your chance of getting it is a virtual certainty. It tends to strike a woman while she is still young, in her 30's or even earlier. In addition, any dilation they have to do (and they will have to do some, because if you are pregnant, your cervix is tightly closed) will weaken your cervix, and could put your future children at risk of developing serious birth defects, such as cerebral palsy, epilepsy, autism, mental retardation, blindness, or deafness. The claim that aspiration won't cause scarring is a lie. Infection can certainly cause scarring. Even though they don't scrape, they are still tearing the lining away, and this will leave scars. If any scars form over your Fallopian tubes, you would be more vulnerable to tubal pregnancy in the future. This requires surgery to save your life, and you will lose the baby. Any type of abortion can also cause you to develop auto-immune disease, such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. A pill abortion involves the taking of toxic drugs (toxic especially to pregnant women), that stop the hormone that controls a woman's bleeding, which can result in bleeding to death. They also stop a woman's immune system, so if she gets an infection, she could develop toxic shock syndrome. This kills a women within hours of the beginning of symptoms. The woman's body does not fight back. I know of no way to save a woman's life, even with the most aggressive treatment, once symptoms start. A surgical abortion involves scraping, scarring, weakening the cervix, possible damage to other organs, hemorrhage, reaction to anesthesia, sometimes fatal, sometimes just resulting in paralysis or inability to communicate. If you are thinking of abortion partly because you don't want your parents to know, this is a very unwise decision, because if you develop a complication, they will find out, and they will have to pay your medical bills. More than 1/3 of the women who get a surgical abortion develop permanent damage to their reproductive system, and that is NOT including the chance of getting breast cancer. And damage to the reproductive system is only one of the risks. An aspiration abortion is really just an early surgical abortion. Sometimes they do it on women who are not pregnant (they sometimes do an abortion of any kind on a woman who is not pregnant), and it is difficult to make sure they got everything. The medical consequences of any kind of abortion are being swept under the rug. If a woman is killed, the doctor who fills out the death certificate almost always lists the complication as the cause of death, even though without the abortion, the complication would never have occurred. I have entire books full of information on the possible complications of abortion, and on the women who have been killed, with specifics of who the abortionist was, and what the cause of death was.
It is good you asked about the emotional consequences as well, because they are also significant. A woman who has an abortion is six to eight times as likely to commit suicide as a woman who carries to term. She is 3 1/2 times as likely to be killed in some other way during the first year after abortion. I have sat up all night with suicidal women. It's the most terrifying experience I have ever had. A woman is also much more likely to develop eating disorders (anorexia or bulimia), sleep disorders such as horrible nightmares (I have experienced these, and you don't want to go there), and abuse alcohol, drugs, and herself. Abortion also causes serious spiritual damage. It can alienate her from God, and a woman often has a great deal of difficulty forgiving herself. In addition, abortion has emotional consequences for the father. Since most men won't talk about this, the severity of this is not as obvious. It will almost certainly break up your relationship.
Abortion is bad medicine, and it's unethical. The first principle of medical ethics is "primum non nocere (first do no harm)". Since a woman with a normal pregnancy is NOT at risk, and abortion DOES cause harm, it is unethical for that reason alone. Any person who would do an abortion on you cannot be trusted to tell you the truth about it, either, and abortionists will wash their hands of you if you develop a complication. The fact that abortion is legal confuses a lot of women, because they think "legal" means "safe." As if the inherent dangers weren't sufficient, abortionists are careless. There are no abortion facilities I know of that would even pass a basic health department inspection, and the organizations that refer for abortion are sweeping this under the rug, too.
There are organizations all over the United States that provide many different kinds of help. They provide counseling, help with telling parents, information such as I have just given you, medical and financial help (not that they will pay you, but that they will help you find a way to have enough money), furniture, supplies, and clothing for the baby, and other kinds of help. To find an organization near you, go to this web site:
http://www.optionline.org/
The lists are linked on the right, and it's not real obvious. You deserve to hear all sides before you act.
You should have a talk with your boyfriend. He shouldn't be taking advantage of your body and putting you at risk. If he truly cares about you, he will take this event as a warning, and he will protect you. If he doesn't care about you, you deserve someone better. Your boyfriend should respect you and your body and help you with self-respect.
Don't worry about your views on the legal questions involved in abortion. We women deserve better. We deserve to be protected from unscrupulous abortionists who will tell us lies about how safe abortion is (and there are plenty of web sites out there that propagate those lies). But regardless of whether you agree, when it is YOUR body and YOUR life, what you think about the political question doesn't really apply. You know that the total responsibility for making the decision and for the consequences is yours. This is a very heavy burden to bear.
Watch for subtle pressure from your boyfriend to have an abortion. 2/3 of the women who have an abortion report coercion. It can be as subtle as telling you that it's your decision. Women feel abandoned when a man says this. We instinctively want the father to fight to protect his child. Don't be surprised if it becomes more overt if you tell him you are having second thoughts.
Please don't do this. Please take care of yourself and stay safe. I'll be here for you. Please keep in touch, and let me know how things go. I will say a prayer for you.
