By Emily Geiger

Today, there was a Sanctity of Life rally on the west steps of the Capitol Building. It’s a memorial remembering the 35^th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

I’ve seen numerous blog posts on the “pro-choice” side of this issue today. One in particular caught my eye. It’s a story about a woman who was helped by an abortion clinic counselor stand up to pressure from her family and fiancé who wanted to have an abortion and told her she had a choice, and she could have the baby if she wanted, which she did.

This is in stark contrast to every other story I’ve heard on this topic. I’ve heard many women who have had abortions speak, and they always say they were never told the truth. They weren’t told about options other than abortion. They were told that the baby was really just a blob of tissue. They were not told that their baby had a heartbeat at 18 days after conception. They were not told that they would hear their babies being torn apart, or that they would smell the chemicals burning their baby’s flesh. They were not told about the guilt and the psychological trauma that the majority of woman who have abortions suffer for the rest of their lives.

As much as I care about this issue, having been fortunate enough to have led what many consider to be a sheltered life,  I can’t talk from personal experience about what abortion really does to women. But, the other day on the radio, I heard a speech from a woman who has been in this situation. She was speaking at a Prayer for Life rally two years ago, and what she said literally left me sobbing as I was driving down the road. If you want to listen, you can find the speech within the podcast found at this website (labeled “2^nd Annual Sanctity of Life Show”). The entire podcast is worth listening to, but the most powerful part comes in the last 10 minutes. Maybe you don’t want to listen to this, but you need to listen to it.

For those of you too lazy to take some time and listen, here’s a transcript that tells the truth about abortion and abortion providers from someone who has been there.

My name is Jennifer. I’m going to talk briefly about an experience I had with the morning after pill, but I also want to talk about what happened to me when I had my abortion.

I used to be pro-choice until I suffered the consequences and realized that it’s actually a poor choice. I was lied to and I believed that abortion was completely safe, that it was safer than giving birth to a baby at nine months.

When I was 15, I had an accident because I was not making mature decisions, and I was having sex before I should have. And I went down to Planned Parenthood thinking that they would help me [by] giving me the morning-after pill. And, when I got there, they proceeded to give me the pills, and when I got home, they told me to take the rest of the pills. When I proceeded to take the rest of the pills, I had a reaction 30 minutes later and ended up in my bathroom vomiting and bleeding so much that I couldn’t even keep my eyes open. I started screaming for my mom, and I fainted on the bathroom floor.

My mom came downstairs and found me passed out in my own blood and vomit and did not know what to do for me because no one had told her that I had taken the morning-after pill. If I had not come to, she would have never known to be able to tell the emergency staff what had happened to me to be able to save my life.

Then, when I turned 18, because I was still making bad choices, I became pregnant. This time I decided I wanted to have the baby. I did not want to give up the baby. I did not want to have the morning-after pill, and I did not want to have an abortion.  My boyfriend told me that, if I did not have an abortion, he would not stay with me, and that I would not have a place to live.

When I got down to Planned Parenthood, they went ahead and went through with the procedure. They did not tell me what it would be like. If I had nothing to be ashamed of, why didn’t they tell me the truth? I wanted to know what I was doing. My child had feet and hands. Why does Planned Parenthood think that they can change word from baby to fetus, and it is no longer murder?

Planned Parenthood lies. They are not there to help young women. They separate a young woman from her parents, and a baby from its mother. I am ashamed to say, I laid on a table and allowed a stranger to rip part of my soul out of my body. This was not what I wanted. This was not a sane choice I made. I went through with it, and they sent me home on a birth control shot. They did not set me up for a two-week check-up. I was told if I began hemorrhaging, I should go to the emergency room, not come back to Planned Parenthood.

So I began cramping. For two weeks, I cramped and did not stop bleeding. I went to Planned Parenthood and told them something was wrong. They told me it was normal and that I should go back home and keep taking my pain medication. I went home, and that night I awoke at two in the morning with tremendous pain. I went into my boyfriend’s mom’s room and stood with a blood-soaked towel in between my legs. All I could say was that something was wrong.

She rushed me to the ER, and they did an unltrasound and said that part of the tissue was left in my cervix. My cervix did not clamp shut completely, and there was an infection. A doctor, a real doctor, did an emergency D&C, and I was in the hospital for two days on IV medication to try and get rid of the infection that I had in my cervix.

I was left with severe scar tissue on my cervix. I went on to find out six months later I had cervical cancer cells on my cervix, and I should not have been on birth control without a pap smear, which Planned Parenthood did not ever do before putting me on the birth control shot.

I had a miscarriage a year later when I chose to get pregnant. I had a hard labor with my son when I finally did have a baby because my cervix would not dilate normal[ly] from all the scar tissue.

I can tell you of all the physical scars I have from this abortion, but none of it compares to the gut-wrenching, sick feeling I carry in my soul. The pain is so deep, it may never heal. I would give anything for those nine months. I would gladly share my life and my body with my child for nine months.

I can still see my child. I carry the pain in my soul, and I will carry it for the rest of my life. I still have visions of what my baby would be. She runs and she plays in my dreams. She has curly blond hair and beautiful blue eyes. Something needs to change for the women that will never look into their child’s eyes and fall in love… For the child that will never take his first step into his mother’s arms… for the woman who will never hear the word, Mama, because an abortion left her barren.

There are no planned parents that come out of Planned Parenthood, only empty arms and cradles.

Here is what Roe v. Wade has done in our country:

50 million dead babies.

86% of abortions are done for matters of personal convenience.

Less than 2% are done because the life of the mother is at stake.

Less than 1% are done because of rape or incest.