Abortion – I wasn’t offered an alternative

Adoption was never offered as an alternative to my abortion
Stuff co.nz 6 September 2018
Family First Comment: “Twenty years later I saw a poster in a doctor’s office of the different stages of gestation. It was then that I realised I had been lied to. My baby would have had fingers, toes and a strong heart beat, and blood would have been running through its veins. At the time of my abortion consultation, not one medical professional spoke the truth to me or gave me options such as adoption. There was never any mention of an alternative support system to bring the baby to full term and then adopt him or her out. No one negotiated with me on behalf of the baby’s life.”
www.chooselife.nz

Warning: Some readers may find the content of this submission distressing. 

In my early 20s I fell pregnant. For many reasons, socially and personally, I felt I couldn’t go through with the pregnancy.

I was devastated because I knew in my heart, there was someone little in my body growing and developing and I was planning to take its life.

Ten weeks into my pregnancy I was booked in for a pre-abortion counselling meeting.

For the entire meeting, I was inconsolable and when the counsellor asked why I was so upset, I explained how I felt. But the counsellor boldly told me that it was not really a baby at this time, just a bag of blood and tissue. This seemed to help calm me down a little as I sat through the consultation, ignorant to the actual facts.

At the time, I didn’t think to look in a book myself to see exactly what size the baby was and just how developed it would be and the clinic certainly never had any pictures on the walls of the gestation sequence.

After the consultation they gave me some Valium to relax and then sent me home. The following day, I took the pills again to numb my emotions and I went ahead with the abortion.

Twenty years later I saw a poster in a doctor’s office of the different stages of gestation. It was then that I realised I had been lied to. My baby would have had fingers, toes and a strong heart beat, and blood would have been running through its veins.

At the time of my abortion consultation, not one medical professional spoke the truth to me or gave me options such as adoption. There was never any mention of an alternative support system to bring the baby to full term and then adopt him or her out.

No one negotiated with me on behalf of the baby’s life.

Surely, before a woman has an abortion there should be a system in place for an alternative outcome to the pregnancy other than abortion.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/106867819/adoption-was-never-offered-as-an-alternative-to-my-abortion?cid=app-iPhone