This Is What It’s Like To Get An Abortion After A Rape
A conversation with one woman who did.
This interview is part of The Huffington Post Test Kitchen’s powerful four-part series talking to women who’ve had very different abortion experiences. We’re inviting our audience to take part in a discussion around abortion in order to help shed the stigma surrounding it. Would you like to share your story? Click the response button at the bottom of this post to start writing.
Erin, 30, is a successful sales executive, mother and wife. But 10 years ago, she was a bruised, frightened college student who’d just been raped at a party and discovered that she was pregnant. A decade later, Erin still struggles to talk about the rape, and thinks about the abortion daily.
Huffington Post: Can you start by telling me a little about what happened to you?
Erin: I was at a small afternoon cookout at a house with probably five girlfriends and six or seven guys. A few of them we knew really well, but a few guys showed up who we didn’t know at all. One was a wrestler. He and I were talking and having a good time. I remember having one drink, a Captain and Coke, then the rest of the day just got… fuzzy.
HP: You don’t remember anything?
E: No. Apparently we went to a bar, and apparently I drove, which is terrifying. The next thing I remember, it was pitch dark out ― I think it was probably around 8 p.m. ― and I had fallen off a garage roof. I had broken ribs and a broken nose.
HP: Did you know right away what had happened?
E: I pieced it together. I remember being on the roof, and I remember seeing [the guy’s] face, and then being on the ground. I don’t remember the fall. I was confused, because I only had one drink and blacked out. I’m from Wisconsin. My liver’s pretty strong. My friend who found me said that my pants were off and my shirt was kind of… mangled. I had bruising on the inside of my arms and legs, but I wasn’t sure if it was from the fall or from him.
I didn’t have the guy’s number, so the next morning someone else called to find out what had happened. My friend who found me is a nurse, and she thought I should get checked out. When I was at the hospital, they did a rape kit. They said “activity” had happened.
HP: What were you feeling at that point?
E: I didn’t want to think that any of it had happened to me. No one wants to come to a realization like that. It was traumatizing enough that I had fallen off the roof. Trying to wrap my brain around something like that ― that this guy had probably put something in my drink and that I couldn’t remember if [our sexual encounter] had been consensual ― was too much.
** Editor’s note: In the state where Erin was living at the time, people who are incapacitated or unconscious cannot legally give consent.
HP: And then you found out you were pregnant.
E: I wasn’t sexually active with anyone else at the time, and I was on birth control, but I’d had a sinus infection, so I was on antibiotics. My period has been very regular my whole life, so when I missed it, my whole world stopped. Like, what do you do?
To read a conversation with a woman who had a late-term abortion, click here.
HP: What did you do?
E: I went and got a test. I was shaking in the check-out lane, but it said I was not pregnant. I thought, “Oh my God, thank God.” Then a few more days went by and I still didn’t have my period, so I took another test. It was positive. I instantaneously threw up.
HP: What did you do next?
E: I made an appointment at the closest clinic. They gave me all my options ― keeping the baby, putting it up for adoption and the different types of abortions they can do ― and then said, “Let’s give you a few days to look everything over.”
HP: Did you know right away what you were going to do?
E: At that point, the reality really set in. I thought, This child would be a product of rape, and how do you look at a kid every day and relive that over and over? I know it’s not the child’s fault, but this guy had his 15 minutes of fun, and then my life was no longer my life. I also didn’t know if I could go through with giving my baby away. So I did all these pros and cons lists in my head, then I decided I was not in place where I could provide for a baby. I was paying my way through school, and I could barely provide for myself. I called the clinic after three days.
HP: What next?
E: They have you meet with a psychiatrist, and we talked about what happened. They basically confirmed that it was rape and that I was of sane mind. I also found out they have a program to help people in my situation, so I didn’t have to pay.
It’s funny, when I went into the clinic and realized I wasn’t the only one in there, I don’t want to say it was a Zen moment, but I felt like, I’m not alone. I can do this. In that moment, I also went from feeling like a 20-year-old to a 30-year-old.
HP: So when did you actually have the abortion?
E: Within a week or so of meeting with the psychiatrist, they got me in.
HP: Can you walk me through it?
E: It was awful. They start by giving you four shots in the vagina. I was like, “You’re going to do what now?” For the procedure, they said I shouldn’t feel anything, but I did. I felt everything.
HP: How terrible!
E: Now that I’ve had my son, I realize it’s partly [the way my body works]. When I was in labor, I got an epidural but they had to come back and keep giving me more “juice” because I could still feel pain. But I don’t know. Maybe I let my emotions get the best of me.
To read a conversation with a woman who had multiple abortions, click here.
HP: How long did it take?
E: I think it was maybe 20 minutes, but it felt longer. One of the nurses was holding my hand, God love her, and I cried the entire time. I couldn’t believe I was in that situation. It was just flooding through me.
HP: And after?
E: I sat in the recovery room with all of these other women, hanging out in these big comfy chairs. They told me what to expect ― that I would bleed, that it was kind of like after childbirth, except I didn’t have a baby. I’ll tell you: I lactated after. I wasn’t nearly far enough along in my pregnancy for that to happen, but it did.
HP: What was the rest of the recovery like?
E: My friend picked me up and we hugged in the parking lot forever. I was a mess. A week later, I had to go in to get checked again, just to make sure everything was out. They asked me how my psyche was. At that point, I had this focus, like, I was ending a life, so I needed to make mine better ― to really live up to my potential. I ended up dropping out of college and moving back home. I worked full-time, and went back to school. I graduated three years later than I would have, but after the accident, I needed to be closer to home.
HP: I notice that you sometimes call it “the accident,” not “the rape.” Can you explain why?
E: That’s how I cope with it. I think more of what happened after, and of falling off the roof. For me, thinking of it as a rape is a terrible thought. So this is how I have to think of what happened to me to get through it.
HP: Did you ever talk to the man who raped you?
E: Right after the procedure, I sent him a message asking him to call and he was like, “Why?” I told him to just humor me. When he did, I told him I was pregnant. He was like, “You’re lying, you’re a slut” and I said “Don’t you dare. I could have pressed charges against you. I could have ruined your life like you ruined mine.” Then I told him not to worry about it, that I’d handled it. I’d had an abortion that morning. I said that I’d had to make a decision I never thought I’d have to make because of him. And then I hung up.
HP: How much do you think about this stuff ― that night, the abortion ― now?
E: All the time. I can’t turn back, and I don’t think I’ve ever regretted having the abortion, but I’ve always wondered, What if? Every time I see a 9 or 10-year old kid, I think, I could have a kid that age. That’s insane.
To read a conversation with a woman who was a new mom when she got an abortion, click here.
HP: You’re a mom now.
E: Yes, I have a toddler. The hardest part for me was taking another pregnancy test and telling myself it’s OK to be excited. And my husband and I were excited, because we knew we could provide for a child. We’re expecting another one now. The baby’s due right around what would have been the birth month if I’d had that first child. I kind of feel like it’s a second chance in a way.
HP: Wow.
E: Yeah, something about this pregnancy has really hit hard [begins to cry]. It’s such a different experience to be excited about having a child and to know that I’m sharing a life with that child’s father.
HP: You made the right choice for you.
E: I did. You know, I used to live near a Planned Parenthood and I’d see protesters outside. They were always old men. So many times I wanted to pull over and scream at them, “Until you have a uterus, you cannot judge anyone.”
I can’t imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t had a choice over what happened to my own body, especially after someone took that choice away.
This account has been edited and condensed.