The Case Against Abortion

Australian Christian Churches are running an advertising campaign on WIN Television to highlight that both women and babies are casualties of abortion. 
The ads show a link to a website 'Hope for Women' where women suffering from abortion can seek help.
View ads on their website here. 

In July 2010, 31-year-old Filipina woman, Rechilda Moll-Sequitin, settled a lawsuit against her employer who allegedly forced her to abort her unborn child. The employer's company denied threatening her with dismissal if she failed to abort, but settled out of court after the court was told that Ms Moll-Sequitin had recorded the threats. (Check out the news report for details)

Pregnant Australian women have more to contend with than coercion in the workplace. Anecdotal evidence suggests that women may be treated just as badly in Australian abortion clinics.

Women’s stories reveal that clinics may not obtain proper consent (“I was really sobbing quite hysterically”), are often uninformed or misinformed (“…it was just a sack of cells”), and are not adequately warned of the physical and psychological risks arising from the abortion procedure. (See Ali’s story)

Up until recently, the courts have been the primary mechanism through which abortion has been made available to Australian women. Now, women coerced or harmed by the abortion industry have the opportunity to use the courts for compensation for their mistreatment.

Abortion Legal Support are a network of independent lawyers in Australia and New Zealand who believe women have a right to access the legal system with their abortion harm claims.

According to their website, ALS’ services include claims against clinics including:
• misleading and deceptive advertising by abortion clinics
• failure to inform of possible depression or other side effects of abortion
• providing little or no information as to development of the unborn child
• not offering an opportunity to view ultrasound imaging
• a counselling process which made a woman feel pressured to have an abortion
• a counselling process which failed to give a woman adequate time to work out their own wishes
• failing to identify that a boyfriend/ partner/ parent or some other person was pressuring a woman to abort.

Australian women deserve freedom from coercion, misinformation and lack of information. Perhaps it is time that those who have been mistreated send this message to the abortion industry – via the courts if necessary.

I cried and swore …

At the age of twenty two I was going through a bit of a wild stage in my life. I was in my final year at uni and going out with friends drinking a lot. One night after way too many drinks, I slept with a mate and was too drunk to remember to use protection.  The following morning we looked at each other and basically decided we better go to a doctor, get the morning after pill and never talk of it again.

A couple of weeks after taking the morning after pill I had this very strange feeling that I was pregnant, so I bought a pregnancy test and it was positive. I cried and swore and thought what on earth I was going to do now. I called my mate and told him and after the initial shock he said he would support whatever decision I made. So it was all left in my hands. I was torn with what to do. Never in my life had I thought that I would be faced with this decision and I had always dreamed of being a mum. On the other hand the father and I were only mates and I was just about to finish my degree. At this stage I made the decision that my only option was just to keep the baby and see what happened.

Over the next couple of weeks my mate and I pulled together and decided we would try and make the friendship into a relationship for the sake of the baby. We told his mum and a few friends and tried to get excited. I called my mum one day and told her and her response was not at all positive. She basically put forward all the negatives and made me start to doubt my decision. She came straight over, dragging my dad with her and basically started telling me how unreasonable my decision was and that I knew what I should really do, given the father and I didn’t love each other and how could this possibly be the best situation to bring a child into. The fact was that I had already thought about all these things and for some reason when my mum said them, the woman I trusted most in the world for advice, the only realistic option seemed to be to terminate the pregnancy.

I convinced myself that it was the right decision to make and decided to tell the father. Before I even had a chance to tell him, my mum had already organised my termination through the referral of our family doctor for that very week. So I told the father that I was booked in and then we could both just forget it ever happened and get on with life. I think I managed to convince everyone it was the right thing to do except for myself. The few days before I went to the clinic I was in turmoil with myself. Between my hormones, my little swollen belly, my enormous breasts and this amazing feeling of having already started to bond with this little person I just kept questioning myself.

‘Just a sack of cells’

Well I didn’t have long before I was sitting in the clinic with a room full of women of all ages and my mum. I was called to a little room where a woman asked me why I wanted to have an abortion. I told her I was just about to finish my degree and that it had been a one night stand. I told her that that the morning after pill hadn’t worked and she said she had never heard of that happening before. She then told me of the procedure and then I signed something so that they would not be held responsible. Apparently that was all I needed to say, because I was taken to another little room where another lady did an ultrasound to see how far I was. She said I was six weeks and that it was too early to do the procedure because of the high risk of failure. However, given that I had travelled three hours to get there she said they would go ahead anyway. She told me that it was a simple procedure and that at this stage it was just a sack of cells. She walked out of the room and I saw the screen and ran to the toilets and burst into tears. When I walked out the lady told me to wait in a back room rather than going back to the waiting room so that I wouldn’t upset the other women.

They finally came and got me (still in tears) and took my mother and myself down the elevator to the next waiting area. By this stage I was quite hysterically crying. I was sent into a little cubical to put on a gown before being taken into the area where they do the abortions. I was really sobbing quite hysterically by this stage so the nurse held my hand while they put the anaesthetic in my hand.
I woke up in the recovery room, very dazed and confused. The lady came over to see how I was and I simply asked had it worked. Deep down I had hoped it hadn’t. She said it had and I was given something to eat and sent to the toilet. While in the toilet I had a huge gush of blood and fell over. I got myself out of the toilet and then fainted on the floor. My blood pressure was dangerously low, but they told my mum this was normal and kept me on the floor until it went up a bit.

I wanted to die

I then walked to the car with mum with instructions to keep an eye on me. At this stage I was completely numb. I think I was in denial really. We went back to the hotel room and we didn’t really talk. I cried myself to sleep. The next day I travelled home alone and hysterically cried the whole way. I just wanted to drive my car head on into a truck. I pulled up at the father’s house and couldn’t even get out of the car. He helped me inside and I just cried and cried.  I Just couldn’t stop crying, I couldn’t even talk. Luckily I was on uni holidays, so I just stayed inside his room and smoked and cried (I wasn’t even a smoker but thought what the hell). By the time uni went back I was booked in to the uni doctors for a check up. I was so numb by this stage that when she tried to talk to me I just said I didn’t want to talk about it and left. I tried to get on with uni and life, but every time I was alone I’d just start crying. I couldn’t get anything done.

The uni doctor referred me to the uni councillor to get some help. When I told her the story she basically looked at me and said what an awful tragedy it was. She was speechless and could offer me no words of support except that perhaps I should go on antidepressants. I said no thanks and that I would be fine. I walked out thinking that if a professional couldn’t help me then what hope did I have. Somehow I got through my uni work and even managed to go to job interviews for my future career. I have no idea how I got through those few weeks after the abortion. When I was in public I pretended like everything was fine and normal and when I was alone I just cried and secretly wanted to die. I started to smoke and drink a lot, because I thought I didn’t deserve to treat my body well. I became very self destructive and even slept with people I didn’t really want to just for the sake of it. I just didn’t think I deserved to be happy, healthy or even alive.

I became very bitter over the following months, with moments of anger, hysterics and most of all this sense of numbness.  At this stage I met a new friend who could see I was on this downward spiral of destruction. He let me cry and I explained what happened and he prayed for me. I wasn’t a religious person but thought why not. Over the next few weeks he was going to church and I finally asked if I could go too. It was hard to walk in there knowing what I had done but I was beyond caring by then. It was through learning about Jesus Christ and the sacrifice he made on the cross so that my sins could be forgiven that I finally found some sense of peace. I asked God to forgive me and gave my life to Christ and then prayed that God would help me to forgive myself. This was the hardest part for me because I thought I would never be able to forgive myself for what I did.

Able to forgive myself

It has been nearly seven years since my termination and there have been many ups and downs. I married that friend who first introduced me to Christ and we now have two beautiful children. I never thought I would get to have children, I didn’t think I deserved to. I thank God every day for the chance to do it right and I know that one day I will get to see that beautiful little child that was taken from me so tragically and will spend all eternity with them. I have only recently been able to forgive myself and I’m determined to spend the rest of my days here on Earth fighting against a law that enables people to wrongfully coerce emotionally fragile women into making decisions that can never be reversed. In the end it is us women who live the rest of our lives with the pain, regret, sorrow and a doubt in ourselves and our ability to make right decisions. We go on in life thinking we don’t deserve children and if we did fall pregnant couldn’t possibly make good mothers.

Women’s choice should be about doing what is in the best interest of the mother, not those directly affected by the pregnancy. If more women were given information and support on how to come to terms with an unplanned pregnancy and how to manage their life and finances with a child, I believe there would be far less abortions taking place. I am all for putting women’s health, both mental and physical first. I simply believe that by terminating one ‘problem’ we simply create a whole new set of problems. When women have ‘unwanted’ pregnancies and continue with it, there is a plethora of support from both the government and other agencies. When a woman gets an abortion they are left to deal with the aftermath themselves. Once you’ve had it no one wants to talk about it and you are basically left to yourself to ‘get over it’.

I hope and pray that more broken women will put away their shame and tell others about their experience so that the cycle does not continue for our children’s generation. Let’s start really giving women an informed choice!

Love and prayers
Ali from NSW

My story is one that eight years on at the age of 25, I still find hard to write – ashamed of the person I once was.  However, within those eight years I have found hope and healing and have been able to move on, live an incredibly happy life - still not forget what I did and what I have been through, but live.  For a long time, I didn’t think I’d make it.

My partner and I had spoken about what would happen if I fell pregnant, though we never ever thought that our discussions would become a reality.  We dreamed of getting married and having children, so incredibly in love – well we thought so, at 16!  He had been my best friend for two years before we finally got together and knowing each other so well, it didn’t take long before we took things to the next level.

One afternoon after school (we were in Year 11) we had realised that the condom had come off.  Laughing at first, an eerie silence soon took hold as we realised what the situation could mean.  Being very young and not knowing a whole lot about conception and knowing my period was due the next day, I got myself a pregnancy test thinking I would find out straight away whether I was pregnant.  To cut a long story short, it was positive as were the three tests I did directly after that  hoping to get a different result (I now realise I couldn’t have fallen pregnant that quickly and that I had obviously fallen pregnant on an earlier occasion within my cycle).

My partner came around that evening.  We just laid on my bed in silence for what seemed like forever.  Finally I asked him what he wanted me to do, not thinking about what I wanted but what did he want without considering me.  The answer was of course an abortion.  Very upset, I cried and explained that I couldn’t possibly do that, that I was going to run away.  I couldn’t tell my parents as they would have been so terribly disappointed, so I was going to leave and raise the baby myself.  He became very upset and tried to convince me to stay.  He left my house that night, not knowing whether I would be there the next day. Through the night I cried and prayed to God ‘Please don’t make this true and I will do anything.’  I also realised that there was no way I could run away and take care of myself and a baby.  I didn’t know what to do. 

Over the next few weeks I was just numb, working on autopilot. I went to school, dancing, saw friends and socialised like I normally would, acting normal to everyone I saw but terrified, panicked and confused on the inside.  It wasn’t long before the morning sickness kicked in and I was trying to hide continuous daily vomiting from my parents, teachers and other kids at school.  My partner and I cut school early and headed to a medical centre to get a final confirmation of what we already knew. 

Only to get the rudest, most condescending and judgmental doctor who refused to give me a blood test, instead offering a urine test.  This came back negative and gave us false hope that we weren’t pregnant.  A week later I returned and demanded a blood test which came back positive.


A decision was never made.  We never really discussed what we should do.  Instead, our lives just continued till we had to do something.  Christmas was five days away and I was terrified.  I was eight weeks pregnant with literally no concept of my future beyond each day.  I just switched off.  My partner made an appointment for the 22 December so it would be done before Christmas and timed with Carols in the Domain so we could explain to our parents that we were going into the city early to get a good spot for the carols, not to get an abortion.  We told only two close friends that I was pregnant, no one else knew, not our parents, no one.  We borrowed money from these friends and other people that we knew to be able to afford it.  I look back now and think it’s crazy that we had to borrow money off our friends for an abortion which only cost us $170 as we were entitled to a student discount and Medicare paid for the rest.


Because I was terrified that my parents would find out, I couldn’t use my Medicare card as I was unsure whether it would come up on anything sent to my parents but my mum carried the card for the whole family so it was impossible to use.  Instead, I took my friend’s card and assumed her identity.  I practiced her signature, memorised date of birth and address and other details and had everything done under her name.  So to this day, there are no records of myself ever being pregnant or having an abortion.  Every record is under her name.


The day came around and I got up early and met my partner at the train station.  We took the forty minute train trip to the city in complete silence.  It took us a while to find the place but when we did, we smiled at the security officer as we non-verbally fought and tried to get each other to walk in first.  Once we arrived I had to fill out some paper work (all using my friends name and information) and then write a few lines as to why I wanted to terminate the pregnancy.  To this question I just left a dash.


When called into counseling which lasted no longer than ten minutes and in which my partner didn’t accompany me, I just started crying.  She explained the procedure to me and asked me if I had any questions.  I said no.  She asked me to sign all the medical waivers and finally told me that if I wanted the procedure done then I had to answer the question to which I just answered with a dash, on the forms I filled out when I walked in - Why do you want to terminate this pregnancy?  I just told the lady that I didn’t know.  She said I had to come up with something and she spoke outloud as she wrote the words that she herself came up with and wrote on the form… “ Melinda is 17 and in Year 11 as is her partner.  They are not in a position psychologically or financially for the continuation of this pregnancy.  Melinda would like to finish school and go onto further study – she does not have the necessary resources for parenthood and to continue in this pregnancy would prove disastrous. She firmly believes termination to be her only option.”

I sat in the waiting room for another half hour before they called Melinda’s name.  When I got up to go in, my partner kept his head down and didn’t say a word.  He said nothing and didn’t even look at me.  That will stay with me always, it hurt so much.  My partner was a baseball player, a good one. He had baseball this day so once I went in he left. I told him he could go and it was silly him waiting around but it took me so long to forgive him for that. He left me there.

Once I went into the room they asked me to take off my pants and wrap sheet around me, they then put me on a metal operating table, it was so cold. The lady then grabbed my naked butt and yanked me down the table saying I needed my butt on the very edge, then I put my legs in the stirrups. I was so scared but just kept saying to myself it’ll be over soon, and repeating to myself ‘grow up you did this to yourself so deal with it, take responsibility, be mature’.

Then they put the needle in my arm and before I knew it I was out cold.  Unfortunately not for long. I woke up halfway through it. I remember hearing the anesthetist and the doctor talking, the machine going and taking a while to realize where I was before I completely freaked out and felt quite uncomfortable down there. I never opened my eyes. I didn’t want to see, I didn’t want them to know I was awake, I thought I’d get in trouble...I just kept saying to myself go to sleep go back to sleep. I must’ve because the next thing I remember is them helping me to the recovery room to my recliner chair with the other recliner chairs. I passed out.

I must’ve been balling my eyes out as I was in that chair knocked out. I don’t remember crying, just when I woke up I was all wet, covered in tears and the girl beside me gave me a box of tissues.  I wanted to reach out to all the other girls like the girl beside me had, but there was nothing to say.

Next thing I know the receptionist came in and over to me. She said there was a Lauren outside asking for me, did I know a Lauren? I freaked, I thought, my goodness they’ve found me out, that I was using someone else’s Medicare card. I was still all over the place from the drugs and had no idea, just scared I was in big trouble. So I told her no I didn’t know any Laurens (I am Lauren!! I didn’t say it). Then she said are you sure? And finally I realised that I was actually Melinda and that she must be outside saying she was Lauren. I agreed that I knew a Lauren and it was ok to tell her I was here.

I had a coffee, some pain killers and a biscuit and then the staff helped me outside. Outside was the real Melinda and her boyfriend waiting to pick me up. I thought I was going home alone but my partner had organised for her to come and get me.

Once outside and round the corner I balled my eyes out. I was so upset. I didn’t want Melinda and her boyfriend, I wanted my partner, he should’ve been there.

The next day, my grandfather passed away.  I was there to see it.  I was convinced his death was my fault, that because I took my child’s life, God took my grandfathers life. Two days later it was Christmas.  December is always a hard time for me.

My partner was very supportive, as much as he could be.  We stayed together for a year after this happened before my mental state broke him and he could deal with me no longer.  He moved to America after that to play baseball.

I’d like to say that with time I got better.  The pain and grief was unbearable, every fibre of your being, every part of your soul is broken and aches and you long for your child to be with you, to hold them, smell them, kiss them, hug them.  Nothing brings relief, not even your sleep.

Unfortunately for six years following the abortion I tried to commit suicide on three occasions, became a self harmer – cutting my legs with sharp objects to help make the pain tangible, and sabotaged my relationships.  A friend forced me into professional counseling which I attended weekly for five years trying to come to terms with what I did and the fallout from that day.  Soon after the abortion I became a Christian when I asked for God’s forgiveness sincerely and received it with open arms.  A weight was lifted but the pain, regret  and reality of what had happened still remained.  It is only through God’s grace and professional counseling that I did get better.  I told my parents what happened and joined my local church.  I met with our local cemetery and had a plaque put  in one of the gardens as a memorial to my daughter - a tangible place to acknowledge and mourn her.  I named her Bella-Jayne.

Seven years down the track I met the man of my dreams and was engaged and married within fourteen months.  I have never ever been happier and never imagined I would ever be ok, be married or about to try and start a family.  God delivered me from myself, it took a long time, hard work and I know its not all over.  I still have nightmares, flashbacks and some days cry the day away.  But I know I am forgiven, I know I can make it through anything and I know I will see my baby girl in heaven one day.