Through the One-way Mirror

Many years ago, before I knew the Lord or the truth, I was faced with an unplanned pregnancy. I can’t think of anything I have faced in my life that has been as tormenting. Unplanned is always inconvenient. This interruption is going to bring change to our lives no matter what decision we make.

The baby’s father took me on that cold Saturday morning and dropped me off at a women’s clinic in Philadelphia. He drove round and round for hours waiting for me. I wonder what was going through his mind.

I was so plagued by the decision; I couldn’t stop crying in the waiting room. Unbeknown to me, we were being watched through a one-way mirror. The staff came in the room of fifty or more women and came up to me and yanked me out of there.  They questioned me in another room as to whether this was really what I wanted. I was torn. I was raised in the Catholic Church. I was supposed to be a good girl.

I choose to hide my mistake and go forward with it. And to this day I regret that decision. I did choose an abortion, much against the baby’s father’s wishes. He told me later he wished we did not make that decision. So do I. I wish I had paused to look closer at that one-way mirror; to see my reflection and realize my decision wouldn’t stop those tears from streaming down my face that day.

No one ever talks about the millions of women (and men) with regrets. No one ever shares how we discover later that we robbed a human being from the wonderful experience called life. There needs to be more dialog.

KH