A New Zealand mom who still mourns that she aborted her unborn son 12 years ago revealed more details about the situation this week.
LifeNews covered the tragic story of Kylie Gunn and her unborn son Travis after she wrote a column for Stuff Nation about remembering him on what would have been his 12th birthday. A nurse, Gunn had a late-term abortion after learning that Travis was missing the 22nd chromosome, had major heart defects and probably would not live more than two years.
In a new interview with The Daily Mail, Gunn said her decision to abort was “very difficult” because she was already feeling her unborn son move and kick inside her womb. Gunn said she did not learn about her son’s health problems until late in her pregnancy, and the doctors’ dire predictions led her to choose abortion.
“It was so difficult to make the decision to take Travis’s life at such a young age,” Gunn said. “But it seemed like the right thing.”
Immediately afterward, Gunn said she struggled with intense grief. According to the report:
She said an initial feeling of shock turned to anger and that there were times when grief came back to her ‘in the middle of nowhere’, particularly in the first year.
‘I was grieving as much as if I had lost a child I already knew. We wanted Travis. It’s different from having an abortion because a baby is destroying your hopes and dreams.’
… ‘They induce you. I went through a full and very painful labour,’ Mrs Gunn said, talking about the termination procedure. ‘It took quite some time. My body did not want to let him go.’
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Her lifeless baby was delivered, still inside the amniotic sac, then the medical staff took him out and placed him in Mrs Gunn’s arms.
She said she then ‘cried uncontrollably’ for her lost son.
Gunn and her husband had three children when they aborted Travis. They had three more children after him, which Gunn said helped her to deal with her grief.
“The reason I ended up having a big family was partly me getting over the grieving and wanting more children to hold,” she said.
Today, Gunn said she both regrets and feels “at peace” with her decision.
“As a practice nurse with a commitment to supporting human life in its varying forms, I struggle to reconcile my mind to taking the life of an unborn baby,” Gunn wrote.
It is difficult to determine if the New Zealand mother now opposes abortion, but she did urge other women to consider alternatives to abortion. She said health educators must do a better job of sharing adoption and parenting information with women as they consider how to handle a difficult pregnancy, and she noted how abortions can lead to depression, anxiety and regret.
She concluded her initial column with these words: “And for my Travis. You would be 12 years old next Wednesday. I have loved you so much.”
