South Dakota Abortion Ban Supported by Women Who Regret Abortions 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 28, 2006
Pierre, SD (LifeNews.com) — When it comes to evaluating opinions of South Dakota residents on whether state voters should approve the abortion ban the legislature approved earlier this year, one of the best sources of input is talking to women who have had abortions before. In many cases, they regret their abortions and want to see it prohibited.
Kayla Brandt, who had an abortion three years ago and now wishes she had kept her baby, is one of the leaders in the fight to uphold the ban this November.
"I don’t want anyone to feel what I did," Brandt told the Washington Post in an interview.
What Brandt felt following the abortion is similar to the negative reactions most women eventually have afterwards. The 29-year-old financial auditor told the Post she had a "quiet misery" after the abortion and when the procedure was finished, she said she immediately felt an emptiness that led to a long period of grief.
"I was in a relationship and panicked and got scared and ashamed, and thought an abortion was the means to fix my mistake," Brandt told the Post. "I had made a mistake and thought that an abortion was the means to fix my mistake."
She eventually saw herself as a "mother who was sadly stripped of her child."
Brandt says she got involved in the campaign to promote the abortion ban — her face is on the front of the brochures distributed by the group supporting it — to protect women and unborn children.
"Where’s the baby’s choice?" Brandt asked. "What about the life of the baby?"
In materials for the abortion ban campaign, Brandt talks more about her abortion and the horrible feelings she experienced afterwards.
"The room started to spin and my hand instinctively reached down to grasp my stomach. But all I felt now were excruciating cramps piercing my side as I tried to hold in what had already been taken," she said.
"The doctor and nurse quickly gathered their things and left me there alone. The door slammed shut behind them and … I was left there, traumatized and alone, as sheer emptiness set in immediately."
"From that moment on, I began merely existing in the hollow shell of what was once a woman," Brandt added. "I stumbled through the days and weeks that came as though I were sleepwalking."
Later, Brandt realized she desperately wanted the baby the abortion took.
"I desperately longed to go back and offer my child protection. But I could not go back," she said.
Instead, Brandt can only advocate for those mothers and babies who may be traumatized by a future abortion.
"And so I turn my silence and shame into a voice that sings now. A voice that speaks up for those who cannot speak for themselves and protects our most vulnerable – our unborn children."
Related web sites:
Vote Yes for Life – https://voteyesforlife.com
