Abortion Activist Defends Her Abortion: “Grateful I Got to Choose When to Become a Mother”

Opinion   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Dec 27, 2017   |   5:55PM   |   Washington, DC

A pro-abortion writer and mother defended aborting her first child during her college years, claiming it is best when women can decide to be mothers.

Writing for Marie Claire, Sarah Bregel described her aborted baby as her “almost-child,” as if she erased her child’s existence. But that is not what her abortion did. Her child already existed, and she already was a mother. Her abortion ended her child’s life.

Years ago when Bregel was in college, she described living irresponsibly, barley passing her classes, drinking “like a fish” and having sex with an immature, even more irresponsible boyfriend.

She remembered the day when she took the pregnancy test in her dorm.

Bregel wrote: “I collapsed onto the couch while my on-again off-again partner stared at me, eyes wide. I held up the test so he could see for himself that the exhaustion and queasiness I’d been complaining of weren’t just symptoms of an extended hangover. In my hand was the despicable truth: I was a drunk. I was irresponsible. And now, I was pregnant.”

When she looked up, hoping her partner would be supportive, she saw that he had walked out to the porch to smoke a cigarette. Just an hour later, she called her local Planned Parenthood abortion facility.

Seven days later, she had her unborn baby aborted:

I jittered in the waiting room, my mother sitting quietly next to me. Finally, I heard my name, the very last patient—the last woman of the day to be set free. The operation was short, but more painful than I’d anticipated. I let out a sharp, unexpected shriek and the assistant wiped a spot of blood from my thigh. Afterwards, my mother drove me home and fed me fajitas that I ate ravenously—my sickness had instantly evaporated. When I climbed into my childhood bed that night, I called my not-baby’s not-father, but he didn’t pick up. I found out later that while I’d been home in Baltimore aborting the fetus that was half his creation, he’d gotten back together with his ex for the night. It felt like he was celebrating.

She justified her abortion by describing how irresponsible she was as a young adult. Bregel said she just was not prepared to be a mother, and having her baby likely would have dragged her down into even deeper trouble.

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Bregel pushed the feelings of sadness and grief away for years, trying to convince herself that she made the right decision.

“My choice hadn’t been easy, but I had been sure of it,” she continued. “So I wouldn’t feel guilty. I wouldn’t grieve. I’ve always been a good feminist and a believer that a woman has the right to a safe, legal abortion.”

But she said she still grieves at times, sometimes after she sees another child who is the same age as the child she aborted would have been.

“Sometimes I cry in the shower and my heart aches with the bitterness of knowing there would’ve been another person in the world had I chosen differently,” she continued.

With two living children now, Bregel said she is happy that she had the ability to choose abortion in college.

“Being a mother has mostly made me more grateful that I got to choose when to become one. The right to a legal abortion is essential because women will always need the option, whether it’s legal or not. History tells us that when women don’t have access to abortions, terrible things happen,” she wrote.

But her conclusion indicated that she still struggles with what she did. And for good reason. She destroyed her child’s life. A unique, valuable living child who depended on her.