Harrowing stories from women who have aborted
“Does God exist, Tom? If he did, why have I been going through this? I am a good woman and I have been faithful but I feel He has abandoned me,” she says, reflecting the hopelessness into which she has sunk.
Jane* procured an abortion this past Easter and, as we spoke on Friday, was still trying to heal, both physically and mentally.
She says it is the worst experience she has ever gone through but she was forced by circumstances. “So you did not want another child,? I ask her.
“I wanted one. I really wanted this baby but life happened.”
Jane explains that she was in a live-in relationship with her boyfriend and it was all lovey-dovey at the beginning. However, along the way, she discovered that the man was a serial cheat. When she raised the issue, he completely changed and even ordered her out of the house.
It was at this juncture that she went to a known doctor in Nakuru for the procedure. It was successful, but the emotional scars just won’t go.
‘SLIDING INTO DEPRESSION’
“A minute cannot pass without me thinking of what I have done and I can feel myself sliding into depression. I don’t think I can ever forgive myself for this,” she says.
Her problem is compounded by the fact that she has to face the pain alone as she cannot share with her parents.
“This will kill my mum because she is sickly so I will have to face it alone,” she says. Her boyfriend does not know of her plans to move out and end the relationship. “He will only learn of it after I am gone,” she says.
For Nyaboke*, the pain she went through when her womb was being “cleaned” is an experience she can never wish another woman to go through.
“What I went through there is like a scene from a horror movie,” she says.
She decided on abortion after the shocking revelation that her supposed fiance was in fact a married father of two. When she approached the man with the good news of her pregnancy, the man said she could not keep it and that is when he revealed his marital status.
KICKSTART PROCESS
“I went to a clinic and was given some tablets to take, which were supposed to kickstart the process after one hour or so. After waiting for 12 hours I went to a different clinic where I was told the foetus must have died and that having it in my womb was dangerous, hence the ‘cleaning’, a very painful experience,” she says.
* Names have been changed to protect the identities of those interviewed.