When I was 24 years old, I unexpectedly found out that I was pregnant. I was scared. I wasn’t married, and I wasn’t prepared to be a mom.
I started grasping for answers and searching for help. My boyfriend wanted me to end my pregnancy. I didn’t want to. I didn’t think it was right. But he pressured me to make an appointment at a local abortion facility.
When we arrived at the facility, we went back into the examination room and the doctor was really hesitant to show me my ultrasound. Without talking to me or sharing with me what the drugs might do, he gave me the first abortion drug mifepristone and left.
The staff then gave me a couple of pieces of paper to sign. There was no time to read the papers. There was no counseling. There were no private conversations. There was no guidance as to any sort of side effects that the drugs would have on my body.
They just gave me a bag with the second drug I was supposed to take at home. There was no talk of a follow-up visit with the doctor—not even a phone appointment. After I was given the drugs, and they got my money, my case was closed.
Get the latest pro-life news and information on X (Twitter). Follow @LifeNewsHQ
Nobody told me the drugs’ side effects. Nobody told me that there was danger. “You’re going to feel so relieved,” they said. “It’s going to be behind you.”
Staff at the abortion facility told me that I would experience something like a heavy period. They said I might experience some light cramping, but nothing that a heating pad and some Tylenol wouldn’t take care of, and that I would be back to work on Monday.
I experienced nothing like that. With a period, you get some dull pain in your back. You feel like you need to use the restroom and change your sanitary napkin. But this was the most intense cramping I’d ever experienced. I’ve had four children since then and what I was left to experience all alone on my bathroom floor were labor pains. These drugs put me into labor—piercing pain from my head to my toes.
And I was completely alone. I didn’t have a nurse. I didn’t have a doctor. I had to shut my boyfriend out of the bathroom because I didn’t want him to be afraid because there was so much blood.
When my body was experiencing that amount of pain, I had no idea what was normal for this procedure.
I felt like I had a fever. I felt nauseated. I couldn’t stand. My body was shaking and sweating. It lasted for hours. A heating pad, a heating blanket, Tylenol, Advil, nothing stopped the pain.
I was so scared—I thought I was going to die.
But that wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was that nobody told me that I would actually pass the entire amniotic sac whole—that I would hold my dead baby. That I would see its eyes and its fingers. They told me that I would just see clotting and heavy period blood. They lied to me.
I still see my dead baby. You don’t unsee something like that. You can’t.
I deserved a doctor to inform me of the risks. To check on me and provide ongoing care. I deserved an extra appointment. I deserved a phone call. I deserved the truth. But I wasn’t given that opportunity. Those who professed to care about my health and well-being showed a grossly callous disregard for my life.
When I first heard that the FDA was removing safety standards around abortion drugs, I was shocked because without safeguards, women are going to face even more harm, emotional pain, and life-threatening complications. What’s even scarier to me is as traumatic and painful as the experience I went through was with the lack of care I received, the FDA is leaving women to suffer even more now. And that’s tragic.
Women taking these drugs without a single in-person doctor visit are at risk for so many devastating consequences.
Who’s going to protect them from an ectopic pregnancy?
Who’s going to protect them from bleeding and sepsis?
Who’s going to protect them from abusive partners who want to slip them this drug and terminate their pregnancy?
Who’s going to counsel them about the reality of chemical abortion and the physical, emotional, and psychological risks?
The U.S. Supreme Court needs to hold the FDA accountable. When the FDA took away its original safeguards, it betrayed not just me but every woman. The Supreme Court needs to see that for the truth that it is. It’s time for the Court to say enough.
LifeNews Note: Elizabeth Gillette survived a chemical abortion when she was 24 years old. She currently resides in Salem, Oregon. This appeared at Alliance for Freedom and reposted with permission.