Why it took me more than 20 years to share my abortion story

By Heather Lawson, Op-ed contributor Tuesday, February 10, 2026

For 20 years, I kept a haunting secret and told people I had “lost” a child when, in fact, I’d had an abortion, as I was living inside a prison of torturous shame. 

I share this anecdote because I’m noticing how the pro-life movement, which I support, is grappling with its future, and as hardline measures are being proposed in some states. A bill, HB 1212, which proposed criminalizing women who procure abortions, was recently heard in a South Dakota legislative committee but was voted down. Emotions and tensions are running high. 

I understand all the emotions people feel when it comes to abortion, especially Christians. But as these debates emerge, it’s important to consider the complex circumstances that surround pregnancies. Contrary to what some might assume, it’s not always cut and dry. I know because I have been on three different sides of pregnancy: once where I was pressured to abort but refused; once where I aborted after being misled by smooth-talking medical doctors; and another occasion where everything was ideal.

I first became pregnant at 18 and was encouraged by so many to abort, particularly since I was only 18. But I said no and will always remember walking into the crisis pregnancy center in my city and the love and the support that these strangers gave me. They didn’t judge or shame me and taught me everything I needed to know about being a young mom.

That son is now 30. 

My second pregnancy was even harder than the first. But even though I was married, doing it the right way didn’t ensure a perfect outcome. An ultrasound revealed we were having a boy who had a Dandy-Walker cyst on his brain and a cleft lip and palate. Medical professionals explained to me that he had a hole in his brain, and a specialist sat me down and simply said I could “do the right thing now and end this pregnancy, or the wrong thing and watch him die in my arms shortly after birth,” and it was explained that it was the unselfish, humane thing to do. Still young and without much support, I mistakenly trusted these supposedly brilliant doctors who seemed to know everything when I knew so little, and I listened to their advice, and I had an abortion.

But then I stumbled on the physician’s notes from my abortion that my doctor did not intend for me to see. Those notes read: “Normal fetal cry from below to the head, all limbs accounted for.” Reading those notes imprisoned my heart and mind for over 20 years. Nothing could have made me feel worse.

My third pregnancy was exactly how it should be in most people’s eyes. A difficult pregnancy, but blessed by all. A healthy baby, I was married and supported endlessly by my family. He’s now 26. 

You might assume that after such an ideal pregnancy and a beautiful child comes into your world, that I could move on easily. As wonderful as it was having my two sons, there was a hole, a missing piece. One does not just let go of the shame when you have a baby after having an abortion. You wonder even more how things could have been different had you been stronger or wiser. And then the shame and guilt saturate you like the fires of Hell, and no one in the world knows how it feels but you. 

Indeed, even after that third ideal pregnancy, my second one that ended in abortion tormented me, and it wasn’t until one day, while sitting at church and listening to someone else’s abortion story, that everything changed. I could hardly breathe during her entire presentation because of how relatable it was to mine. I took a step of faith, reached out to her, and her love and support completely changed my life. Until that moment, due to the shame I carried, I’d told everyone I had “lost a child,” hoping that they would assume it was a miscarriage. But the woman who ministered to me that day was the first time someone loved me despite what I had done and told me that the Lord still loved me. In that moment, she removed my shame, gave me a voice, and empowered me to do likewise for other women. 

And so, I implore you, advocates who seek to penalize women with punitive measures, please remember that many of us thought we were doing the “right” thing amid fraught circumstances. Pregnancy complications often clouded our reasoning, particularly when silver-tongued specialists in white coats misled us about our options. The abortion industry and its allies lie and deceive us during unnerving moments, bordering on coercion. They, not us, should be your targets. 

The last thing we need is condemnation and being made to feel worse than we already do. While we know what abortion is, many of us were not fully informed about what it entailed, given the morally confusing, ideologically loaded pressures we faced from purported professionals. 

Please, be the strangers who were there for me at the crisis pregnancy center to love me through it. Please, be there for all of God‘s children, who are born into this world. And please, be there for the women like me who lived for decades in their own personal prison of shame. 

All politics aside, you can never fully know who that girl or young woman facing a crisis pregnancy has or does not have in her life. You can never fully know the good or bad advice she was given that may have pressured her to do something she will regret. You can never know the fullness of her story. Be the only Jesus she may ever see and love her despite her mistakes. 

Because if you do, she’ll go on to change the world and likely save many other babies and moms. I know because I was that girl before a stranger’s love and Grace found me.