Susan's Story

I was told when I was 18 years old that I would never have children. My mom had taken me to several doctors because of my very irregular menstrual cycles. The doctors never named my problem (that I now know as Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome), they only put me on birth control pills to "regulate my cycle" and told my mother and I that I was completely infertile and that I would never have children. So I hated anyone having anything to do with abortions. I didn't understand why anyone would end the life of a child when there were so many people such as myself that were unable to have children and would adopt, etc.

After visiting 7 different pregnancy/fertility specialists in my mid 20's, and being told again that I just couldn't have children, my hatred toward the pro-choice movement grew. I didn't care if it was a woman's right to chose. I didn't have a right to chose so why should other women.

Miraculously, in 1996, at the age of 28, I conceived my daughter. I don't know how or why, (well, yes I do. God), but I do know that doctors aren't always right- and I began to see pro-choice in a different light, though I still didn't believe completely in a woman's right to chose.

Then something happened in 2002 that would change my mind and my life forever. I became pregnant again, but the pregnancy was ectopic, in my tubes. I knew something was wrong and thank God the doctors and I had detected it before it had gone on too much longer. My doctor treated me with a shot. She said it was the "abortion shot". My God I was horrified at first, but then I began to realize something- woman must have the right to chose. All options must be available to them, surgeries, shots, pills, so that they may chose what is appropriate for them. The alternatives are deadly both physically and emotionally.

I am glad that the shot was available. It saved my life. If abortions were illegal, the alternative would have been surgery and I would have lost part of my body and risked never having another baby ever again, or the tube could have burst and I could have died.

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