i had an abortion when i was 24. at the time, i was a single mother raising a 6-year old son. we had recently relocated to a large city after i had accepted a new job.

before we moved i had been dating a man, but we broke up and i thought it was over between us. after about six months, i was feeling really homesick and decided to move back to the small town i was from–about 70 miles away– and commute. the day i moved back, my ex-boyfriend asked me to marry him. i was delighted and happy to finally be starting a new life, but a couple weeks later i discovered i was pregnant and it was most certainly not my fiancé’s child. not only was i not ready for another child, but i was also afraid that my fiancé would not want to marry me. my friend took me to the clinic and i never told my fiancé about it. although we eventually divorced for other reasons, we were married and went on to have two children together. i am an atheist now, but i wasn’t then, so sometimes the christian “guilt” was overwhelming. in retrospect, however, i do not regret it; it was the right decision for me.