More and more women have been sharing their abortion stories via social media, many of them recording their stories for their YouTube audiences. We came across this heartbreaking video in which a woman named Xiehriex shares her abortion story from when she was fifteen.
Like many women, Xiehriex was not empowered by her ability to access abortion during an unexpected pregnancy. Instead, she describes it as the opposite, a tool that people around her used to control and manipulate her.
The abortion industry claims that they empower women like Xiehriex by giving them control over their own bodies. However, in her video, Xiehriex says that although she wanted to keep the baby, her boyfriend and her father convinced her she had no other choice. She says that even her mom was “brainwashed” by her dad.
“It wasn’t my decision… it was like I was forced to do it. My dad was also telling me like, ‘You don’t really have a choice. You’re not 18 so we can make you do it.’ I honestly didn’t know he was lying to me about it.”
Feeling like she had no other option, she went to the abortion clinic.
She describes driving up to the clinic and seeing protesters standing out front: “This guy came up, they were protestors, with a big billboard of like a baby and stuff. And he was just saying, ‘You guys don’t have to do this. We can help you guys… we’ll give you an ultrasound.'”
With tears in her eyes, she describes how badly she wanted to listen to him. She says, “I literally wanted to get out of the car and go with him… I remember that I was crying and that I wanted to go with him. I didn’t know who he was. But I felt like at the time, he was the only one that wanted to help me.”
Women in this position are empowered not when they are told they can’t or shouldn’t, but when they are told they can.
There is a problem in our society if women like Xiehriex are only told that they can’t or shouldn’t. There is a problem if the only person that is offering help to a woman experiencing an unexpected pregnancy is a stranger. There is a problem if women are told by the people they love the most that abortion is their only option.
Xiehriex still expresses feelings of grief and regret about her abortion and the manipulation and lack of support she experienced during that time of her life; however, she is now a mom to a beautiful little boy and hopes to speak life into situations like her own.
Do you have a story like Xiehriex’s? Email mystory@savethestorks.com.
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