On the sidewalk outside EMW here in Louisville, we have about 60 seconds to speak with pregnant women concerning the decision they have made to kill their unborn child. This is not a lot of time and it’s often interrupted by the clinic’s escorts who surround the women and speak falsely about us to the women during one of the most emotional walks they’ll ever take. Many times this is frustrating to me as I’m focused on the woman and trying to provide her help and a way out from the terrible decision she believes she has been forced into by her circumstances. Many times, one of the last phrases I’ll say to a woman (or to her friend) is that she’ll regret this decision and can leave the abortion clinic to walk next door for help at A Woman’s Choice. And just about every time, one of the escorts will retort back, how do you know she’ll regret it?

WORLD Magazine highlighted the story of Justine Kyker, as September 1st marked the 23rd anniversary of her abortion and she writes of the experience here. An excerpt:

At the advice of one friend, she decided to call this Planned Parenthood clinic first.

On the phone, a Planned Parenthood staff member asked Kyker how far along she was. She didn’t know, but guessed three months, and said so. Kyker said she was told to come in right away and bring $200 cash. She then disregarded her previous plan to give up her baby for adoption, going against the prior discussions with her family and her doctor. “I didn’t think about the humanity of the baby,” Kyker said. Unwilling to go to a family member for the money she needed, she took back her college textbooks for the upcoming semester to raise the $200.

The next day, although she had been told not to eat, Kyker gave in to her hunger craving and stopped at a nearby corner store for chocolate milk and mozzarella sticks. Once she arrived at Planned Parenthood, “I paid my $200 to the cashier and sat in the waiting room for a long time,” she said. There, she recalls an employee stopped by: “She said, ‘You seem sad,’ and I started to cry,” Kyker said.

She was offered a little white pill “to make you feel better,” accepted it, and became sleepy until she was on the surgical table. The abortion proved unexpectedly painful, and Kyker’s cries caused more people to enter the room. “Physically, I felt they ripped my internal organs out,” she said. “I was screaming.”

Afterward, Kyker was seated in a room with several other young women, with an employee at one end of the room. “I was sick, vomiting, and I was afraid I would get in trouble for eating,” she said. “The only sympathy I got was from the other girls who had just aborted their babies while the employee just sat there.”

She concludes her story with this powerful statement, “You will never regret giving birth to your child. You will always regret an abortion.”

(HT)