“Ex-Pro-Lifers, What Changed Your Mind On Abortions?” (30 Answers)

I volunteered at a Christian organization that assisted pregnant African refugee women. I gave them rides to their doctors appointments and stuff, provided them with a point of contact for general help. First lady from Sudan gave birth like a champ to a healthy baby and they went on their way. Second lady from Darfur was very new to the US and I was with her at her first ultrasound. Fetus was pretty far along, seven months I think, but it had not developed lungs or most of a brain. It was going to be stillborn - medical recommendation was obviously a relatively late term abortion.

Took this information back to the manager of the charity, who disagreed with the doctor, as "miracles do happen" so instead of an abortion, the woman was forced to carry the dead thing inside of her to term and give birth to it. It would have been a girl, but it was indeed stillborn and extremely deformed.

I feel like an a*****e for not remembering her name anymore. I do remember her quiet confusion but dutiful compliance with what she was told to do. She did ask two questions: "Why no doctor?" when we told her we weren't going to go with the medical advice of abortion. "Why no bury?" when we told her she could not take the deceased back home to bury in the backyard.

I was a part of that situation and it felt wrong to me the whole way through but my faith over rode it. Well it haunted me for years... Now I keep a stock of Plan B.

I basically started off as someone who believed in abortion for moms whose lives were in danger and a small waiting period for anyone else. I wasn't extremely pro-life compared to others.

Over time, I learned how there are plenty situations where even my two requirements could be a barrier to the most vulnerable. How does a doctor pinpoint when a mom's life is in danger and needs that abortion? What about moms who find out they have cancer? Would they be forced to delay medical treatment to have the baby? What happens if a vulnerable mom is trying to have an abortion in secret but they are turned away because of a waiting period and the scheduling aspect becomes impossible?

Then I learned how laws that are designed to support pro-life ideals screws people over in the end. A pregnant woman goes the court because she got shot in the stomach and the prosecutor think she's responsible for her baby's death by being a victim of a shooting (Southern US). A woman gets tried multiple times because she had a miscarriage and is held in a jail between each trial (Latin America). A woman is declared brain dead but is kept on life support against her wishes, and her husband isn't able for lay her to rest for a month until the hospital realizes the baby is completely deformed and non-viable (Southern US).

People might not like abortions, but I now believe there are worse outcomes when you try to restrict them anyway in the name of pro-life ideals.

I got pregnant and my ex tried to force me to have one. Having someone try to take your choice out of the matter right in your face is a bit of an eye opener.

Guy here....i realized that abortions are terrible and people dont want them they need them and generally only if they end up in a situation that requires them.

I reasoned we should keep women safe and spend time on how WE can ALL avoid having to make to decision in the first place OR making the world better so that they could also choose to keep the baby in a really caring world.

It was too easy to say abortion is bad ban it.

Education. Learning more than my right-wing parents had ever exposed me to. Getting out from under the rock and being willing to listen and change my opinion based upon newly gathered data.

I was raised sort of casually pro-life. I believed it should be safe and legal to prevent people being harmed in unsafe abortions and that it was justified if necessary to protect the "mother", but that to simply choose it because you didn't want a kid was morally wrong. I was never an activist on either side though. I just had my personal beliefs against it.

I have a LOT of reasons that I am firmly pro-choice now, a list that has grown over time, but the tipping point for me, back in college, was the bodily autonomy argument. You can't force a person to donate their organs or their blood or *any* part or use of their body, even to save another living breathing human, so you certainly can't force someone to risk their life and loan their uterus to a group of cells that *could* become a human later if left alone.

I read the sentence "Outlawing abortions means giving pregnant people fewer rights than a corpse," ten years ago and I've been loudly pro-choice ever since. I acquired more reasons as I became more educated, but that was what did it.

1. a loosening of my harsh definition of what murder is, what a human person is, etc.
2. experiencing a saving of my own life through an abortion of my child I never knew about
3. the understanding that people unwanted by their mothers drag society down and commit crimes (Donohue–Levitt hypothesis)
4. the understanding that abortion is not something modern; abortion and infanticide are found throughout history
5. the recognition that self defense goes beyond stopping an immediate threat of death: having a productive life is so much more beneficial than just surviving

In summary, just basically growing up and looking at the issue with more nuance than just a black & white application of rules.

Someone I love needed a late term abortion. Her baby had Potters Syndrome and was being crushed in utero. He was born alive with a very deformed skull due to pressure. She was called a murderer. A lot. Then I researched and learned WHY people abort.

The exceptions were too numerous and sometimes too obscure to be properly written into law, so the law shouldn't restrict it.

The idea of being forced to conceive a terminally disabled child, that to me is absolutely horrifying and I don't believe anyone should be forced to go through that