In 1954, getting an abortion wasn’t easy, not even in New York City, but, if you asked the right person who knew a friend of a friend of a friend, it was possible. If you couldn’t afford to fly to another country, you still might find someone to do it who wouldn’t kill you. If you were lucky, you might even get a real doctor.

Being pregnant out of wedlock was a very big deal for most people in those days. “Boys will be boys,“ was society’s theme, so men were off the hook, but women were considered stupid for getting pregnant, and many a female’s reputation took a permanent nosedive. In fact, it was usually ruinous when it happened to girls from nice families like mine.

In the spring of my twentieth year. I was living alone in New York City. I was unmarried, three months pregnant, and trying to make contact with a physician who would perform an abortion that, because I was so far along, would be risky.

Why hadn’t I made a decision sooner? Well, I’d spent one month in denial and then two more rummaging through the jumble of what to do. By now, if I chose abortion, I would definitely need the skill of a physician. Not many kitchen abortionists would perform one that far into the pregnancy, Even if one did, I’d be flirting with death.

Did I ever consider having the baby? Oh, yes. That’s why it took so long to decide. I thought about going to a shelter in Kentucky, the only place for unwed mothers that I’d ever heard about. I could have the baby and then give it up for adoption, but if I chose that, there was no way I could keep my family in Ohio from knowing. We talked on the telephone at least once a week and wrote letters. It would be impossible to keep my whereabouts secret from them for six months, and I couldn’t bear the thought of them knowing what a mess I was in. Then too, I figured that once I saw the baby, I might not be able to give it away, even though I had absolutely no idea how to support a child on my own . On top of everything else, I’d have to abandon the theatrical career I’d begun.

I decided that having the baby, whether I kept it or not, would ruin my life. Yes, I could marry the father.. He said he loved me and was willing to take on the responsibility, but he was urging me to choose abortion. If we married, I would always wonder if he really loved me, or had sacrificed his own dreams to make an honest woman of me. I thought about a lot of things at the time, but it didn’t register that every thought was about me and how I felt. Not once did I ask myself if I was planning to commit murder.

The physician was found and the deed was done. The fact that I couldn’t have any anesthetic because I had to be out of the doctor’s office before patient hours began seemed a proper punishment for the crime. My family would never experience the shame and disappointment of knowing they had a complete fool in their midst, the young man who thought he cared about me was greatly relieved, and I decided that I had done the right thing for everyone involved. Over the next couple of years, I constructed my philosophy about the practicality and mercy of abortion. I was way ahead of my time.

Then, like a slow growing virus, sadness and remorse began to infect my peace. Now wasn’t that odd? Why? My moral structure had stretched to include abortion. No one was pointing a finger at me. Why the sadness? In an attempt to smother it, I’d go back over the abortion logically, and come to the same conclusion: it was the right thing to do. It should be legalized. People who didn’t want babies shouldn’t have them.

But the sadness continued. I asked myself if I was upset because I’d committed a crime by having an abortion, and to my surprise, realized that it wasn’t violating society’s laws that caused me such pain, but violating God’s. Deep inside, a misery had taken up residence and haunted me. I covered it with the music of my worldly life and hid from myself.

Church had been part of my upbringing. Public schools even had classes in religious education when I was a child, but the Jesus I learned about was remote, mysterious, and not interested in what I was doing. He certainly wasn’t significant enough for me to follow. I was making my own path, trying to find answers for living in the real world. There was no reason for me to feel guilt and shame about the practical choice I‘d made. They fit my belief system, so why was I sad?

I knew several women who had had more than one abortion. To them, it was an expensive nuisance. They said if the government would only legalize abortion, it would beat the inconvenience and expense of flying to Latin America to end a pregnancy. I found that when women spoke so casually about abortion, instead of feeling vindicated, I felt awful.

The years passed. I married, divorced, married again and gave birth to a son and a daughter. I thought that would replace the sadness. It didn’t. It made it worse. When I held my children, I ached with the joy of knowing them. How could I ever have taken a life casually and selfishly? Nothing justified the abortion. Not the alcohol I used to drown memories. Not education. Not successes. Not time. Nothing.

In 1978, as I sat on the edge of a bed in an alcohol rehab center and asked Jesus to “show me if you’re real,” everything changed. I offered my tattered life, and then opened my soul, showing Him the mess I‘d made of it. Finally, we went to the place where a tiny person had curled up so many years ago: the baby I exchanged for shiny ideas that produced only fool’s gold.

Jesus forgave my horrible act. He had paid for my sin as He hung on the cross ages before I was even born. He knew me and everything about the life I had lived, just as He knew about you. He paid for my sins, and yours. It took years of stumbling in the darkness of what the world called reason before I discovered the power and compassion of a very real, alive Jesus, but once I found it in that hospital room, I was never the same.

I can share things about my former life, because it no longer exists. The woman who chose to end a life in 1954, handed her own to the Savior in 1978, and what did He do? Gave her a clean start with grace, mercy, forgiveness, and peace.

Does that mean I no longer regret the past? No, and I’d give almost anything if I could change it. I’ve shared my story with you in the hope that you never harm your soul as I did mine, but if you’ve already made the same terrible choice as I, please know that Jesus Christ, the Son of our Heavenly Father, is waiting to embrace you. Run to Him.

It’s one choice you’ll never regret.