I'm Sorry vs. I Regret

Patti at Snohomish Sphere and one of the attendees at Monday's NARAL rally posted her thoughts on seeing the "I regret my abortion" signs.

Patti thought the signs said, "I had an abortion and I'm sorry", which is a bit different from "I regret my abortion." Lee Anne tried to post on her site but Patti must approve all posts before they go up. I'm assuming this is a way to prevent spam from being posted, and I can certainly relate to that.

In the meantime, here's Lee Anne's post:

Good Day! I was one of the women who was exercising my constitutional right on Monday, the 23rd. My sign did not say what you wrote. My sign said, "I regret my abortion".

You have written many questions based on the mistaken sentiment on my sign.

If you wish to know why I regret my abortion, I will tell you...

I regret my abortion because it ended the life of a clump of cells.

I regret my abortion because I was told to be silent about what I had done.

I regret my abortion because I was not given a choice.

I regret my abortion because I was rendered infertile.

I regret my abortion because I was not able to stand up and say "NO!" to the pressure of my parents who made the choice to have my child aborted.

I regret my abortion because I know that there was a family that could have taken care of my clump of cells.

I will tell you something interesting - when I had my thyroid taken out several years ago, due to cancer, I mourned the fact that I no longer had that gland. I thought it was very strange that I was sad over having had a gland removed. I spoke to a health professional and she told me that on the contrary, people mourn when they loose a part of their body. It is not uncommon for an amputee, for instance, to ask for the amputeed leg or arm and have it eventually buried with him or her. This was interesting to me - I had never heard of such a thing! If I mourned a stupid gland, why would I not regret and not mourn the life of the child that was growing in my womb...by the way, I was four months pregnant when the clump of cells was removed.

Now - dear author of the post in which you got the sentiment wrong...the MAIN reason why I held my sign was to let women know that it is OKAY TO REGRET a choice that one has made or had made for them.

There is help to process the regret. Rachel's Vinyard and Silent No More Awareness are two venues that can help. In the Seattle area 1 800 822 HOPE.

If you are truly open minded you will leave the numbers up for all of the women who have had abortions . . . whether they regret it or not. And, I would not be so presumptious to say that someone did or did not regret their abortion - that is not my call.

I regret, dear author, that you did not get my sign right!

Blessings to you and all your readers. Lee Anne