"it is right for you if you think it is, and it is right for the baby."

I've been reading through the new abortion stories at I'm Not Sorry and was struck by the number of times the women in these stories (like Ashley C. whose story provides the quote above) describe their unborn child as a "baby."

Ashley D. describes the noise of the suction machine by saying:

This noise did not bother me at first until.... I heard the noise it made when the baby itself was extracted. The whole thing took only five minutes. I was thinking this is a good thing cause it took way less then this to make the baby. This noise will never be forgotten.

At the end of her story she comments on her boyfriend who didn't want her to have the abortion but didn't seem to make much of an effort to convince her otherwise.

Some people are pissed and not happy with my choice but key word being MY CHOICE. The father never came to me one time and said “I want this baby.” He never said this means everything to me. Nothing. I got a couple text messages and that was it. But this was a human life he created and if it was that ****ing important, one would think he might have made an effort. I'm so happy with the decision I made. I feel almost as if I was given another chance at life. He wants me to feel bad and terrible and I never will.

To me, that reads like she really wanted him to make that effort to save the human life he helped create.

While some of the women referred to the unborn as a "baby," another woman volunteered "the material they gathered to science."

I was also struck by how soon after their abortion some of these women are writing their stories and submitting them to I'm Not Sorry. Some of the stories seem to be written in the weeks (and sometimes day) after the abortion. I guess it makes sense to a certain extent. You're home by yourself after the abortion, you're thinking about the procedure and the various feelings you're having and you google "abortion" and maybe words that describe your feelings.

Kayla writes about the circumstances around her abortion the day after the abortion. In her case, both her boyfriend and her boyfriend's mother wanted her to keep the child but as this "straight A" student said, "I have specific things that I want and right now a baby is not one of them."