Hayley had an abortion when she was 16. She has now shared her harrowing story of abuse with “Her Voice”, a SPUC initiative that gives a voice to women whose abortion experiences are ignored by the media.
Hayley’s early days were clouded with abuse, both physical and emotional. Not knowing her real father, her isolation increased when her mother divorced her stepdad. Hayley was aged just 13 at the time.
Then she met Scott*, an older man who had two children from a previous relationship. And at the age of just 16, Hayley, too, was made pregnant by Scott, who demanded that she have an abortion.
When she was 12 weeks pregnant, she visited an abortion clinic after being coerced by Scott.
“I cried the whole time”, she remembers. “I just wanted someone to say, ‘STOP don’t do it.’ But nobody did.”
After the abortion, Hayley fell into a deep depression and was suicidal. She turned to drugs, alcohol and sex. Looking for love in all the wrong places, she ended up having four children with four different men.
“I was a mess for years”, she admits.
It was only in 2019 that she found peace and redemption in Christianity, also allowing her to speak out about her abortion, the abortion that did so much damage to her life and well-being.
Hayley said: “I had always known I was hurt by the loss of my daughter, Chelsea, to abortion, but I didn’t realise how that hurt manifests itself.
“I thought I was unstable because of all the other events around the abortion. But no, even women who are in stable relationships with family support suffer terribly after having abortions.”
Hayley’s full story can be found here.
*Scott is not his real name
SPUC comment
A SPUC spokesperson said: “Such stories as these show that what women who have suffered abuse like Hayley require most of all is love, not abortion.
“Abortion is not healthcare. Real healthcare doesn’t harm women or serve their abusers.”
To read the moving and harrowing contributions of women to Her Voice, visit: hervoice.org.uk
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