It has been awhile since I posted a conversion story. This comes from JM, who gave me permission to post. It contains thoughts for pro-lifers, including me, to take to heart. And this story is a real tribute to Bethany and MK, Bethany in particular. Any disparaging comments will be deleted:
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When I was in high school I was very much pro-LIFE.
When I came to college is when I began to be pro-choice. It was the point that I really started to have an opinion about the matter. I had the view that I would never have an abortion myself, but couldn’t make the choice for anyone else. I knew I could never have one, because I knew if I ever did I would regret it later and feel guilty. I am a very emotional person and I knew myself enough that I couldn’t have one.
Abortion didn’t make me happy, I didn’t want people to have abortions, but I felt like it wasn’t my choice to make. I started going to your site because I heard about it on a pro-choice facebook group. I came because I enjoyed debating. I enjoyed sharing my opinion and hearing others’ opinions. When I began to feel judged for my beliefs I left and haven’t really been back….

Although while I was still going to your site I told my friend Brad, a huge feminist, about the blog. He often loved debating, too, and I thought the blog might interest him. As I began to tell him about the blog he said something like this (keep in mind he is a huge feminist and major with women’s rights. He studied philosophy and womens studies in college), “Abortion is a tough one for me. I haven’t quite figured out how I feel about it. If I think about it as a moral issue then I think its wrong, but if I take the women’s rights stand point then i’m not sure.”
It was an interesting point and seemed to be identical to how I felt about it as well. At least when I look back on it that’s what it seemed anyway. Which is part of the reason I quit going to your site. I didn’t like abortion, I didn’t want people to have them, but didn’t want to make that choice for anyone, yet I was called a “pro abort,” and “murderer.” It made me angry and I felt hurt. So I quit going.
I met Bethany there. She seemed like such a sweetheart, and I guess I started going to her blog instead. I think i’ve been going to her blog for close to two years now. I honestly think I had this view about abortion like, “out of sight out of mind.” If i didn’t have to really think about what was happening with this “choice” people made then I was okay with it.
I went to Bethany’s blog because I felt she did not judge me. That she saw me as a person and even though my thoughts were different from hers she was still kind and friendly to me, and I now consider her a dear friend that I would love to meet someday. Words can not describe her kindness or her personality. I LOVE her!
In 2007, I moved to… so I could use my degree and begin a teaching career. I have a brother who lives there and getting a teaching job is easy because they are really in need. Getting a teaching job in the midwest is well… HARD.
I met a teacher there who said he thought a lot of kids in school that can understand abortion disagree with it. He thought it would be outlawed someday. I disagreed right away. I still had this, “not right for me” view. He ended up comparing abortion to slavery. It at first made me angry, how are they even remotely the same?!?! Then I thought about it, and while the two are very different there is similarity. Slavery happened, and while it was happening there were people who didn’t see anything wrong with it, and there were people who disagreed with it. African Americans were seen as useless and not human. When look back on it now, we can’t believe that anything like that could have ever happen, and yet it did. I think that’s how unborn children are viewed right now.
I returned home the following November, because it was horrible experience. The students were disrespectful and rude, and it was effecting me emotionally and physically. I would have regular panic attacks and lost about 20 pounds in about two months. I would actually email Bethany and MK (who I haven’t spoken with in months. She was also kind and friendly. She knew my views and did not make me feel like a bad person.) I emailed them several times throughout my experince, and I really think they both helped me get through it.
Anyway I resigned and came home, and I think this is when I started to feel differently about abortion. I was like Brad, not really sure how I felt about abortion, and I continued to feel this way until recently.
I was an “in betweener.”
About a month ago I went out with a friend from high school. We used to be best friends and still kind of are. We aren’t as close as we used to be, but we’re still good friends. She started telling me that she had gone to the drug store to get the Plan B drug. She stated she had been having sex with her boyfriend when the condom broke. They stopped shortly after this but she was worried, hence why she got the drug.
I asked her how much it cost. She said about 50 bucks. I commented on how that was a lot of money. Her exact words were as follows, “Yeah it is a lot but I figure 50 bucks now is better than 300 bucks later for an abortion.” It just rolled of her tongue like it was nothing.
I suddenly felt sad, angry and upset. My friend used to tell me about how she would have sex unprotected with previous boyfriends and how she was surprised she didn’t get pregnant. I knew why now she didn’t care about using condoms and getting pregnant, because she could “take care of the problem later” if she needed to.
I just couldn’t believe it. I was “out of sight out of mind,” remember. I couldn’t believe it. What if she marries this current boyfriend? What would she tell her children, “You could have had an older brother or sister but mommy decided to kill it instead”? I just couldn’t believe I had a friend who would have an abortion… wow! This was the moment that I realized I was pro-life.
I emailed Bethany right away to tell her my story. I am sure you know how she reacted. At that time, which was probably two weeks ago, I told her I didn’t know how I felt about birth control (hormonal). She told me to pray… or in my terms I like to say reflect about it. I asked her to tell me about her experience with it because I knew she had used it a long time ago and regretted it. She told me that she didn’t like the side effects it caused her. She stated it was lately that she found out about the other stuff (fertilized egg not attaching to the uterus).
Recently I have decided to see if I was experiencing side effects with mine. Guess what… I was…. So this past Sunday I decided I was not going to use the nuvaring any longer. (I of course sent an email to Bethany within 24 hours to tell her… hehehe… again I am sure you can imagine how happy she was.) And my boyfriend is supportive of this decision. We will still use other forms of contraceptives though, and I am hoping that if I do decide to come back to your site I will not be judged because of that.
Funny thing about “the pill.” I was sitting with my aunt last evening and my mother. We began to talk about hormonal birth control and my decision to stop using it. I am close with my mother and my family in general. For the sake of this conversation I am going to refer to hormonal birth control as birth control.
My aunt had said she could not believe people used IUD’s because they abort babies. I said, “You do know that when you use birth control an egg can still be fertilzed, the drug just prevents the egg from attaching itself to the uterus.” (My aunt is in her 40’s, my mother is 56.) They disagreed with me and said it stopped you from ovulating. I said, “I don’t think so.” The next morning I googled it and read the right facts to them. Turns out they were partly right and I was as well. I guess it confuses the egg and the sperm but also won’t attach if the egg does become fertilized.
I think aboriton will one day be illegal. I just don’t know when.
I may return to your site. Perhaps I will start out as an observer and eventually comment again. But I wanted to tell you my story because I thought you might enjoy it, and I hope you did.

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