What would love do?

To all of you who have experienced abortion,

I love you.

I love you for your brave choice.
I love you for your courage to find the help you needed.
I love you for honoring your body, mind, and or spirit with your decision.

I love you if you feel alone, and I love you if you’ve found your support network.

I love you if you feel empty from your loss, and I love you if you feel full with freedom.

I love you if you feel shame, and I love you if you feel pride.

Choosing abortion is no joke.
It’s a big deal.
Whether you’ve had one or five, and for whatever reason, you are AMAZING.

Maybe you didn’t feel strong enough to carry the pregnancy, but I know you were strong enough to end it.

Maybe you wished it wasn’t the best choice, but I know that if you chose it, it was.

Maybe you didn’t even choose to have sex, maybe it was forced upon you, and you were brave enough to get the help you needed despite your anger and pain.

I don’t know your story, but I know that I love you.
I love you because you are a woman, and being a woman is complicated enough, no one should have to do it without being loved.

You deserve all the love you can get, and I’m gonna keep on giving it.

Consider yourself LOVED,
Amanda

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What is love?

Merriam-Webster has a whole bunch to say about love.

I suppose we all do.

Love to me means my heart is open. It knows that I have no idea what it’s like to walk in your shoes nor you mine. It knows that we all have big feelings and that there’s room for a whole bunch of them in the same conversation.

Love holds no space for judgement, and lots of room for mistakes.

Love is uniquely different to each of us, yet somehow we all understand it.
We all feel when it’s present and also when it’s not.
Love is energy and we’re exchanging it all the time in person and across seas.

One of my all time favorite questions to ask is, “What would love do?” It’s like a secret weapon to unlock our intuition and lead us to the answers we seek. This question was central in my decision to have an abortion and it’s been central in my healing.

I asked it when:

• I didn’t know what to do next ,or how I was ever going to be the same again

• I felt alone and empty

• I was frustrated with my partner and all the men who didn’t have to feel what I was feeling

• I felt let down by the birth control industry and angry at myself and or my disappearing IUD

• I felt like there was no ground beneath my feet and the only way to stick around was to learn how to fly

I asked this question so many times that the answer started coming before I’d even finished asking. I’m still asking “What would love do?” today. I can’t imagine I’ll ever stop.

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(a piece of my story)

I’ve felt a LOT of love on this abortion journey, and I plan to keep telling stories about it, but nothing compares to the love I feel for myself when the protestors and the haters speak their two cents into my story. This wasn’t always the case. They used to send me to my knees. Their opinions had me feeling all kinds of awful things like guilt, shame, and sometimes even regret, but the more I went inward and processed my experience, the more love I found for myself. This self-love is now my armor. It keeps me strong when everything around me says “go weak.” Self-love didn’t just heal my heart after abortion, it’s fueled me to live a much bigger and fuller life: I’m a more steady parent, a fierce business women, a compassionate friend, and a woman on a mission to help as many women as I possibly can heal after abortion.