By MICHELLE TRAXLER

I have the following stories to tell, as these personal experiences touch on several facets of the abortion debate. It’s not just my experience that I’m representing here. It’s the experience of tens of thousands of other women who were in distress, and made a horrible decision to end the life of their baby before they could be born. My son was one of these people who was never born. 

At 17, I was pregnant for a second time. I already had a daughter by the same drug-addict boyfriend I was in the process of leaving. I reasoned that I couldn’t take care of two little ones by myself, and I couldn’t. 

Considering giving the child up for adoption didn’t go well. Being honest, I was deeply upset about the damage that had been done to my body from being pregnant and giving birth. I didn’t want to go through it again so soon. 

Also heavily weighing on my mind, was the thought of my child being abused, as I had been abused. I had seen and experienced evil in this world. It broke my heart to think of someone hurting my child, and for me to not know about it to save him. 

I reasoned that both myself, and this child, would be better off if I got rid of him before he could be born. I was sad, troubled and lost, but resolved to my decision. 

Back in 1987, you couldn’t go in early and have an abortion. There was a risk of having  a “missed abortion.” There were no pills to take. 

I set off to go to a distant city, where I would be asleep for the procedure. On the way there, my boyfriend was stopped for speeding. We missed the appointment. 

The clock was ticking and I was still resolved. Another appointment was made to a different clinic. By then, I was 13 weeks pregnant. 

Shortly after entering the clinic, I was directed to the counselor’s office. I was very mature, composed and matter of fact. I laid out my argument to allow me to proceed, without dropping a tear. I convinced her that I knew what I was doing, and was fine with it. 

On my way from her office to the waiting room, I ran into a girl I knew. Her appointment was ahead of mine. We didn’t say much to each other, but I thought of how sad it was that her, and her boyfriend, were killing their baby, yet I mostly blocked feeling that way about my own.

I did await my turn in dread. I remember being on the table with IV medicine dripping into me that was about to knock me out. I stared at the vacuum machine and the tool the doctor was about to insert into me. He looked up at me as I looked at him in terror, as I thought he was going to insert the suction tool before I was asleep. 

As I slept, the 13-week-old little boy I was carrying was literally torn apart as it was sucked out of my womb. To ensure nothing was left behind to cause an infection, his little body parts were reassembled in another room. He was then, maybe, incinerated. He was a person.

I woke up in a recovery room, at the end of a row of other women. After I dressed and was leaving, I looked over at all of them. 

The first woman was a 30-something year old. She was sitting up and smiling. The others were teenagers like me. One was crying loudly and profusely. Another was just huddled with her blankets hiding her. Another just stared off into space. 

It was literally like an abortion factory. I waited and waited outside the clinic, but still in the building, for my boyfriend to come pick me up. That was awful. 

When he finally got there, he was mad that they told him wrong about when to be back  to pick me up. He went on a rant. I felt embarrassed, and just wanted to leave so bad. He insisted on saying something, and told me that he, “didn’t believe in abortion.”

My heart sank when he said that. Fine time to tell me, after the fact. He left, after telling off the woman at the desk. I left him and the state three months later.

Years later, someone close to me had a miscarriage. She came out of the bathroom with her hands cupped and trembling, holding something. 

What she was holding was maybe two inches long. It looked liked a big piece of bubble gum in a V shape, with a spine developing down the middle. 

It certainly didn’t look like a baby or have a heart beat, but it was still, undeniably, the body of a human baby. Science would have identified it as such. 

One day, my daughter contacted me in great distress. She was given the RU486 (mifepristone), a two-part abortion pill, by a bad doctor in Anchorage. (She’s not practicing medicine here anymore.) She had already taken the first pill.

I didn’t even know she was pregnant. She had two days to think about what she did. We were both in unbearable anguish.  I did research on it. At the time, she had no choice but to take the second pill. She did and went to work. 

I got a phone call from her, as she sat on the toilet at the gas station she worked at. She told me it was finished. My grandchild was about to be flushed down the toilet.

I asked my daughter a few years later what she thought about abortion. She said, “It’s bullshit.” I said, “What do you mean?” She said, “If you’re pregnant with a baby, you should have a baby.” Amen. 

Someone else I know, was expecting their first born. At seven months gestation she couldn’t breathe, and was diagnosed with preeclampsia. She had the choice of either giving the baby a chance at life in the NICU at Providence, or abort him. NICU it was!

This mother told me that she never realized she could love someone so much. It turns my stomach to think that child could have been destroyed along with the other medical waste, had his mother not wanted him. 

The issue of unwanted pregnancies, for whatever the reason, has always existed and always will. It’s a very complex situation to be in. There’s no easy solution, but there are solutions that don’t involve murdering a baby. 

If you don’t want one, don’t make one. But don’t make one, then kill it. Get sterilized, temporarily or permanently, by whatever means you choose. Your body, your choice on this one.

These babies are our future. The birth rate here in Alaska has actually gone down, thanks in part to abortion. It’s a low-key form of genocide that people actually demand. 

We are living, human beings from the time we are conceived and attach in our mother’s womb to grow. That should be a most sacred and safe place, for us as humans to begin our life here on Earth. 

I have thought about that over the years, and how I betrayed my own child in such a horrific way. It pierces my soul. My only consolation is that Christ died for that sin too, and I’m forgiven for it. When I die and leave this world, I’ll see my baby. 

There are tens of thousands of other women, whose pain and shame prevent them from speaking the truth about this evil, we have for too long allowed in our society. 

In honor and remembrance of my son, whom I have named John Anthony, and my lost grandchild, I have written this.  

They were real people that should at least be granted the dignity of being referred to as such, after having suffered the indignity of being aborted. 

HB107, sponsored by Rep. Kevin McCabe, will define human life, just as we have statute defining death. Both God and science agree that life begins at conception. Without politics involved, that conclusion was once the accepted norm, that it should be today.  

There are other states trying to pass similar legislation. Babies in this state have been legally murdered, up until birth, for over 50 years. Tens of thousands of babies, dead. That should bother you. 

Please overwhelm Rep. McCabe, in letters of support for this critically important piece of legislation. He needs to hear from you, even if you just simply say that you support HB107. If you may be so bold, say that, along with the name of a baby that was lost. That may help some of you.  

HB107, will officially recognize that the unborn are living, human beings…individual people. They should be respected, and have the same right to have their life protected, as if they were born.

Michelle Traxler is a resident of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.