Sunday,  October 21, 2012 • Vol. 13--No. 96 • 34 of 46 •  Other Editions

(Continued from page 33)

• "I was kind of in shock. I took like five home tests, five days in a row. Everyday was positive," she said.
• She went to her gynecologist to confirm the pregnancy and talk about options.
• "The moment I said that I was thinking about not keeping it, she stood up out of her chair and said, 'This is a Catholic hospital. I could get in so much trouble for talking to you.'"
• Illinois has lenient laws, no required waiting period, and there are several abortion clinics in the Chicago area. The woman found that while "abortions are easy to get in Chicago, advice about them is not."
• She scoured online sites seeking objective information and made an appointment at a center that advertised confidential counseling and free ultrasounds. It turned out to be a religious anti-abortion group.
• "The first thing they did was hand me a Bible. They started showing me these pictures and videos" of aborted fetuses, she said.
• She said she wanted to leave. But she also wanted that free ultrasound, hoping against hope that it would show she had miscarried. Watching the video was part of the center's requirement.
• After the ultrasound, the counselor said she was 9 weeks pregnant and gave her a tiny doll supposedly the same size.
• The young woman said she would have considered continuing the pregnancy and putting the baby up for adoption, but that the man she was in a relationship with pressured her into going through with an abortion.
• On June 23, she went to a private clinic where there were about 20 women in the small, strangely silent waiting room. "Every once in a while you'd see a woman start to cry," she said.
• It turned out she was 14 weeks pregnant, farther along than the anti-abortion counselor had told her. She paid $1,250 for the abortion. Her insurance wouldn't cover it.
• She said she developed an infection that kept her out of work for several weeks. That's unusual. Fewer than 2 percent of women get obstetric infections after an abortion and the risk is much higher after childbirth, according to an analysis of national data published earlier this year. The woman said because of the long absence, she lost her job but has since found another one.
• ___
• A 21-year-old retail worker in Rockford, Ill., was engaged to be married when she had an abortion on Feb. 23, 2011. Her doctor had told her a pregnancy could kill her.

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