Reply #15: Here's another way to think about this.

[SheilaT]

To start with, I'm not the least bit surprised it was possible to come up with a couple of thousand women who were willing to put it in writing that they regretted what happened. That's actually a remarkably common feeling, even many years later. Often there's a lot of guilt and shame attached to having gotten pregnant in the first place. Very possibly the woman wished at the time, and maybe still wishes, that it were possible to go ahead and have the baby and live happily ever after. But the situation is such that an abortion is the better decision. But it's not a decision easily made, no matter how the anti-choice people present it.

If there were better access to birth control, including "Plan B", and if sex education were taught from an early age, if religions didn't teach young people that sexual feelings and the act of sex are immoral and wrong, in short if we had a sensible and open attitude about all this, abortions would still happen but there might be a lot less guilt, shame, and regret.

Keep in mind that they didn't go out trying to get affidavits from women who'd had abortions and had no regrets. They'd get millions of those.