Zayna’s Story
My first and only known experience of pregnancy when I was 18 years old. At the time, I was in a relationship with a man who violent and unkind. I didn’t want to be pregnant as a teenager, let alone pregnant by a man that I was so terribly afraid of.
I knew I needed an abortion as soon as I realised my period was late, but that part of my life felt like it was happening in slow motion.
By the time I was ready to go through with an abortion, my body had already decided that it couldn’t continue with this pregnancy. I had what I later learnt was an incomplete miscarriage, followed by emergency abortion care that I chose to have to speed up what was a painful and traumatic experience. Accessing this care stopped the infection in my body from getting any worse than it already was.
For the longest time, my worth as a woman has felt inextricably linked to my ability to have children and be a good mother. Getting pregnant (out of violence and out of my control) felt like a complete loss of agency. Feeling like I had no choice but to have an abortion also made me feel like all these things were happening to my body that I just had no control over. Then, to not even be able to have that abortion properly, to not be able to carry a pregnancy safely, felt like the biggest failure of my life. I had failed at getting pregnant, being pregnant and at becoming a mother. For me, it wasn’t so much about sin as it was feeling like a complete and utter failure.
We often assume that a child who is conceived through violence is always unwanted and always associated to the person who has caused you so much harm. That couldn’t be further from the truth for me. If anything, the love I had for this clump of cells growing inside of me was why I knew I couldn’t bring it into the world. I think of my unborn child all the time, and I often wonder what my life would’ve been like if they’d made it earthside. And this love has never left me. It’s funny how changed I am by something that was never even fully human. I never knew my child’s face or laugh or voice, but somehow this child knew me and has taught me more than I ever thought possible. Most importantly, to forgive myself and show myself compassion.
My abortion was the greatest mercy from Allah that I have ever known.
I wouldn’t be the person I am now if I had not terminated my pregnancy. There are tangible things I know I wouldn’t have done if I’d stayed pregnant like going to university, having a healthy love with someone new, maintaining friendships, finding community. But more than that, I don’t know if I’d be here, safe and alive, had it not been for my abortion.
-Zayna, 25, England
