Finding the Right Path Can I Reconcile an Abortion with My Conscience?

The Conscience as a Compass for the Right Decision

• For many women facing an unplanned pregnancy, the question arises: Can I reconcile an abortion with my conscience? Or also: Would I regret an abortion?
• Perhaps you're consciously experiencing your current situation as a conflict of conscience. There are so many reasons that speak in favor of an abortion. And yet you may sense that you couldn't bring yourself to have an abortion.
• Beyond all circumstances, it can be helpful for making a good decision to include your conscience in the process. Here you'll find tips on how to get in touch with your conscience and, based on that, take the right path for you—so that your decision feels right for you in the long term as well.
  

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What Is the Conscience?

Everyone knows it and has felt it in one way or another: the conscience. It can be an inner compass for our actions and is often perceived like an inner voice.

Having a "good conscience" means that you have followed your own voice of conscience. This is often experienced as peaceful. A "bad conscience", on the other hand, can indicate that you were actually aware of the right path or sensed it, but didn't take it for various reasons. Your inner self is then usually perceived as restless. Not infrequently, feelings of guilt, sadness, or a sense of shame can arise afterward.
A Bad Conscience—Because of Society?
Perhaps you've also heard the statement that societal conventions play a role in having a bad conscience, or that a bad conscience can even be talked into you from the outside.
The view that conscience doesn't express itself from within a person but is essentially imposed from the outside originally comes from the Viennese psychiatrist Sigmund Freud. According to this view, conscience corresponds to what you've been told by your parents, teachers, the state, the church, etc.¹
Societal influences can play a role—however, that doesn't mean that conscience can't also speak from within yourself.
In the area of pregnancy conflict, counseling experience at Profemina shows that, for example, feelings of guilt after an abortion can be deep and genuine, entirely without it being talked into you from the outside.
This experience also corresponds to how Viktor E. Frankl, a psychiatrist from Vienna, views conscience: Conscience exists in every person before all morality, upbringing, and conditioning. It's something like the voice of your best friend, someone who truly cares about you and therefore tells you the truth and not just what you might like to hear. Conscience is the wisdom of the heart. Accordingly, every person also has a certain freedom of choice and is not solely determined by society.²

Will I Regret an Abortion?

Perhaps you're currently wrestling with the right decision and are deeply concerned that you might regret an abortion.

The fact that you can allow these questions and thoughts and pursue them—possibly despite fear and time pressure—speaks to a great inner strength! This inner sense and the honest examination of it are signs of a refined and sensitive person. It's also a sign of prudence and foresight when you search for a path that will allow you to feel good in the long term as well.

Having the concern even before an abortion that you might regret it can already be an indication that an abortion wouldn't be the right path for you.
Regretting something in hindsight signals that your own deep values have been violated—yes, in some cases even your own core, who you want to be and are as a person. You may indeed take yourself seriously and listen closely to what your innermost self is telling you.

Here's the self-test: 🛤 Can an Abortion Have Psychological or Physical Consequences for Me?

Perhaps you've already had the experience of an abortion and it's weighing on you. Time and again, women report in counseling that they wouldn't be able to cope with another abortion and therefore don't want to take that path again.
But even without this experience, it may be that you know yourself as a rather sensitive and delicate person and therefore want to protect yourself especially.

All of these are serious arguments. We want to encourage you to trust yourself and your assessment.

• Here you'll find testimonials about how other women have experienced abortion: Experiences with Abortion

How Can I Find Out What My Conscience Says About a Possible Abortion?

It's not always possible to recognize directly what your conscience is saying. Fears about certain life circumstances or even voices from the outside can be very loud, so that the quiet voice of your own heart is initially drowned out.

🌊 This is comparable to a river during a storm, where the water is so turbulent that you can't see anything anymore. The water must first become calm so that you can recognize the deep bottom again. Likewise, all the voices, stirrings, and feelings within you must first settle before you make an important decision.
What's important, then, is enough time and peace to hear the voice of conscience—for example, during a walk or even a longer break, if you notice that this could be good for you.

Eight Possibilities That Your Conscience Is Speaking Against an Abortion

From counseling experience, we've compiled some situations here that can indicate that your conscience is speaking up. It may be that you recognize yourself in one or even several of these points.

I've Actually Made the Decision Against the Abortion, but I Still Don't See the Path for How It Can Work with the Child and I Keep Getting Uncertain

Standing by Myself and My Path

It may be that at one moment you received the clear and certain conviction that your heart speaks against an abortion – whatever the circumstances may be. Time and again, women report a decisive moment during the decision-making process that sometimes comes quite spontaneously, sometimes through an external impulse.

Even if the decision has actually been made, you may still be uncertain. This is completely normal: Hearing the voice of your conscience doesn't mean that you can immediately feel on an emotional level what you've recognized as right.

But it may also be that the resolution that you don't want an abortion doesn't automatically mean that everything is now settled and you can be at peace. Because your actual worries are probably not yet resolved, or solutions are still missing for how various things can work with the child.

Even if you've made a decision, problems from the outside can create pressure, other people's opinions can unsettle you, or quite simply your own fear can arise about how to continue on this path that – figuratively speaking – has so many stones lying on it.

Here's How You Can Solidify Your Decision:

• 🏁Many things become easier with a goal in sight! Keep reminding yourself of the beautiful and good things that come with your decision. This can motivate you to persevere courageously and bravely even in times that are still difficult. What positive images exist within you? For example, staying true to yourself? Or one day being a proud mother?
• 🗼In moments of doubt, it can help to remember why you decided on a path. You can, for example, write a saying or motto on your hand or pin it to your mirror. Or ask someone in your circle to be your anchor when doubts arise. Perhaps there's also a special place where you can retreat and that can be a lighthouse in the storm for you?
• 🛟 It can help to prepare an emergency plan for critical moments. These can be situations where you know the pressure is particularly high: for example, when conflicts with your partner or other people make you doubt. A sensitive moment can also be right before the abortion deadline expires, because the decision then seems even more final. If you prepare yourself in advance, you can handle it better – and afterwards pat yourself on the shoulder that each of these moments made you stronger because you stood firm.
• 🫶 Find support and companions for your journey! You don't have to manage and master everything alone right now. Who could stand by your side, encourage you, and also help you in very practical ways?

Is an Abortion Compatible with My Faith?

If you yourself are a believer and now find yourself in a difficult situation because you're (unplanned) pregnant, it may be that the topic of abortion occupies you in a completely different way.

How faith shapes a person and ultimately what image of God one has can be very different – also depending on religion or denomination. It may be that you now experience your faith as valuable support because it has often given you guidance. But it may also be that it challenges you anew in this difficult situation and you're asking yourself many questions.
Obviously, these are very profound existential questions, and you may also be searching for how God views an abortion, whether abortion is a sin, and whether God forgives an abortion.

These are all legitimate questions, and it speaks highly of you that you're grappling with them.
In this case, it can be helpful to reach out to a pastoral counselor (for example, in a congregation). You're worth receiving help and support and not remaining alone in this inner turmoil!
Especially if you actually believe that your God has a personal interest in you and that you're valuable to Him, then this can perhaps help you to look at your worries and your situation lovingly, without reproaching yourself, for example, for how this situation came about.

Some women perceive – even independent of religiosity – a natural reverence for unborn life within themselves. They express that they don't want to decide over life and death.
Some women are also relieved by the thought of simply letting life take its course and not actively intervening in the pregnancy themselves. The attitude that there may not even be a necessity for a decision, but rather to hand everything "upward," so to speak, and make the best of it can be a relief.

I've Already Had an Abortion and Regret It. What Can I Do?

Pro Femina's counseling experience shows that it happens again and again that women regret their abortion and have difficulty processing it.

Some women feel regret directly after the abortion, some only years later. Sometimes a specific event or life situation can "trigger" the memory. Many women describe that dates like the anniversary of the abortion, the original due date, or when people in their circle have children who would be the same age as their own would have been trigger memories.

Other life events can also play a role in the abortion being reflected upon again from different perspectives. For example, a later arising desire for children, a breakup, pregnancies of women in close circles, illnesses, or deaths in the family.
Women who regret their decision in hindsight often feel deep pain and grief. This can be accompanied by anger, either toward themselves, their partner, or their surroundings. Especially when these may not have been supportive or had even actively advocated for the abortion.

Self-help groups with women who are going through something similar can be helpful.

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