The first time I saw the word “abortion” on my medical chart was after a miscarriage, when I was surprised to learn that, medically, it’s called a “spontaneous abortion.” I felt almost allergic to the word, recoiling internally from it.
My tradition had given me language for miscarriage — grief and loss, something Christians knew how to hold. I remember the dissonance of my body, that I was always told was designed to bring life, holding death instead. But still, there were cards and casseroles and prayers. I had a frame for that kind of sorrow, when the choice was made for you.
The women in my church knew how to suffer beautifully. Throughout my childhood, my community elevated one model of faithful Christian womanhood in the face of impossible pregnancies — the woman who continued carrying to term, despite the risks, trauma, or harm to the mother or the rest of the family. What I didn’t know then was that women around me were likely carrying stories far more complicated than the ones told out loud.
The self-sacrificing women were valorized as the epitome of the selfless mother. I secretly thought I could never make that choice. I also assumed I would never be in that situation. I was wrong about the second part.
A year and a half after my miscarriage, I found myself in a fertility clinic, looking at four heartbeats on a screen and being told by the doctor that I had options.
My tradition had a framework for what came next: trust God, suffer beautifully. I already knew I couldn’t do that. In the weeks after we found out about our quadruplet pregnancy, my husband and I made two trips from our home in San Diego to Los Angeles to see specialists. Friends supported us by watching our 3-year-old son while we attended the appointments, and I felt guilty for the half-truths we told them about why we were going.
For the first appointment, we arrived at a tall, gleaming building, one of the top medical facilities in California. I went through an invasive and risky procedure that would give us the most genetic information possible about each fetus. I was fortunate to have access to a renowned specialist, as the risks of the procedure are greatly reduced by the experience of the doctor performing it.
We learned within two weeks that all of the fetuses were genetically perfect. There was no anomaly to point to. No terminal diagnosis to grieve. No mercy framing available. I found myself in a situation that felt unprecedented: I was going to have an abortion and I was going to remain pregnant.
Shortly after, the second trip to Los Angeles was for the fetal reduction procedure. In contrast to the prestigious institution, this office was in a dingy, nondescript building with few windows. The doctor chatted lightly throughout the procedure, narrating what she was doing in between salacious stories of international surrogates that she had worked with over the years carrying babies for super wealthy Americans.
I was thankful for the distraction as she performed the procedure. She told me that the fetal material would be reabsorbed into my body throughout the rest of my pregnancy.
We told our friends and family a sanitized version: We were expecting boy-girl twins. That was easier to speak aloud than the fuller, more complicated reality. I didn’t feel safe enough to bring my family or my spiritual community into this decision because I had no context for a life as a faithful Christian woman who would make this choice.
I grieved that nothing in my upbringing had prepared me for this. I scoured the internet for stories of other women going through something similar and found almost nothing outside of niche fertility websites. Fetal reduction is so rare that no one reliably keeps stats for it.
When Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, women began sharing their abortion stories publicly in ways they never had before. I listened intently and waited to hear a story like mine — a woman who had an abortion and remained pregnant, who loved God and reduced her pregnancy, who grieved what felt like a loss while still carrying life.
I never heard it.
Not because it doesn’t exist. Because the framework had no container for it. My community had elevated the woman who continued. The woman who made a different, equally considered choice about a healthy pregnancy — she disappeared herself into silence. I know because I was her.
I don’t regret the choice. I grieve that I had to make it alone.
That distinction matters, and I’ve had to defend it against imagined accusers for years. To say that the loss felt real is not the same as saying I would have done it differently. To name the sorrow is not to question the decision. But in a tradition that had only ever given me one story — suffer beautifully, continue, trust God — I had no language for both things being true at once.
When I finally told a conservative Christian family member about my abortion, five years after the fact, she replied, “You don’t have to feel bad.”
“It’s not about feeling bad,” I said. “It’s about the fact that a woman living in the state where you live wouldn’t be able to make the same choice that I made. It’s about the fact that it was the most difficult decision I ever had to make, and I had a supportive partner, excellent health insurance, access to the best doctors in Southern California and no threat of legal ramifications based on my decision.”
More than 4 in 10 women who have had an abortion were churchgoers when they ended a pregnancy. Seventy percent of women who have had an abortion identify as Christian. My story may be rare, but we are not. We are made to feel we should be silent.
I learned early on how to suffer beautifully, in silence. But now, I’m learning, finally, to speak.
Chelsea Kim Long is a writer, lay theologian, and meditation teacher exploring Christianity through the lens of women’s embodied experiences and contemplative spirituality. Her work invites readers to reimagine Christianity beyond patriarchy — toward a more expansive and inclusive expression of faith. She lives in San Diego with her husband and three kids, where she co-leads an intentional neighborhood faith community grounded in belonging and justice. “Faithfully Dissident Daughters” is her first book. Follow her on Instagram at @chelseakimlong and learn more about her work at: www.chelseakimlong.com.
Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@huffpost.com.