After My Abortion, I Felt Tremendous Relief That My Life Wasn't Going to Change

This article is part of POPSUGAR's 50 States, 50 Abortions, a large-scale storytelling project that aims to elevate the voices of people who've had abortions. For more information about how to find an abortion clinic near you, please visit The Cut's abortion service finder.

I was 15, living outside of Anchorage in an even smaller town than I live in now. He was also 15 and my second boyfriend ever.

I had a missed period. I felt like something was wrong, though I couldn't put my finger on what it was. I was educated about my body, but I was just kind of in denial. Eventually, enough time elapsed that I took a pregnancy test. Then I took another one. Then reality set in.

Neither of us should have been shocked at all because we were . . . we didn't use condoms, because he would constantly complain and try to get out of wearing them. I don't think he was very interested in discussing what to do about my pregnancy until he thought about how much a pregnancy would impact his future, going to college and all. Then it became a conversation.

We had a long cry about it. For us, it ultimately came down to what our parents wanted us to do, because we were both minors at the time. A lot of our decisions were based on the fact that our parents would be very upset. I knew my dad was a religious guy; we were never a churchgoing family, but he became religious after he went to prison. I knew he would've freaked out. I just kept thinking, "Oh, he's just gonna kill me. He's actually going to kill me. He'll be so rageful, he'll be so furious that murder could be a real possibility."

So when I found out I was pregnant and had to have an abortion, I didn't tell very many people. I didn't feel safe talking to anyone in my family. I told a couple of my girlfriends, who at the time were trying to convince me to keep the pregnancy and put it up for adoption.

I remember confiding pretty heavily in a teacher. I would write it down in these poems and notebooks and then turn in my assignments, so she reached out to me. She didn't contact my parents; she didn't rat me out to anyone. She just asked me if I needed help and gave me a connection to a high-school counselor who I could talk to. She tried to get me extra resources to avoid having my life be harder than it had to be, which was really nice.

But I do remember feeling disconnected and not having very many people I could confide in and feeling isolated, as if no one could understand. This was pre-"Teen Mom" on TV. I remember pretty vividly when "Teen Mom" came out — it blew my mind; I was like, "Oh, sh*t." As trashy as it became, it was a very important resource.

I had the conversation with my partner, and we decided to look into how to obtain abortion services. The procedure, with a sliding-scale discount, cost about $800. I worked at Blockbuster Video, so I was saving up my paychecks. We ultimately ended up pawning our Xbox and games for about $500 to make up the rest of the money. I went to Planned Parenthood, where I got a referral to another clinic that would ultimately perform the D&C.

Afterward, they put you in this waiting room, so you have time to readjust before they kick you back out into the world. I remember sitting elbow to elbow with my partner feeling a whole host of feelings: remorseful, a little bit scared, relieved, and then also confused about what was gonna happen next.

Meanwhile, my partner was playing games on his Game Boy. This guy brought a Game Boy Classic to the waiting room so he wouldn't get bored. Instead of comforting me, he was face-deep in some Mega Man. That was more emotionally painful at the time than the procedure itself. I felt this tremendous sense of relief that my life wasn't gonna change; that my secret wasn't gonna be found out, and my family relationships were gonna stay the same. My love life, my relationship with my boyfriend, could continue. We ultimately broke up a year later.

This was in 2002. In 2006, Sarah Palin became governor of Alaska. Alaska's been a pretty libertarian state since its inception, but over time, it's become more and more Republican. Toward the end of her term as governor, she supported a bill that would require people under age 18 to get parental consent before having an abortion — even though abortion is legally protected in the Alaska state constitution.

I remember writing her a letter saying, "Hey, if you do this, it would directly impact people like me. I had this service done when I was 15 years old, and I can tell you that there are lots of teen girls that would really appreciate your support rather than working against us." I didn't receive a response back, and she supported the initiative. It's been changed back now (Editors' note: It was deemed unconstitutional by the Alaskan Supreme Court, the Anchorage Daily News reports), but for me, it was really the beginning of thinking abortion rights could be curtailed — a conversation we were not having at the time. It really made me think about the people who came after me and what happened to them, what kind of hardships they faced.

Years after my abortion, I actually ended up confessing during a heated argument with my dad, when I'd already kind of moved out of the house, but not officially. I was 18 years old, and I sort of just spat it out at him, and it f*cked him up for a while. He held it against me for a long, long time.

What I didn't know is that my older sister had also gotten an abortion in her teens. I don't think he knew it at the time, not before it was too late. He would have wanted the opportunity to talk us out of it, because he could have talked us out of it. Years and years later, my father would confess that in his own family, there was some drama about unwanted pregnancies regarding his mother. If she'd had access to abortion, it's possible he and his sisters would not be around. The idea of "losing a child" — having an abortion — was so repugnant and upsetting to him. In our family, it was just unacceptable.

I can't imagine being a young person having to navigate this now, in the political climate that we have today. It's gotta be terrifying and polarizing. I was lucky enough to have girlfriends in my life who, while they did not agree with my decision to have an abortion, certainly did not vilify me or make me feel like sh*t on top of how I already felt. They could tell it was a hard decision for me and something I would be grappling with for the rest of my life. They didn't need to pile on. I hope people are getting that same amount of respect from others today, but I'm not confident that's happening. Just being on the internet as a human, I feel like those days might be gone. People hide behind online personas and profiles. Back when I had an abortion, I didn't have anyone calling me a baby killer to my face or anything, unlike what you would see on social apps nowadays.

Now I'm 37 and trying to start a family. It's been extremely difficult. During the pandemic, I had two miscarriages. When Roe was overturned, my current partner and I were talking about what would happen to women who have miscarriages. The idea that this law could still affect me — it's f*cking terrifying. If the MAGA crowd gets their way and Alaska's constitution becomes in jeopardy — which looks to be the case — then yes, all women in Alaska will be directly at risk.

— Kass Smiley (she/her) (Alaska), as told to Chris Roney

Image Sources For "Click For Stories From Each State": Unsplash / Aaron Burden, Getty / Sergii Iaremenko/Science Photo Library, Unsplash / Manik Roy and Photo Illustration: Patricia O'Connor