Abortion today may mean future infertility

In my many years of practice of obstetrics and gynecology I have attended to thousands of women suffering from infertility due to many causes including abortion, legal or illegal.

Recently, I had this patient, who is now 40 years old; she has been married for over 7 years with no child. She came to me for an opinion, she had an ultrasound scan test, after the tests, I noticed that the endometrial cavity was thin and fibrosed with evidence of adhesion.

I asked her if she had had a miscarriage, she told me that she had never been pregnant since she got married. I now asked her if she had ever been pregnant before she got married, and what happened to her.

That was when she opened up and told me the whole story..

She was a virgin and had this boyfriend, after much pressure from the young man for some closer intimate moments with her, she finally gave in to keep the relationship. They had sex only once, but unfortunately for her she became pregnant.In an effort to hide it from their parents , since they were not ready to get married yet and were very young, they both agreed to have an abortion.

They went to a clinic [qualified or not we cannot tell], and had the abortion, after that all was well. She separated from the young man , and had never had sex with any other man until she got married.

Now for seven years she could not get pregnant, she thought she was cursed. She had done many tests and all results were normal but no improvement in her situation. Until she came to me and I made my findings.

Millions of women who have had abortions have gone on to have one or more successful full-term pregnancies and deliveries. However, as with any medical procedure, there are certain risks involved. In the majority of cases where abortion has impacted fertility, this is been the result of post-operative infection, usually following illegal terminations that were not done in appropriate medical environments.

I am not here to condemn anyone, nor discuss moral issues of abortion. That is not my place. I am only interested in highlighting the dilemma most young people now face of unplanned unwanted pregnancy which they terminate and later realize it has contributed to their infertility.