Pregnancy after loss is very difficult for women as the painful memory from the previous pregnancy is still there. While you wish you were shouting and jumping for joy, you may now be having a mix of emotions – possibly happy, sad, scared, or confused. You don’t want to get your hopes up or feel that pain again, so you start thinking about an abortion. In fact, a positive pregnancy test may have you thinking you want an abortion because of a miscarriage or stillbirth.

Coming from the same viewpoint as a woman who’s miscarried, it’s reasonable to want to control the next pregnancy. We don’t want to feel that same heartbreak again and it can be so scary counting the days until you are out of the first trimester or checking for blood every time you go to the bathroom.

With my first pregnancy, the first trimester wasn’t so scary as I knew I wasn’t partaking in any risky behavior such as smoking or drinking. With my second pregnancy, I was even more at ease as I had already delivered a healthy baby. It wasn’t until I started bleeding that I began to worry. When I found out I was pregnant again, I was terrified and still grieving thinking I might have to go through another miscarriage all over again.

“An abortion would ensure I don’t feel the loss of a miscarriage,” is what you might be thinking. We listen to women. They say they want an abortion because of a miscarriage in their past. With abortion, you choose how the pregnancy ends.

But while abortion might seem like the right choice to limit your grief, remember that because you suffered loss with your previous pregnancy, does not mean this pregnancy will also end in loss. If you had one miscarriage previously, your risk for another miscarriage is only at 20%. If you had a previous stillbirth, the risk of having another stillbirth is even lower at less than 1 percent.

Additionally, choosing abortion can come with a new grief you have not experienced before as there are women who come to regret their abortions. These women can experience anniversary reactions around the date they would be delivering, guilt, anger towards family or friends that encouraged the abortion, and other post-trauma symptoms.