Abortion regret is a common problem in our lives today. Statistics indicate that more than 1 in 4 women in America has at least one abortion in her lifetime, and by implication about as many men are affected too. Many of these people experience substantial regret or other psychological problems in the years that follow. If that describes you or someone you know, this article is written to help you understand and process what was done, so that you, she, or he can find healing, forgiveness, and freedom from it.

Such “surgery of the soul” involves honest reflection on the nature of abortion, and your own personal history with it, which is a necessary and often painful step on the path to healing. Sometimes it can be helpful to hear about others who have walked this path, so we’ve included videos of several women telling their stories, and the grace of God working in their lives. Know that healing is possible if you’re willing to be honest with yourself and with God, and trust in his solution for what happened to your life.

The Bible teaches that human beings are created in the image of God (Gen 1:26-27). This is what gives us unique value over plants, animals, and non-living matter. Part of what it means to bear God’s image is that we have an innate moral sense about right and wrong. While animals also have a moral sense (Gen 9:2-6), humans are designed to reflect God’s character and likeness to all of creation, by serving as living temples of God’s Spirit (1Co 6:18-20).

Unfortunately, mankind rebelled against God, bringing a judgement of death on the entire world. All of the wars, genocides, and oppressions of slavery that we see in the world flowed out of a tiny sin that Adam and Eve committed in eating a forbidden fruit (Gen 3:1-19). Sin also began to corrupt our thinking (Rom 12:2), including our moral sense (Rom 1:18-32), so that now different people have different ideas about right and wrong (Jdg 21:25, Pro 14:12). Whereas God’s Spirit was meant to provide human beings with a unified sense of right and wrong (Jhn 16:8), our loss of the Spirit left us each to be governed by conscience alone.

The problem with the human conscience is that it’s a personalized form of law that can change over time, and differ from person to person. So one person might consciously feel abortion regret, while another sees no problem in what he did. A third person might move over time from indifference or even happiness about her abortion to a later stage of abortion regret. This is why, for example, many people had no problem with slavery in antebellum America. Their consciences had been “seared” (rewritten, suppressed) so that an evil act like chattel slavery didn’t offend their personal sense of right and wrong (Rom 1:18-19, 1Ti 4:1-2).

People can also have an overactive conscience, where they feel bad about things that aren’t actually wrong in God’s eyes. This is common in various religious circles where the conscience is being informed by an overly strict external law or teaching on morality. The Bible records, for example, a discussion in the early Church on whether or not it was wrong to eat meat sacrificed to idols. It wasn’t inherently wrong, since an idol isn’t a real power of any kind. But the connection to idolatry was offending the overactive consciences of those whose minds were not yet conformed to the liberty of Christ’s law (1Co 8:4-9).

So when we’re dealing with abortion regret or any other source of guilt, it’s important to determine if the thing we’re feeling guilty about is actually wrong. This is an important first step because it will determine what we need to do to resolve the negative feelings. If the source of guilt is something that isn’t actually immoral, where we’ve accepted an overly restrictive understanding of right and wrong, then the next step will be to learn the true moral boundaries, and reflect on them until our conscience is more instinctively accurate. If, on the other hand, we truly have done something wrong, then resolution of that guilt will involve repentance (turning from that sin), and seeking forgiveness from God and any others we have hurt.

The need for forgiveness introduces a second and third aspect of guilt involved in abortion regret. So far we’ve been discussing feelings of guilt, which are the judgement that comes when we’ve broken the law of conscience. There’s a higher form of guilt involving criminal justice, which is judgement that comes from society when we’ve broken civil law. This is an objective form of guilt, a judgement that comes regardless of whether or not we feel bad about our criminal actions. Finally, the highest form of guilt comes from breaking God’s law, which informs and reforms all human law, and which measures our actions, desires, and intentions against God’s character. This is the most important standard for people to pass, because God’s law is what determines our eternal state of being — whether we are eternally forgiven and alive in Heaven, or eternally rejected and dying in Hell. And it is also the most impossible law for us to pass, because it pierces down into our very thoughts and intentions.

So is abortion regret legitimate, or is it the product of an overactive conscience? The question comes down to whether or not a child in the womb is a distinct human being, and whether or not all human beings are equally valuable and worthy of protection from death.

A massive scientific consensus agrees with common sense that life begins at fertilization, because at that point you have a distinct human organism with her own personal strand of DNA. She is not yet joined to her mother through an umbilical cord; she is simply a new human living inside of her mother.

The Bible agrees with this consensus in various places. For example, after becoming pregnant with Jesus, Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth, who was six months pregnant with John the Baptist. At this point, John was filled with the Holy Spirit, and leapt in his mother’s womb at the coming of Christ. Jesus himself was only a few days after conception, yet Mary was credited by Elizabeth as being the “mother of my Lord.” This account shows us a view of preborn children that demonstrates them to be personal and distinct from their mothers.

Also, the law of Moses given to Israel granted preborn children the same protection as born humans. When a pregnant woman was hit, and her child was born prematurely, the offender would only pay a fine if the child survived without a problem. However, if the child was harmed or killed, the same penalty was given to the offender as if an older person had been harmed or killed, up to and including a charge of murder.

Thus we see that scripture and science agree that life begins at fertilization. Most serious pro-abortion advocates no longer try to justify a claim that the preborn child is merely a clump of cells, a tumor, or a parasite. Rather, the question has now turned to whether or not these children have the same human rights as born people.

Technically speaking, the Bible does not teach the doctrine of human rights. That is a concept from Secular/Enlightenment philosophy that was meant to replace the high value and dignity that God places on human life, by making it an unalienable human quality. However, this has led some in e.g. the Pro-Life Movement to argue against the death penalty, on a belief that human beings have an intrinsic right to life, regardless of their behavior.

What the Bible provides us with is a high value that God places on human life, on account of our bearing his image and likeness, as we talked about above. Then God uses law to define penalties for taking innocent human life. Thus when God issues judgements on individuals or nations that end the lives of human beings, he is not offending human rights. Rather, he is bringing consequences for capital crimes.

There’s a lot to be discussed on that subject, but for the purposes of abortion regret, it needs to be understood that abortion is a form of sin which is a capital crime against God’s law on two levels. First, any sin is a capital offense that places an eternal death penalty on the sinner, regardless of how big or small it may be. Thus someone who merely eats a forbidden fruit is just as condemned to Hell as someone who kills an innocent child. As Paul writes,

The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 6:23)

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. (Rom 3:23-24)

The judgement of God in Hell is the most important aspect of abortion regret (or any other sin) to get right, because it is permanent. Whatever human law may justly or unjustly do to a person, it can only impact one’s life until physical death. God’s law, however, impacts a person’s life for all of eternity (Luk 12:4-5, 2Th 1:9).

With that said, God created civil law to maintain some semblance of justice on the earth (Rom 13:1-5), to keep us from destroying each-other while his good news of forgiveness brings us to his ultimate solution for sin, namely Jesus. In the early days of humanity, God’s tolerance of those who kill the innocent was the primary contributing factor that led to the spread of evil on the earth, which forced him to respond with the first global judgement in the flood of Noah (Ecc 8:11, Gen 4:13-15, Gen 4:23-24). This is why, when the flood was over, God told us that we now need to establish justice for innocent blood, having demonstrated that tolerance of evil only spreads evil.

And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. (Gen 9:5-6)

We see then that God views all human life as valuable and worthy of protection through civil law, with evil decisions and behavior of an individual (or his broader society) being the only factor that determines whether or not he can be justly killed by other people. So the young age of a child in the womb, or the location of the child as being inside her mother, or the circumstances surrounding her conception (such as rape), or any other factor that we use to justify killing children in the womb is irrelevant in God’s eyes as a justification for ending the life of the child. Abortion is sin, and the only answer to sin is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The solution to any sin, however great or small, is known in scripture as “walking in the light.” Our natural tendency is to cover over the wrong things that we do, so that we look better than we are to other people. But hiding our sin is part of what eats away at us. We are objectively guilty before God for the wrong things we do, and we subjectively feel unresolved guilt when our consciences are in alignment with God’s character.

For the person experiencing abortion regret, the most important first step is to accept the full force of what you did to an innocent human being. We don’t find forgiveness and healing by lessening the severity of our sin. Rather, God cleanses us when we confess the full force of who and what we have become apart from him.

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1Jo 1:7-10)

Agreeing with God that abortion is sin is a good first step. But because smaller, socially acceptable sins (like lying or eating stolen candy) are also grouped together under the label of “sin,” we can often minimize the force of our great sins by only thinking of them in terms of the general “sin” label. To find complete healing from a bothersome conscience, it’s psychologically important to use God’s terminology which classifies sin into its appropriate levels of severity. God forgives sin of all levels of severity (except the unforgiveable sin of Mat 12:31-32), and he already knows us completely, so we don’t gain anything by being less than honest with him about the greater sins that we commit.

So abortion in particular is the killing of an innocent human life, which is summarized under the term “murder.” If you’ve had an abortion, it’s important for you to recognize that you not only committed a sin, you specifically committed a murder in God’s eyes. Plenty of men and women have come to God and acknowledged their guilt of murder. The present author is guilty of sodomy, an equally severe offense in the eyes of God. Walking in the light means that we bring our sin to God in the full revelation of how bad we really are, and then trust his word that he will forgive us our sins when we confess them, and turn from them in repentance.

A second step of healing comes when you are able to confess your greatest sins to other people. I personally found it helpful to begin with strangers, as I was sharing the gospel with them in street ministry. Because the relationship isn’t as valuable as one with a friend or family member, it becomes easier to say the words and acknowledge the full force of our sins. But ultimately, it is important to confess our sins to fellow Christians, as a dynamic that encourages deeper fellowship, healing, and accountability (Jas 5:16, 1Jo 1:7).

The last thing to consider is how God forgives and transforms guilty people into loving ambassadors of his kingdom, because this has a lasting impact on your life. When you first step out of the darkness and into the light, this involves a fundamental change in your standing before God, and your relationship with other people who have done the same. While the whole Christian life is characterized by a process of continual repentance, turning from darkness to light, it begins at a point in time that changes your very nature.

As we discussed above, we are designed to live as temples of the Holy Spirit, governing the earth according to God’s character and likeness (Gen 1:26-28, 2:7). Because God is just, he cannot dwell with sin (Hab 1:13, 2Co 6:14-18), so when Adam and Eve fell, humanity lost the Spirit of God that maintains our character (Rom 8:5-10). The great solution to sin therefore involves restoring our nature by bringing the Holy Spirit back into its temple.

How is this possible, if God cannot tolerate sin? We essentially have two problems.

1. God’s judgement demands punishment for sin (death)
2. The continual presence of sin in our lives prevents the Holy Spirit from dwelling in us long-term.

These two problems are solved through the cross of Jesus Christ. God came to earth as a man (Isa 7:14) to take the penalty for our sin by dying on a cross in our place (Mat 1:21, Rom 3:23-26). This satisfies God’s wrath against sin (Rom 5:9), making us righteous in God’s eyes (2Co 5:21), so that his Spirit can dwell in people who are still sinful. This new condition of redeemed humanity is known as being “born again,” because we’ve been born of the Holy Spirit through the cross of Jesus Christ (Jhn 3:1-15). While some refer to “born again Christians” as a charismatic denomination or sect of broader Christendom, the biblical use of the term simply emphasizes that all true Christians have been born again of the Holy Spirit, regardless of denomination or sect.

So when you ask for God’s forgiveness for your abortion guilt, part of what happens is that the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of you, at which point he begins transforming your character in all kinds of areas. We all retain our distinct personalities of course, but we are changed and conformed in the things that we value and the things that we do, so that over time we look more and more like the perfect man, Jesus. Furthermore, we are transferred from they dying kingdom of darkness into the enduring kingdom of light (Col 1:12-14), where we have an eternal inheritance being stored up for when we die and are resurrected unto eternal life (1Pe 1:3-4).

Having received salvation, we now serve God as followers of his Son Jesus. Because God values things like kindness, self-sacrifice, holiness, etc., we store up treasure in heaven (our inheritance) by replacing our works of darkness with good works of light, in keeping with his character and kingdom (Mat 6:19-21). The extent to which the Holy Spirit successfully transforms our character in this life is seen in the good works that we do, and we are rewarded accordingly (Gal 5:16-26). So it benefits each Christian to foster the kinds of activities that will help to shine the light of Christ to the world around us.

Learning and applying the word of God is central to Christian growth (Mat 13:1-23). Doing so in community helps to stir up good works among the people of God, yielding both personal benefits and protections, and a greater impact of Christ on the world around us (Heb 10:23-27). So an important next step is to find a church in your community that teaches the Bible consistently and faithfully.

In addition to connecting with a local fellowship of Christians, the digital age gives us an incredible opportunity to learn from a variety of highly skilled teachers. Below are two YouTube playlists which a new or growing Christian may find helpful.