How an Abortion Years Earlier Became the Key to Escaping Domestic Violence
The author wore a splint on her left pinky finger, attempting to socialize just weeks after her ex-partner broke the bone. This physical marker represented only one visible wound in a relationship that would escalate into profound danger. The FBI employs a specialized tool called a lethality assessment to predict future violence in intimate relationships. When the author took this assessment shortly after leaving her partner, he scored a chilling 8 out of 10. Had she continued with a pregnancy years earlier, that score would have reached the maximum 10.
The Early Warning Signs
Five years before that assessment, in a Chicago clinic, she had undergone a medication abortion. At that time, the danger signals registered only as a faint unease, nothing resembling the five-alarm fire her life would become. I was well-trained in ignoring red flags, she writes, having grown up navigating her father's unpredictable anger. Her childhood home operated like a broken thermostat, with her and her brothers blistering in the heat of rages and shivering during absences of affection.
The relationship began mostly long-distance, offering only glimpses of behaviors that would later become terrifyingly familiar: demanding voicemails, incessant texts, accusations followed by silence, then extravagant flowers and poetic apologies that sounded just sincere enough to maintain hope. The more severe abuse—being shaken awake to resume arguments, plates thrown with such force that syrup stains remained for months—was still in the future.
A Critical Decision
When she saw the faint second line on the pregnancy test at age 25, a voice inside her declared: No. You cannot have this baby. You cannot bring a child into the same chaos you had to survive. This wasn't ambivalence about motherhood but a profound warning from somewhere deeper than conscious thought. Two days later at the clinic, the doctor announced she was legally required to perform an ultrasound but whispered that the law didn't require the patient to look.
Her mother made a six-hour drive to stay with her during the abortion process; her partner did not. This absence provided the first glimpse of the profound isolation that would characterize the coming years.
The Escalation of Abuse
The subsequent five years unfolded in a predictable yet terrifying escalation. After completing her graduate degree and moving closer to her partner, she entered what she describes as a long burn of degradation, isolation, abuse and control. When her diploma arrived, he shoved it in a dresser drawer. When she received promotions, he drank himself into surliness. Their home contained more liquor bottles than water glasses.
His rages followed predictable patterns but remained terrifying. Something would trigger him—traffic, a toothache, noise—and her impossible task became guessing whether he wanted calming or affirmation. Nights would deteriorate rapidly with alcohol until yelling or sobs woke neighbors. One morning, she found a picture of her face taped to his punching bag.
The Moment of Clarity
Despite everything, she was planning how to get him to marry her, believing she could fix the chaos with love. They had an engagement ring made from their grandmothers' rings. Then she heard the same internal voice: No. You cannot marry this man. Suddenly, everything became clear: the empty vodka bottles, glass shards under the refrigerator, the unnatural bend in her broken pinky finger he had prevented her from having treated for three weeks.
He threatened to drink himself to death if she left, and for a long time, that belief kept her trapped. Eventually, the fear that he would kill himself was overtaken by the fear that he might kill me, too. One night, she shoved two suitcases into her car, gathered both cats, and drove away while he screamed from the driveway. The next morning, returning for her remaining belongings, she found a loaded gun on her pillow.
The Dangerous Reality of Leaving
That was the day she took the FBI lethality assessment. Research consistently shows that when a woman attempts to leave an abusive partner, she enters one of the most dangerous periods of her life. Separation represents a time when threats intensify and homicide risk rises significantly. In the United States, approximately one-third of murdered women are killed by current or former intimate partners according to Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Pregnancy carries particular dangers, with intimate partner violence often beginning or worsening during this vulnerable time. Homicide has become a leading cause of death for pregnant and postpartum women in this country.
How Abortion Access Enabled Escape
The author reflects frequently on what her life would have become without that abortion years earlier. If I had carried that pregnancy to term, my ability to leave later would have been severely limited. Financially, emotionally, logistically and legally, her options would have narrowed dramatically. She would have faced less freedom to move and far higher risk levels, likely remaining connected to a dangerous man through custody arrangements, shared expenses, and mandated interactions.
When you try to escape an abusive relationship with a child, there is no clean exit, she observes. There is an ongoing entanglement that can last for decades.
The Changing Legal Landscape
This reality has taken on urgent new significance in a country where abortion access is rapidly disappearing. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, tens of millions of reproductive-age women now live in states with abortion bans or severe restrictions. Domestic violence programs in these states report new obstacles to safety planning, including increased numbers of pregnant clients who cannot legally terminate pregnancies and must navigate abuse while carrying to term.
Reproductive coercion—including sabotaging birth control, refusing condoms, and pressuring women to remain pregnant to increase dependence—has been documented by advocates for years. Now, abortion bans, mandatory waiting periods, travel requirements and criminal penalties function as additional restraints that limit mobility, delay care, and make leaving abusive situations far more dangerous.
The Painful Truth
The truth is painful and simple: I was able to escape because we did not have children. The loaded gun left on her pillow carried a clear message: him, her, or both. The FBI assessment confirmed the extreme danger. Nine years after she left, his body was found in the same house she had fled—a gunshot suicide.
In alternative versions of this story: a child exists, leading to custody battles, visitation exchanges, and years of court-mandated contact keeping her within reach of danger. In yet another version, she doesn't escape at all—two bullets instead of one because she never found the means to leave. I'm alive today because I wasn't in the room when he finally pulled that trigger, and because five years earlier, I had the legal right to decide my own future.
