“Abortion is when someone is pregnant and

doesn’t want to be. All human start as a tiny

clump of cells that grow and become more
like a baby over the 9 months. The person
who is pregnant takes some pills or has a
small operation to remove the cells so they
don’t become a baby.”
It’s a good idea to go into some of the reasons why someone
might not want to be pregnant with older kids too, “Sometimes
someone just doesn’t want to be pregnant, or there might be
something wrong with the fetus inside them that mean it would
die once it was born. Sometimes being pregnant can hurt the
pregnant person and they might need an abortion to look after
their own health. Most people who choose to have an abortion
are already mothers, so they might not be able to afford to have
any more children. There are lots of reasons why people choose
to have an abortion. The important thing is that the choice
belongs to the person who is pregnant and no one else.”
I also make sure my kids know that not only women can get
pregnant and that transgender men and intersex people will
also need and have abortions. I tell my kids that I try and say
‘pregnant person’ when talking generally for this reason.

Older than 12 and I tell them all I’d tell an

adult. I try and keep the information non-
emotive and factual.

I also let my kids know that there are large numbers of people
who are (for some reason still unfathomable to me) fighting to
force other people to remain pregnant and birth a baby they
don’t want. I was forced to impart this by the people on our
Main street with distressing and graphic photos of aborted
fetuses. Any teen I’ve discussed the pro-forced birth movement
with have found it odd and scary. I’ve taught my kids about
consent and bodily autonomy so the idea of someone fighting
against bodily autonomy is abhorrent to my children (I’d like to
think it’s abhorrent to most children).

It’s a good idea to let kids know how common abortion is. I told
my older kids (11+) that I have had an abortion, and I will tell
my younger ones when they are a bit older. For now I’ve just
told the little ones that loads of women I know have had
abortions. With my older kids I said this:

“I was using contraception but it failed and I was pregnant. I

didn’t want to have another baby for lots of reasons. One was
because I want to have as much time with you as I can and
another child would take up too much time. I knew I couldn’t
afford to have another baby and I was worried about my health
as the last two pregnancies were very difficult for me. So I took
some pills and ended the pregnancy. It wasn’t too sore and was
just like having a period. I feel good about the choice I made.”

I also explained to my kids that where we live abortion is illegal

and I told them about some of my friends who had to leave the
country for abortions. My kids were upset that the government
would have laws that force women to stay pregnant against their
will. My son who is 11 has become very vocal about abortion
rights. He wears his abortion rights campaign badge and tells
his friends about abortion when they ask about the badge (I
think he has informed half his class about abortion at this
stage!) Which leads me to another point, if you don’t
talk to your kids about this stuff, you can be sure
someone else will so make sure you talk to your kids.
Abortion is a normal part of life. 1 in 3 women worldwide will
have an abortion at some stage. It is essential healthcare and
should be treated as such. Part of the reason abortion rights
denied in so many places is the stigma and shame around
abortions. As parents we have a part to play by normalising it
and informing our children about it.

If you’ve had one and feel comfortable talking about it to your

kids I would urge you to do so. The people who have abortions
are not monsters, they are everyday women, trans men and
intersex people who did what was right for them at the time. In
my experience kids are not traumatised or shocked to hear
about abortions, they accept it as a part of the myriad
possibilities of normal things that can happen in life. Just as
they should.

I introduced it to my older three kids. At the time they were 10, 8 and 7. I
didn’t have any books (though that would have been a good way to go),
but I teach everything through discussion. I explained what it was, kept
graphic stuff out. I only said that babies are killed through the womb
through a certain procedure. That was enough for them; they didn’t need to
know how it was done, they only wanted to know WHY. From there, we
talked about why some women choose to have an abortion from being
misled or in desperate situations. We focused on compassion for these
women; and as our “problem solver,” we pray the Divine Mercy on
Sundays at 3 for women who have apts the next day to have an abortion.

When I was very young (about 7, I think) and asked my father what "abortion"
meant, he said something like:

"Remember how a baby has to grow inside its mother for a long time before it's
ready to be born? Well, abortion is when a child is taken out of its mother too early,
before it has grown enough to be able to live outside the mom's body, and so the
child dies."
When I was several years older, I learned that was not quite accurate, since the
child is killed prior to birth in most abortion procedures, and since many abortions
are performed after the gestational age when survival would be possible, had the
child not been killed as part of the procedure. However, I think his explanation was
very thoughtful and appropriate for my age at the time.

I just explained that when a woman gets pregnant, she can have an abortion if she
doesn't want to have a baby, and went on to say that doctors can perform the
abortion by taking the fetus out of the woman's uterus, or the woman can take
specific herbs or a pill to cause her body to remove the fetus itself.