(Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America) Dora Esparza was a 20-year-old nursing student when she found out she was pregnant. She remembers feeling afraid—but also hopeful.
“I felt scared and worried,” Dora recalls, “but I loved my boyfriend and I was actually kind of happy to share this with him.”
That hope quickly began to unravel. Dora’s older brother was the first to learn about her pregnancy. His reaction was explosive—literally. “His reaction was punching and breaking a window in his room,” she says. Dora left immediately, fear rising in her chest. “If my brother reacted this way, how are my parents going to feel?”
[Click here to subscribe to Pregnancy Help News!]
When she told her boyfriend, Dora asked how they would tell their families. “I can be with you when you tell your parents,” she offered. His response changed everything. “There are other options,” he said. Dora knew exactly what that meant.
“I told him I wasn’t considering abortion as an option,” she explains. But the pressure didn’t stop. That evening, Dora found herself surrounded by four men—her boyfriend, his roommate, and two friends—all insisting abortion was the “best and only option.” They told her they were all too young, too broke, too busy with school.
“But it was really the lack of support from the father of my baby that solidified my decision,” Dora says quietly. “I didn’t want to tie him down to me due to a baby, if it wasn’t because he truly loved me.”
Her boyfriend made the appointment at Planned Parenthood. He paid for it. But he did not go with her.
“I went alone,” Dora says.
At the clinic, an ultrasound confirmed she was eight weeks pregnant. She was told she was a “great candidate” for abortion drugs. They told her it would be less invasive, more private and her side effects will be “just like a heavy menstrual period.”
“That was all they told me,” Dora says. “They didn’t tell me what to expect. They didn’t tell me what to look out for.”
Before taking the first pill, Dora asked what would happen if it didn’t work. The response still echoes in her memory. “She giggled and said, ‘Oh honey, it’s very effective… like one in a million. You’re fine.’”
Dora took the pill—and immediately regretted it.
“I started to cry and asked, ‘Is it too late to change my mind?’” she remembers. Instead of compassion, she was met with fear. “‘If you proceed with this pregnancy, your baby will be born with severe disabilities,’” she was told.
Out of terror, Dora continued.
Later, she learned the truth that abortion pill reversal existed at the time and could have saved her baby. “It was available then,” she says, “but it was never offered to me. Finding that out later was like a punch to the gut.”
The second set of pills caused hours of excruciating pain. Alone in a bathroom, Dora bled heavily. “I saw parts of my baby,” she says. Fear and panic set in when she realized her child was not just a clump of cells but rather a developed human being whose life was just ended. “That led to so much more guilt.”
Two weeks later, Dora’s life nearly ended.
At her follow-up appointment with the abortion center, she found herself again, alone. She learned the abortion drugs had failed. She was now hemorrhaging and close to a severe infection. “They told me if I hadn’t gone to my appointment, I would have died.”
An emergency D&C followed to remove the rest of her child and the pregnancy.
After that day, Dora says, “I was never the same person. A part of me died.”
What followed were years of darkness—addiction, self-harm, depression, and suicidal thoughts. “I hated myself,” she admits. “I hurt myself.”
Her healing began when she cried out to God. “I asked Jesus to save me if He was real—and everything changed.”
Today, Dora is an executive director at a pregnancy resource center. She shares her story daily with women facing the same crossroads she once faced. “I wish someone would have told me the truth,” she says. And she says, “the long-term effects are never discussed.”
She now warns women about the harms and dangers of abortion drugs for their children and for them. “If I hadn’t gone to my follow-up, I wouldn’t be here.”
Tweet This: Dora survived a failed chemical abortion and now warns women about the harms and dangers of abortion drugs for their children and for them.
For women who have already had abortions, Dora offers hope. “There is forgiveness and healing in Jesus Christ,” she says. “If you surrender your story to Him, He really does turn ashes into beauty.”
Editor's note: This article was published by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and is reprinted with permission. Heartbeat International manages the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN) and Pregnancy Help News. Heartbeat is currently the subject of two lawsuits brought by state AGs concerning sharing information about Abortion Pill Reversal.
