"Gigi" Davis was excited to be going away to college - she would be the first in her family to attain a bachelor's degree. But as she packed her belongings in preparation for her move, she started experiencing bouts of nausea and wondered if she might be pregnant. Davis told Live Action News, "I was anxious and sacred. When I told my boyfriend about the pregnancy, he essentially said he'd support whatever I wanted to do. His parents wanted to adopt our baby, but I was terrified of my parents and my church finding out what I had done." As both her mother and sister were unwed teenage mothers, Davis remembered too well the shame and humiliation her sister experienced being judged harshly for her transgression. "I just didn't want to face the condemnation, so I decided to get an abortion," Davis said. "Abortion, unplanned pregnancy, none of that was ever discussed in my family, nor within the church. I never knew were to go for assistance." She scheduled the procedure at Planned Parenthood but relayed that she couldn't come up with the full amount required. David said, "They told me they'd subsidize the balance of what I owed so I could get the abortion. My boyfriend accompanied me on a day that will forever be seared in my mind." Though she was sedated, Davis could hear the suction of the vacuum as the instrument ripped her baby from the womb. "I started crying as I heard the horrible sound," Davis said. "Afterwards, I was put in a common area with other women all lined up against a wall. I could hear their weeping; there was no private area in which to grieve." That night as Davis slept at her boyfriend's house, the horrific secret tucked deep inside her, vivid dreams of her baby crying out in despair haunted her. Davis said, "The abortion took an emotional toll on me, but just a year later, I was pregnant and had a miscarriage." During this time, Davis's father was in the process of becoming a pastor, and she was keenly aware she had an obligation to keep her reputation spotless to prevent any embarrassment to him. "Yet another year passed, and here I was pregnant again," Davis said. "I just couldn't be the one to sully his name, so I had another abortion. My desire to protect my father overrode the trauma I experienced with the first abortion." It wasn't long before she became involved with an abusive man and learned she was expecting a child with him - her fourth pregnancy in just three years. But Davis had decided to end the romance and, though she sensed her partner didn't want her to abort their child, he never told her so. Davis said, "Clearly, I was engaging in a promiscuous lifestyle. My intense fear of being pregnant before marriage and my parents finding out was so overpowering - that I had a third abortion." After an intense argument one day with her parents where she accused them of not knowing who she was as a person, she scheduled a meeting at her father's church office with the purpose of laying bare all she'd done. "A friend came with me for support while I confessed to my parents about my abortions," Davis said. "My mother sobbed and hugged me. My father asked if I thought they would have abandoned me if I'd come to them. They assured me they'd get me help, but they never did." For Davis, she felt as if everything she had revealed was swiftly swept under the rug, never to be discussed again. Davis said, "As if to make amends, I tried to do more, serve more, but I was still stuffing the pain. I hadn't yet faced what I had done years earlier and it was eating away at me." Two years later, Davis started dating a man who served as the church's worship leader and became pregnant. "I was up front with him about my past," Davis said. "But at the time of our budding romance, we were both serving in leadership positions at the church, and I was very concerned about the fallout of an unplanned pregnancy. Though he begged me not to, I had my fourth abortion." Like before, Davis kept quite. A few months later, Davis, pregnant again for the sixth time, discreetly sought a fifth abortion. Davis said, "I chose not to tell my boyfriend that I was pregnant: the previous abortion had torn him up inside, so this time, he wouldn't know." Like an addict who can't quit, Davis now had a tainted legacy of five abortions, seemingly unable to stop the desperate need to erase the result of her pre-marital sexual affairs. "One day, I had an epiphany as I realized I was on my ninth life," Davis said. "I prayed out to God that if I do this again, I'm not gong to make it out alive. I said, I don't know how to break the cycle of abortion, Lord, so you're going to have to help me to do it." Shortly afterward, she went to a prayer house and picked up a rubber wristband on which the phrase "
Bound4Life" was inscribed. She contacted the organization and met a woman who prayed in front of abortion clinics. Davis said, "I went with her one day and realized I finally met someone who told me the unvarnished truth about what I had been doing. She told me of a post-abortive Bible study, '
Surrendering the Secret.' This program allowed me to finally face my demons and to heal." With a renewed spirit, Davis shared her history of abortions with her church congregation - where her father pastored, prompting other women to emerge from the shadows of shame. The worship leader is now her husband, and together, they have two young sons. She is grateful to God for blessing her with children, given her multiple abortions. "I don't take it for granted that I have these precious babies," Davis said. Through social media strategies, Davis has leveraged a powerful tool to reach women who need help in starting their own healing journeys. Additionally, she has launched a ministry -
www.shamefreegigi.com - as another avenue to connect with desperate and hurting women to impart her testimony. Since 2018, she's seen the positive impact of her outreach on post-abortive women and those contemplating abortions. Davis said, "We need to keep the conversation going to bridge the gaps. There are women sitting in church pews who have had abortions or are thinking about having an abortion. When we reach out to these women with compassion, understanding and support, lives can be transformed through God's redemption and grace."
