SUE HULBERT, 44, had an abortion in May 2000 and is only now recovering from the depression and psychosis that followed, culminating in an overdose.

The mother of two and her partner had planned to have a baby, but as soon as she discovered she was pregnant her relationship started to crumble and she was convinced she would not be able to cope on her own.

She was offered no counselling, but her distress over the abortion was so obvious on the day of the operation that doctors advised her to think about her decision for an hour before going ahead.

“To this day I still don’t know why I did it. I woke up crying and knew I had done the wrong thing and sunk into a depression almost straight away,” she said.

Two months later she visited her GP and was prescribed antidepressants. She also contacted the charity British Victims of Abortion, a counselling service.

But the exercise physiology lecturer, who says she is still pro-choice, was plagued by nightmares and hallucinations, and was falling into debt. She took an overdose in December 2001, which forced her to tell her friends and family what had been going on, and she was finally offered psychiatric help.

“I had never suffered from any mental illness before and I had never been depressed and, really, I am the last person who you would expect to react like this. But I was haunted by my abortion and it robbed me of all my confidence,” she said.

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