Despite the fact that abortion has been legal in France for 30 years, our study of 89 interviews with women who had an abortion shows that this issue is still taboo in French society and synonymous with moral deviance. This paper presents the problems these women have faced following their abortions. Their need to invent elaborate defense strategies to protect them, one being to keep their abortion secret, leaving no recourse for outside help, reveals that the issue of abortion is impossible to define without assessing its stigmatizing effects.