Answer
Wa`alykum As-Salamu Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
Dear sister in Islam, thanks a lot for your showing interest in getting acquainted with the teachings of Islam. May Allah save us all from the traps of Satan and enlighten our hearts with the light of Islam!
In fact, your question is a sign of your good heart and deep-rooted faith. Reading your question, our dear sister, gives the reflection that you are along the path of repentance and we implore Allah to accept your repentance and reward you generously. Whatever sins one might have done are nothing compared to Allah’s encompassing mercy. The door to repentance is wide open, and Allah showers His sinful servants who turn penitent to Him, with His Forgiveness.
It is never too late for a true Muslim to repent to Allah, and to shed tears for the wrong doing he has committed, keeping in mind that if one manages to escape the punishment of mortals, he will not for sure escape the punishment of Allah in the Hereafter.
Allah Almighty says: “Say: ‘O my Servants who have transgressed against their souls! Despair not of the Mercy of Allah: for Allah forgives all sins: for He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Az-Zumar 39:53) He Almighty also says: “Allah accepts the repentance of those who do evil in ignorance and repent soon afterwards; to them will Allah turn in mercy: For Allah is full of knowledge and wisdom.” (An-Nisa’ 4:17)
He Almighty also says: “When those come to thee who believe in Our signs, Say: ‘Peace be on you: Your Lord hath inscribed for Himself (the rule of) mercy: verily, if any of you did evil in ignorance, and thereafter repented, and amend (his conduct), lo! He is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Al-An`am 6:54)
After sinning, one should not feel despair. Rather one should forward sincere repentance to Allah and rest assured that Allah Almighty will forgive his sin, as long as his repentance meets the following conditions of sincerity, which we will call ABCs of Repentance:
1- First of all, you must admit the guilt, knowing the impermissibility of the act you have done.
2- You ought to feel remorseful for the sinful deed. This indicates that, deep down your heart, you feel sorry for that mistake.
3- You must make resolution that you will never look back, i.e. you must enter into a sincere covenant with your Lord that you have totally closed those dark pages, and you will never open them again.
It’s noteworthy that Muslim scholars say that if a woman deliberately aborts her fetus after the elapse of four months of pregnancy, she has to offer kaffarah (expiation).
Sheikh M. S. Al-Munajjid, a prominent Saudi Muslim lecturer and author, states:
Such a woman has to repent for deliberately aborting her pregnancy after it had been created, because abortion in this case is haram (unlawful). Once pregnancy is known, it has to be protected and it is haram for the mother to harm it in any way, because it is a trust which Allah has placed in her womb, and it has rights. So it is not permitted to treat it badly or to abort it.
The prominent Muslim scholar, Sheikh Salih bin Fawazn Al-Fawzan, said:
If the soul has been breathed into the fetus and it has started to move, then the woman aborts it, then she is considered to have killed a soul and she is obliged to offer the kaffarah, which is freeing a slave. If she cannot afford that, then she has to fast for two consecutive months and repent to Allah. That is, if the pregnancy is over four months, because in that case the soul has been breathed into it. So if she aborts it after that time, then she has to offer kaffarah as we have mentioned. This is a serious matter and it is not permissible to take it lightly.
Almighty Allah knows best.
Excerpted, with slight modifications, from: www.islamqa.info