*I wrote this in 2012, and my opinion has not changed one iota, not one. thanks for being here, and for reading…
As per usual the right and left are taking up positions on abortion rights; this time the right says it’s about funding and saving African American children, a tactic that stuns me but how can I really be surprised by the party of ‘trickle down’ and birthers. You rarely however, hear from anyone who has had one, had an abortion, and when you do it’s always ‘for medical reasons’ or an extremely difficult decision made after a huge inner struggle.
Here’s another view from someone – me – who has had two abortions and is not just pro-choice but pro-abortion – and by the way, I always will be, until the US Government and everyone else including the fetus lovers on the far right can promise me there will be no more child abuse or abandonment, child prostitution, trafficking, or pornography (although I suppose these are all forms of child abuse), or runaways or so-called ‘unadoptable’ children languishing in foster care or turfed out at eighteen. I shall also remain solidly and unshakably pro-abortion until we completely eradicate rape, incest and the subjugation of women, period. Can you hear me now?
I was raised, as unfortunately too many young people still are, in a household where sex, sexuality and birth control, in any form, were not ever discussed. My mother was a Catholic (I am not) who believed and often pronounced that the only way to enter marriage was as a virgin; that sex before marriage was wrong, bad and sinful. This is one point of view, a dangerous and stupid one, and I hold it responsible in large part for my own idiocy when it came to dealing with my sexuality as a young woman. Prior to college, I had the usual biology and health classes in high school, lessons that reiterated what my mother said: sex before marriage was bad, wrong and irresponsible. Again, this lesson was – and is – stupid, stupid, stupid. The health teacher in high school I had skimmed through the reproductive issues pages to get to what really mattered to her (she was a teetotaler), which were the evils of alcohol. Very stupid.
I went into my early twenties, right after college as a semi-virgin; I’d had sex but still considered myself sort of, mostly, a virgin. I was, as they say, living in a complete state of denial. I really, really, really wanted to live up to my mother’s example, my mother’s ideal, my culture’s ideal. I also had never, at the age of twenty-two, visited a gynecologist or spoken in depth with anyone about sex, birth control or abortion. I was smart, right, so no problem, right? I’d gone to college, graduating with honors; I’d figure it out, right? I’d fall in love and sex would magically be easy and fun, orgasm too! LOeffingL.
Figuring it out, unfortunately, in reality meant doing nothing, as I felt completely dis-empowered and in conflict when it came to dealing with my body and my sexuality. There is an inherent conflict created when we tell our children what they must do when it is – let’s face it – impossible to do, especially when we also don’t give them the information and means, as I was not given, to behave and act in a responsible manner. To refuse to accept and acknowledge that there is more than one way to be, as in having sex before marriage, as in being sexually active including all that choice entails, is the stupidest thing we can do and a huge disservice to our kids.
And so I got pregnant, puking my guts out for weeks on end at all hours of the day and night. I was so in denial, I thought I had a bug, a very bad bug that I couldn’t shake. And I could live in denial because I believed that only bad, unlucky, low-class or stupid girls got knocked up; I wasn’t any of those! This denial is what allows me to understand those teenaged girls who give birth in the school bathroom then go back to class as if nothing had happened; they can’t let the truth of their situation in because it is completely inconceivable to them.
I remember calling my parents about this endless ‘bug’ I’d caught and hearing a note in my father’s voice that nudged me toward the truth. He knew, he knew, my smart darling father knew what I’d really caught, which was a serious case of pregnancy.Darling man that he was, he also never said a word when my bug, just as suddenly as it came upon me, went away. Imagine – men especially, imagine – if you can (and you can’t) – puking your guts out for six or eight or ten weeks as I did. Imagine feeling nauseous twenty-four/seven. It’s horrible.
Imagine if you can the fear I felt when I finally figured out that I was pregnant, without health insurance and no husband or even boyfriend to help support me in anyway, no matter what choice I made. I had no relationship with the ‘sperm donor’, a guy I’d met while walking my dog in Central Park and screwed in the snow under a giant maple on Valentine’s Day, also in Central Park, a guy who, as it turned out, was married with other children, something he had lied about when we met. And I knew that in my life as it was then, there was no way, no way, that I was ready to have a baby. Ready – prepared – willing – happy, all of these the opposite of what I was, which was scared.
But, but – abortion is wrong. I promised myself I’d never do it. Oops. I confided in no one. I was completely alone with this, completely isolated, and in having an abortion I did the right thing. And I’m really proud of myself for that, for making the right choice for me, for taking care of myself although there was room, still, for a lot of improvement in that area. All children should be wanted, must, ideally, be wanted. I exercised – thank you Roe v. Wade, thank you, so much – my choice. After the abortion, nausea free for the first time in over eight long, looooong weeks, I literally skipped, danced, down Second Avenue. I had my body back and I was glad.
*what I had – along with a serious case of pregnancy, was hyperemisis gravidarum, which – in the days before the internet, I had no idea was ‘a thing’, or that such a condition in pregnant women even existed. ignorance is NOT bliss. here’s wiki once again explaining it all to you… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperemesis_gravidarum