I just watched an episode of 30 days where a pro-choice woman went to live in an anti-choice maternity home. It was really an intense experience. The show mentioned a young girl named Becky Bell who died of an illegal abortion in 1988. She lived in Indiana where there were parental notification laws and she didnt want to disappoint her parents by telling them she was pregnant. So she tried to find a way around the law. She couldnt. Eventually she went for an illegal abortion. About a week later she was admitted to the hospital. Her veins had collapsed and her lungs were decaying from an infection that had spread through her whole body. She died. And it broke her parents hearts. Now Im sure there was more to this story. Anti-choice websites try to throw the story out of focus by calling Beckys parents liars, by saying Becky was a drug addict, or that she had other unplanned pregnancies. Who the fuck cares? Im sure the grief from losing a daughter may have led Beckys parents to exaggerate what a perfect daughter she was, or what a close family they had...but that doesnt change the facts. It breaks my fucking heart. And to think that access to reproductive care has decreased while restrictions (such as parental notification laws or the child custody protection act) have increased eats away at me.
I understand that choice is a hard issue. I really do. I am rabidly pro-choice but there are still times I question abortion, both for myself and other woman. I hope woman are having abortions for their own reasons, but I know thats not always the case. Just like woman dont always carry their pregnancy to term for their own reasons. There must be some kind of balance...right?
There was a point a few years ago where I thought I was pregnant. It never crossed my mind to keep the child and I had no intention of telling the would-be-father. A friend asked me if I thought that was fair and I responded by stressing that it was my body and that I didnt fucking care what he thought. I knew he was religious and while I used that as an excuse for not telling him, the truth was I was scared because he loved me. I was afraid he would pressure me to keep the baby because he wanted to father a child with me, or because he was lonely and looking for meaning in his life, or because he looked forward to fatherhood. I didnt want to get trapped. So I didnt tell him. It occurs to me now that I never told him. And looking back, I think he would have been pretty understanding.
After skipping my third or fourth period I took a home pregnancy test. It came out negative. I was relieved, but something inside me that I refused to listen to was a little sad as well. A few days later I got my period. It was abnormally thick and heavy. I didnt think anything of it. Years later I read a book called Cunt by Inga Muscio. She talked a lot about pregnancy and she talked about natural miscarriages/abortions that often go unnoticed. Cycles that are thick and heavy and clotty, just like that period years before. It occurred to me that maybe I had been pregnant and my body had aborted on its own. Now I cant know if that was true. Perhaps it is just as likely that I wasnt pregnant, that it was just one of those strange things that happen to a womans body...but I wonder.
About a year and nine months ago the would-be-father of my child died. It broke my heart and wounded me in ways that I can never explain to another person. I sometimes wish that I had his child. That I could still have a part of him with me. But children shouldnt be brought into the world as reminders or souvenirs. I had no resources to care for a child and neither did he. We were both selfish and immature and I cant help but believe that we would have all been worse off.
I wonder now what it would have been like to have had to make that choice and live with the consequences. If I had an abortion would I be wracked with guilt? Would I feel like I had killed a part of him? Would I mourn the loss of our child? What if I had the child? Would that have saved him? Where would I be? Could we have been happy together? Would it have ruined all of our lives?
I thank god that I never had to make that choice.
My heart goes out to all those woman that have.
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