Abortion. There's a loaded topic that will get people fired up in a hurry. This is for you, kids. If I never get a chance to tell you, I want you to know that your mother was passionately pro-choice. And in case the terminology changes, that means I am in favor of legal, safe, widely accessible abortion so that anyone seeking an abortion can get one regardless of income or social status.
Why, you ask? Upon learning what abortion is, your knee-jerk reaction might be "how could someone be in favor of that?! It's murder! Save the babies!" I know because that was my reaction when my mother told me what abortion was when I was ten or so. It was also my mother's opinion, so I'm sure that's a lot of the reason why I felt that way. Being against abortion is termed "pro-life." This is a misnomer for many reasons, but that's a whole other post.
I learned a bit later that the church's stance on abortion was that it was okay if a pregnancy was a result of rape or incest, or if the mother's life was in danger. Other than that, it was considered a grave sin. I agreed with this and considered myself pro-life. I vaguely thought that yeah, it should be legal if someone is in one of those situations, but not for people who just forgot to use birth control. But this stance, which is actually quite liberal in comparison to the stances of most Christian denominations, is actually a pro-choice stance. I learned this later in life. And after years and years of being pro-life, this stance along with my experiences working as a labor and delivery nurse, made me realize I was actually massively pro-choice.
I honestly never really thought about it until my cousin became pregnant after being raped in 2007. She decided to keep her baby, but I thought to myself at the time it would also be a perfectly valid choice to have an abortion. I'm glad she had the choice. But there's a dark side as well. She never pressed charges against her rapist, because then he would know he had a child. And what if she wasn't able to prove it? Then he could perhaps sue for paternity rights and even partial custody. A nightmare scenario if there ever was one. She just has to hope she never runs into him and he never finds out he fathered her child.
At that point I realized that abortion needed to be available for anyone, because rape is incredibly difficult to prove. If you make a pregnant rape victim prove they were raped before getting an abortion, many of them will never get that abortion. Does this mean that someone who got pregnant because their condom broke during consensual sex could just say it was rape and get an abortion? Yes it does. This is why I still couldn't bring myself to say out loud that I was pro-choice. I still couldn't stand the thought of someone aborting just because it was inconvenient for them to be pregnant.
It was working in labor and delivery that finally turned me into a proud pro-choicer. There is a lot of poverty in Erie and with poverty comes people in the worst kind of situations. I saw a couple pregnant 13 year olds (even if it wasn't violent rape, a 13 year old cannot consent and any sex with a child that age is rape). I saw even older teens and women in absolutely awful situations. Many who didn't even want babies. There are no doctors in Erie who perform abortions and these girls and women did not have the means to travel for it. So they are stuck with babies they cannot take care of. And then they get demonized and criticized for using food stamps and medicaid. I finally admitted to myself that I was perfectly fine with anyone who feels like they need an abortion having one. That way all the rape victims can get one. All the women in abusive relationships don't have to bring a baby into it. Were some of them irresponsible? Could they have just not had sex or used a condom? Sure. But I can't judge who is in what situation. So I became a proud proponent of abortion being widely available for everyone.
There are many facets of my pro-choice beliefs, but I'm just going to go into one more here. Another part of my transition from pro-life to pro-choice was realizing the importance of bodily autonomy. As long as it affects an individual's body, it is their fucking choice. You can believe it is a baby from the moment of conception. Hell, you can believe every egg and sperm is sacred and should be given a chance at life. You can believe it is murder to abort a pregnancy. But as long as that baby is living inside someone's body, it is the owner of that body's choice what happens to it. The minute it's out, baby is an autonomous individual with full human rights. Before that, the mother's rights trump the baby's. Which means a person can believe abortion is a sin, murder, etc, and still believe it should be legal. End of discussion.
Why do I feel so strongly about this? Many reasons. One is because I have been pregnant and I know how awful it is on your body. I dealt with debilitating sickness for the first 18 weeks of each pregnancy. And I had it good. Many people get much sicker. And it is not uncommon for pregnancy to kill the mother. I think you can only fully understand this once you witness it. I've witnessed it. I've watched a patient be killed by her pregnancy. A mother of three. Women have the right to defend their bodies from harm and death. It is the height of hypocrisy that the same people who believe they have the right to kill someone with a gun if they "feel threatened" don't think a woman has a right to defend her body from the threats of pregnancy. And as a side note, a woman is far more likely from pregnancy-related causes than it is for the average American to be killed by a home intruder. But this fear is used all the time to justify having zero gun regulations, even though guns kill thousands of living, breathing humans every year.
Would I ever have an abortion and do I personally think it is wrong? I think for me, I do tend to believe it is wrong. But only for me, I'd never presume to tell someone else it's wrong for them. I loved each of my babies from the moment I saw two pink lines. But I'd never say never because life simply isn't black and white. If I was raped, I don't think I'd keep a resulting pregnancy. If my life was in possible danger, ie if cancer was found early in a pregnancy and I'd have a better chance of survival by terminating to begin cancer treatment, I would absolutely terminate. My life is worth more than a tiny embryo. My other children need me. If I found out at 20 weeks my child had a fatal anomaly and any life it had would be painful, I would definitely terminate. If it was something like Down syndrome or other non-fatal but life altering condition, I probably wouldn't terminate, but I would be glad that I have the choice. If I find out next week that I'm pregnant with an oops baby even though I thought I was done having kids, I wouldn't terminate. But I am a well off white woman with only my tiny perspective on life. It is not my place to judge someone else's choices based on their own perspectives and values.
There are many other facets of abortion and reproductive rights to be discussed but I'll come back to those in later posts. Right now I'm in Denver with Derek for a job interview. He's off impressing big shots and I'm alone in a swanky hotel room while the kids are back home with Grandma Teri. Heaven.
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