Choice

I look forward to S’s posts via Facebook each morning. This particular post really inspired me. This is what it said.

“I heart this, the idea that utopia INCLUDES abortion access. I had been mulling a post about how my ideal world includes abortion, but now I don't think I need to write it: thank you The Abortioneers! Oh, & GIVE: do it on this last day of the bowl-a-thon/blog-a-thon.”

Her post included a link to a blog called “The Abortioneers” written by “DESEMBARAZARME” titled “Utopia.” You should STOP reading my post and read “Utopia” before you continue. http://abortioneers.blogspot.com/2010/04/utopia.html

Let me be clear right off the bat. I am not anti-abortion in all cases. I am certain that there are some situations, such as rape or health related problems, in which abortion is the best option. (Note that only 1% of abortions are preformed as a result of rape and 6% because of health reasons)

Years ago I accompanied a friend of mine to abort an unwanted child. She had no money, no status, no special doctor and she was given proper care to abort her child.

Several years later I became pregnant with my own child. What a miracle it was to make love to my soul mate and create a child that was 50% he and 50% I. This was a wanted child. She died at 8 weeks gestation. For anyone who has experienced the loss of a child at any stage without choice, you can understand the pain we experienced. She came to me in a dream a few days before her due date and I will never let go of that image.

After losing a child my perspective on abortion changed. It was my first reproductive experience and I had a lot of questions. Was I destined to never carry a child full term? Did God punish me for supporting my friend’s choice years ago? Would adoption be a real option for me? Am I going to end up in the mental hospital as a result of this turmoil? With all of the unanswered questions there was one thing that was certain. My baby girl was more then just an embryo or a fetus. I felt her soul enter my body through my womb and leave my body through my heart. She was just as deserving of unconditional love as a child at 40 weeks gestation or 40 years old.

For me, other then the reasons I mentioned above (rape or health), there is no single reason that I can think of to voluntarily abort a child. Why should a woman have the right to kill her unborn child when a woman suffering from postpartum depression who kills her child ends up behind bars for life? Both woman momentarily perceived that the child was unwanted.

NEWS FLASH birth control is affordable and accessible, in fact it is virtually free if you get in touch with your body and find it. I would venture to say that abstaining from sex for those couple magical days of the month is probably as effective as the most effective birth control you can buy.

And as for hearing a woman “sob about how she couldn't possibly continue this pregnancy because she had no job and no support and her kids were already wearing clothes that were too small, so how in the world would she be able to get the hundreds or even thousands of dollars needed to have an abortion?” Did she have no obligation to consider that when she decided to have unprotected sex?

Abortion is not the only answer to an unwanted pregnancy. There are millions of people who are unable to reproduce or for other reasons such as sexual orientation that could adopt these so called “unwanted” children. The same people who choose abortion do not choose giving their children up for adoption because they fear they will become attached during pregnancy. That seems like a selfish reason to me. Adoption is a real solution that benefits other members of society without killing an unborn child. I would go out on a limb and say that parents who have adopted a child think that child is pretty special and certainly wanted.

If Utopia includes a place “where woman talk about their (positive) abortion experiences in the same breath as they talk about the frozen yogurt they had last night,” count me out. How can you analogize taking the life of an unborn child with eating frozen yogurt?

Life is hard and sometimes we make decisions that give us outcomes we think we can not or do not wish to handle. Living with the consequences of those choices takes inner strength and makes us more resilient people. There is a greater picture out there than the very fleeting feelings of fear and anxiety felt when unexpected or unwanted things happen to us. Having consensual sex is a choice that you make with full disclosure. The unborn child has no choice.

You can find S's post here to see a nicely written opposing view.