Abortion – Join us for a month of Controversy

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A month of Controversy, August Blogging from A to Z dry runAbortion

Letter A from our August dry run of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge

I have had an abortion, and I’m not sorry about it either. If that means we can’t be friends, I guess that’s just the way it is. You probably wouldn’t like me, anyway, though, so I can’t truly be sorry about that, either. I do hope you have a nice day. I know I will!

Here’s the thing. I have been told that abortion is “irresponsible”. I would posit that the sex in which I engaged to get myself into such a state was the “irresponsible” activity. Multiple sexual partners, and it was well over ten years ago, so I can’t even recall if it was protected or not. Yeah, definitely irresponsible!

I do recall that at the time of my abortion I was extremely depressed and looking for love in all the wrong places. I was emotionally unstable, unemployed, hated myself and my life, and had NO business becoming an unwed mother. Not when I already had another child of which to take care, one whom I was failing at the time. It was another two years before I got my collective shit together and became the mother my son needed me to be.

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But that’s just *MY* story. I’m sure others use abortion as post-sexual birth control. And there are some who might have an abortion post-rape. And some women who have an abortion are correcting faulty birth control after having taken all the so-called “responsible” measures to avoid this condition. For each of these situations, abortion isn’t irresponsible. The actions leading up to it may or may not have been irresponsible, but the abortion itself is the most responsible act in the whole deal.

Here’s another thing. Women who are denied an abortion are also subsequently frowned upon for needing financial assistance in raising the child they are forced to carry and birth. That seems extremely silly. You can’t have it both ways, pro-life ninnies. If you are going to hogtie a woman into becoming a mother, you damn well better be prepared to give her the assistance she is going to need. Because, again — choosing abortion was probably the most responsible act she would have chosen, had you not gotten up in her business.

And that’s what ticks me off the most about the whole issue. Mostly, I wish people would just get over the whole whats-going-on-between-my-legs-and-in-my-uterus thing. An anonymous writer at the online magazine Jezebel.com wishes that, too. Her article “Why I Won’t Come Out About My Abortion” prompted excellent discussion in which either she or a similar woman (not sure which since it’s all anonymous) explains, “Ironically, I feel more conflicted about speaking openly about my abortion than I did about having it.”

My feeling is this. It’s been proven scientifically viable for men to carry a child to full term. If men want to weigh in on the topic, they ought to be lining up as volunteer surrogates to care for the unwanted fetus. And pro-life women? If you aren’t already in line, your opinion on abortion is moot as well.

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Comments

comments

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000254534840 Mary Wallace

    This is an awesome topic and a great way to introduce it. Let me jump right into the fray and tell you something only one other person knows and she is no longer here. I too, have had an abortion. It’s been passed off in the family as a “miscarriage.” My mother had the guts to tell everyone I was sleeping with a man less than a month after I left my crazy 2nd husband, but I didn’t have the courage to tell the guy I was pregnant by him because he was nuttier than the husband, I left. Boy, talk about good character judgment. It would have been a catastrophic thing for me at that time of my life. For my mother too, who was in the first stages of what would be her final illness. Anyway, Andi-Roo, you’re having done that at that time, was a very courageous thing to do. It’s not cowardly, it’s not murder. I hold to the standard that if it’s not able to survive outside of the mother’s body, it’s not viable. If that sounds lawerly and feeble, so be it. The Burn in Hellers certainly would have us see it that way.

    The fact remains to my way of thinking that this is still a country of laws governed by the Constitution. Somewhere in there, I seem to remember that we have certain inalienable rights, one of those being the right to privacy. The very fact that the anonymous writer at Jezebel.com is more conflicted speaking about her experience than she was about the act of having speaks to the emotion, dread and frisson that is emotionally attached to the word abortion. The fact, Andi, that you felt compelled to open your post with the statement “I had an abortion… we can’t be friends” speaks volumes. I would never NOT be your friend. This is excellent and I can’t wait for the next part of this month of dry run.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000254534840 Mary Wallace

    In going back and re-reading; I don’t believe women use abortion as a “birth-control” device as has been portrayed in PSAs and political adverts through the decades. Although women are no longer subjected to back alleys and coat hangers (a horrific image if there were ever one) the decision and process itself is still lonely, sorry and brutal. No right-thinking woman wants this, nor takes it cavalierly. Living where I live I see far too many women however, who if given the choice, would abort, I am sure. Planned Parenthood is non-existent down here. There are all manner of aid programs for mothers with dependent children. There are all manner of people to take advantage of them as well. Let me stop. This is not about that. This is about a woman’s right to choose and her right to do so without some hypocrite with a small mind, an agenda, a basketful of money and an army of pinheaded lock-steps to go along with him. Thanks Andi-Roo. You are truly the greatest! <3

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  • http://twitter.com/bubblegumcari Cari Wegner

    Um, I have to join your Atomic tribe to read your post? What? We need to talk, Andi, not cool.

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