Margaret's Story
"The abortion made room for a planned pregnancy, one I could relish instead of resent."
For the past 30 years I've been curiously aware of the anti-abortion rhetoric winding its way through American media. There are several sound bite statements repeated often enough in every argument, to make many a reader, listener or TV audience forget where the original pronouncement originated, thus rendering the statement "factual" by default. One very popular platitude I must address is the solidly entrenched idea that abortion is not necessary because of the existence of thousands of childless couples longing for a baby. This point is offered much as a kind of math equation. As though excess unwanted pregnancies can be simply converted to babies for worthy couples longing to be good parents. The unwritten assumptions attached to this statement are numerous, naive and unproven. Namely, that all women who opt for adoption feel better about that decision than those who choose abortion. And that all women who are not fit to be parents will opt to give their babies up. To set a few accepted notions straight, I will throw aside the convention of secrecy to tell a real story. At age 17 I carried a pregnancy to term, gave birth to a gorgeous 9 pound boy, held him 3 times and then said goodbye forever. The hormone injected into my breast to stop the milk production did nothing to stop my heart from breaking.
The pregnancy was the result of a combination of teenage naivete and hormones, mixed with stubborn Catholic messages about the unholiness of birth control. I knew I was not in a place to begin raising a child, and abortion was "wrong". The authority figures in my world guided me in their beliefs, and today I have absolutely no idea if I will ever meet my first child. They insisted on secrecy in every aspect. Once I signed the papers they took the baby away and I had never a word again about his welfare. How trusting and young I was.
By the time I was 22 I planned a pregnancy as a married woman, but by then I had learned that birth control was as essential to my wellbeing as food. My husband and I thought maybe we would only have one child, because we were still struggling financially. When our baby was 9 months old and nursing I accidentally became pregnant again. As a 3rd year college student, living on grants and loans, remodeling a little run down bungalow and struggling to make it through to graduation, I knew another baby was out of the question. I borrowed the money for an abortion, and never looked back.
To compare the impact of my abortion to that of giving up my son for adoption is virtually impossible. The two experiences are not even in the same realm of reality. Even as some days I ponder what turns my life would have taken had I been the Mom of 2 little kids less than a year apart, instead of my 2 who are 6 years apart, I never regret the abortion. If you use the argument that the abortion erased a being that should have been born, what about the fact that if I had the unplanned child, I never would have had my next child, who is a wonderful young man I could not imagine life without? I was firm that 2 children is socially responsible, and all I could reasonably handle. The abortion made room for a planned pregnancy, one I could relish instead of resent.
As for the adoption experience, I cannot think of it without feeling the weight of regrets, sadness, memory of an awful depression, and no small amount of anger at how I was treated by the doctors and social workers who pretended to "know best", even though none of them had ever experienced this situation themselves. Women, no matter how young, poor or messed up are not animals.
Many, if not the majority of poor, uneducated women feel their babies to be the one aspect of their existence which is truly in their total control, over which they have all rights respected. My example is Wanda (not her real name) who was part of the pregnant teen support group I attended when I was 17. Wanda had her baby right before I was due, and I recall her saying that she could NEVER consider giving up her first born child. She was 16, had been using heroine, had no plans to finish school and had been abused by the baby's father. Consider the enormous amount of altruism necessary to give up rights to your biological child. Those with the least to give, often are in the most difficult position to know altruism or be able to make the ultimate sacrifice for the well being of another human. For those who do choose to carry a child to term, and trust another couple to raise it, I have enormous respect and sympathy. I also have respect for women who try to manage their fertility, wrestle with problematic forms of birth control, and still find themselves in the position of having an unplanned pregnancy who then choose abortion.
After my last child was born I chose to have my tubes tied. I will not play around with unplanned pregnancy any longer. Every child should be relished. I hope with all my heart that my first son is happy out in the world, wherever he is, and I hope he understands the complexity of what led to his adoption. I also hope that women will cease to be made to feel guilty, either for choosing abortion or for choosing to give up a child. Let us not decrease the already astoundingly difficult and limited array of choices available to women.
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