This week, I met with a woman who had an abortion, and I was
reminded that deciding to get one can be really complicated. I don’t mean the
hoops that women must jump through to get an abortion, and there are a lot of
them now (at least in Texas), including finding a clinic that can actually perform
one, dealing with their waiting period, listening to the “scientific”
complications spiel, and going through the detailed sonogram process. That
stuff is problematic in itself. The complications that I am talking about are
the emotions that can come up when going through the abortion process. Everybody
feels differently about their abortion; there is no one story or one right
reaction. However, there is a prevailing message that each side has presented. Liberals
talk about abortion as a strictly medical procedure and how empowering it can
be; conservatives talk about abortion as a shameful process always connected
with regret. When we promote this type of limited, splitting rhetoric, we are
missing the many layers of feeling that can come with deciding to get an
abortion. While we should not use those feelings as a reason to limit access,
we do need to acknowledge them in a big way.
The woman who I met with felt like getting an abortion was
right for her. She is not ready to be a mother; her life is in transition, and
she knows that she is not financially stable enough to care for another human.
She told me that she knows that she made a good decision, and yet she also felt
some sadness about it. She said that she was surprised to feel upset; she felt
like a bad feminist for being sad.
It was that statement that broke my heart and made me
realize that we are not having the right conversations about abortion. When we
boil something as complicated as this down to a strictly medical procedure or only
a shameful process, we do everyone a disservice, because we miss everything in between.
What would you like to add to the abortion conversation?
- Lauren, pro-choice advocate who would like to add feelings into the chatter
I agree, but then we are not a society that gets, or practices, nuance. Good/bad, black/white, my team is awesome/your team sucks is about all of the nuance our national and cultural discussions manage.
ReplyDeleteI also chose to have an abortion when I was in my mid-20s. Birth control pill failure + horrible job + no insurance + no money + relationship that shouldn't have continued + not wanting to be a parent with that person, in those circumstances. And it was not an easy decision to make, though I knew it was the right decision then and looking back I know it was the right thing to do. At least I had the benefit of not believing in sin - so I didn't have that particular guilt/shame hurdle to jump. There were others, of course, including feeling like a terrible person, feeling like a cold man-hating feminist terminator, while at the same time absolutely feeling that it was the right thing to do, even feeling in that moment that it was a 'Thank you but not right now' to the universe and to maybe come back another time. It was all of those things, all at once. But I came to a place of peace about it then. And that peace has been ongoing.
I have thought about that 6wk embryo a lot over the years. He or she would be 20 now (or thereabouts), which is pretty weird to consider. It is certainly bittersweet to consider (as are a lot of life's twists and turns). I still do not think I would be a very good parent - I've never wanted to be. Some people have that want/need. Some people don't. I'm a really good aunt and that's just fine by me.
You are totally right about how bad we are at understanding and bringing nuance to the larger conversation. Europeans (for example) are so much better at that! Well, at least the French are with the discussion I am hearing about their president's affair. So much subtlety in their chats.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think that your story is a prefect example of someone making a decision that is right for themselves and still having a lot of complicated feelings about it. Those are the stories that need to be told, but they will be used as examples of why abortions should not be legal at all. SO FRUSTRATING!