I'm a 23-year-old college student majoring in Secondary Education. My goal is to become a middle school and/or high school history teacher. I also want to dedicate my life to fighting poverty, ignorance, misogyny, injustice, and oppression. When I was 21 years old I discovered that I was pregnant. At the time, I was in a monogamous relationship with my boyfriend and I was using the birth control pill; however with the hustle and bustle of college life, I sometimes forgot to take my birth control pill every day. At the time I discovered I was pregnant, I was only a month along. I was able to detect my pregnancy very early on because I had horrible symptoms and the pregnancy hormone in my body was very high.
Upon discovering I was pregnant, my boyfriend and I immediately decided that I would obtain an abortion. I didn't want to remain pregnant for 9 months because physically I was in hell and I knew I wasn't ready to handle 9 months of pregnancy and the agony of 40 hours of childbirth. At age 23, I currently stand at 5'0" and 95 pounds, so my small size would have greatly complicated my pregnancy and delivery. I also knew that I couldn't keep my baby without being punished and shunned by my Fundamentalist Christian family who believes that any type of sex outside marriage is a sin. Having grown up in a poor family, my college education has been my escape from poverty and a ticket to a better life. I knew that having a child would only force me to quit college and live as a single mother on welfare. I didn't want that; I had worked too hard to let my life come to that. Plus, I thought that the public's tax dollars should go towards something more useful than supporting my illegitimate child. So I decided to have an abortion as early as possible.
The procedure itself was rather painful, but in the end I knew that I had made the best decision for my unborn child and me. There have been many people who have called me a murderer, a whore, and many other names because I had an abortion. I have been subjected to prank calls where someone calls me and makes baby crying sounds and yells "Mommy, why did you kill me?" into the phone. I even had a hateful schoolmate create an AOL screen name using the name of my unborn baby so that she could harass and humiliate me on the Internet (at the time of my abortion, I felt it was appropriate to give my unborn baby a name) However, I know that I am not any of the hateful names that these people call me and the people who judge me have obviously never been in my situation. No matter what kind of hateful treatment I receive from ignorant anti-choice people, I am still NOT sorry that I had an abortion. I made the best decision for me at that time.
I have learned a lesson from this experience. I am now much more
careful about taking my birth control pills everyday. I want my next pregnancy to be planned and wanted. I am now dedicating my life to making sure that every woman in this country has the option to choose whether or not to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. No woman should have to suffer for the rest of her life simply because her contraception failed her or because she was the victim of rape or incest. Because I was able to make the choice to terminate my
pregnancy, I have been able to go on with my college education and I will soon be graduating with a college degree in the field of
teaching. I will finally be out of poverty's grasp and I will be
able to live a better life. And my future children will have the
benefit of living a life in which they will be loved and provided
for.
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