I am a thirty-seven year old woman, who had an abortion 9 years ago. I had never intended to have children, in a decision of what my mother calls “selfish” and I call unselfish. I know that I would be miserable as a mother, which let me point out does not mean that I would necessarily make a bad mother, or that I hate kids. I work as a personal educator to two autistic children who I love passionately, but I also relish my non-child status, and always planned to be childless.
In any case, I was 28, and married when I became unintentionally pregnant through birth control failure. My husband and I looked at our options, and my desire not to have children at all, nor expose myself to the risks of pregnancy and labor-eclampisia, gestational diabetes, tearing, caesarians-and decided with the first two weeks of my pregnancy to have an abortion. I had to wait until the 6 week to actually have the abortion, during which time I was sick and miserable and subsisting on 7-up and crackers. My doctor surmises that I might have had hyperemesis garviadium.
In any case, at Planned Parenthood the total lack of non-judgement was great. I was counselled on post abortion trauma, and we talked about getting a tubal ligation for me after I healed from the surgery. (I had to wait another 10 years for that, no doctor would perform the tubal on someone who was so “young” and would change her mind). The abortion was little like a standard medical procedure, a little worse than an EKG and about as uncomfortable as getting a mole removed. I was a little sick afterwards, and did throw up, but I was back at work the next day.
I have never, ever, ever regretted my decision. It wasn’t that gut-wrenching emotional traumatic experience that people tell me I SHOULD HAVE felt, or that I will feel later. I haven’t in nine years felt any remorse at all for the alleged sin I committed. My husband and I are getting a divorce, and I shudder at how even more resentful I would feel if I DID now have to be a divorced single mother. In fact, I am pretty nonchalant about the whole thing, kind of like having a mole removed. Yesterday, I sat in a coffee shop and talked openly and in a normal voice about my abortion and how it was so “undramatic” for me.
So, I say to the anti-choice people, don’t burden me with your so-called emotional issues. I am here to tell you that for me, abortion was just a decision that I needed to make, just like I needed to make a decision to remove some precancerous moles.
