Abortion is always a hot topic, especially in the blogosphere. What I am seeing more and more are pro-choicers coming to pro-life blogs and offering their two cents. I find this intriguing as I never had much interest in going to a pro-choice blog to debate in the comments section. I also find the debate interesting, and yet also nerve wracking. The part I find nerve wracking is that to many pro-choicers, we “anti-choicers” are let’s see, racist, we never have a grip on reality and see the big picture, we are constantly trying to force are religion on people, and spend all our energy in trying to “trick” women into keeping their babies by lying, oh and of course none of us care about children or any social justice issues. They know this for a fact because they came to all our houses one by one, asked our opinions on the variety of social justice issues and proved that not a single one of us has ever done anything involving any other issue. <\/p>\n \nPansy Moss, So there it is. Reading over it, I am still not why I feel better telling the story in a comments box then on my own blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Abortion is always a hot topic, especially in the blogosphere. What I am seeing more and more are pro-choicers coming to pro-life blogs and offering their two cents. I find this intriguing as I never had much interest in going to a pro-choice blog to debate in the comments section. I also find the debate… Continue reading Time To Tell A Story (I’m Still<\/i> Judgemental)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pansyiana","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWhat really bugs me though, is this nonsense about “shaming”, “conning”, and “manipulating” women into having abortions<\/strike> keeping their babies. I think the Planned Parenthood urban legend email<\/a> is a good example of this bizarre stereotype. Growing up, I had many friends who had abortions, and behind almost every abortion was in the very least manipulative boyfriend.
\nNow I am going to tell my story. This has been on my mind a lot lately after putting it in the farthest reaches of memory for many years. I am not sure why. I just read an almost identical account two days ago and thought it was a sign of some sort, plus a few other strange coincidences here and there.I have also been kind of feeling like since I avoid large parts of myself, I do not blog about issues that are on my mind because then I might have to reveal things about myself I would rather not. I actually told this story in the comments box at Generations for Life,<\/a> when someone asked me a question. I figured if I put it in the comments box there, maybe I should retell it here.<\/p>\n
\nCan I ask you a question, since you’ve dealt with unplanned pregnancies, and obviously decided to see the pregnancy through. How do you think you might have responded if you had been denied the option of continuing the pregnancy? If the choice that made the most sense to you was denied and you were forced to abide by someone elses understanding of how they felt things should operate? I’m not attacking, I’m just interested in understanding, and perhaps showing a little of where I am coming from if I am able.<\/i>
\nOK, here is a bit of a story (long, apologising in advance). I am telling you this story not as “pro-life” propaganda, so to speak, because there will be sentiments that will sound familiar, but as a personal answer to a personal question.
\nI had always been pro-life. I was a pro-life child. Many of my cousins are Jewish, and I used to go to this Jewish camp in the summers, and I remember sitting in lawn chairs with my cousin and the Rabbi’s wife as they complained about thse Catholic hospitals that would try to save the babies over the mothers (which in retrospect, I am unsure where they got their information), which would turn into these abortion debates, and my 11-year old sensibilities didn’t know this wasn’t the time or place to keep quiet. It was just always wrong to me. I am not even sure why, because the issue was not as big then as it is now, we weren’t real religious Catholics then, and I am not even sure if my mother, who was not Catholic then was even pro-life on this issue.
\nAs a teenager I was sexually active at way too young an age. I spend a lot of time wondering what was going on, and the fact of the matter is, all I can come up with is a huge desire to fit in and do what everyone else was doing. Of course my family did not approve, but I remember having teachers, and adult family members who I was close to who used to “cool” with me and tell me that my parents were old-fashioned about the abstaining thing and all that mattered was that I used protection. All I heard in my adolescent brain “they are cool with me having sex”. Then the boys. I remember I was conned very easily by kind words by boys who were popular and wanting to fit in. So at 13 I had this “boyfriend” who would be the source of too much drama for the next 7 years, I wish I could erase those years. He was popular, his father used to work with my father and my father actually helped him with his dissertation (in other words, they were friends). He had a nice car. Both his parents were professionals, and he came from a line of Q-dogs and Deltas (black fraternities and sororities-something a bit impressive if you are AA). Other girls wanted to date him. He was a “catch” in high school.
\nAnyway, no surprise, I found myself pregnant at 15 right before my junior year of school started. I told my boyfriend first and he instantly broke up with me and told me to get an abortion. I told my girlfriends, and they told me to get an abortion (I was the only anti-abortion person among my peers). I told one of my cool cousins and she came down (they lived in the City and I lived in central NJ) and had talks with me about the need to have an abortion because I was too young, and all the reasons you would in good logic tell a pregnant 15-year-old to abort if you believed that was an option. My parents knew something was up and I told them. They were of course upset. The next day my father said “these are our options-I can adopt the baby or take care of the baby here, or if you want an abortion, I can’t help you find out about it, but you are my daughter and I will support you but that is a decision you have to live with, or you can put the baby up for adoption\u2026”
\n“But Dad, I can’t keep it!”
\n“Well, just remember, this is your decision, but it will be one you will have to stand by for the rest of your life\u2026” And that was all he said.
\nHe was not manipulating me, he was being very compassionate. Or maybe he was, but if so, his language was nicer, and heck, everyone was manipulating me. The fact is, I didn’t want to have abortion, and he was the first person to tell me I didn’t have to. I didn’t want to be pregnant either. I was up for cheerleading captain as a junior on the varsity team, I was starting performing arts high school in fall\u2026I chose adoption as my option. For some reason I thought it would be easy.
\nMy ex-boyfriend had a fit. At first he desperately wanted alone time with me to sweet talk me into aborting, but my parents practically dead bolted the door. Then they told his parents, and I remember my mother saying “well, we are Catholic and abortion is not an option.”
\n“Catholic”
\n“oh”
\nI started school. My ob\/gyn didn’t want me cheerleading-well doing anything to physically strenuous, so I gave up my captainship to a senior friend. My coach was baffled at the time. I started performing arts school, and had teachers lectured me about abortion when my pregnancy became known.
\n“And you don’t believe in abortion?”
\n“Catholic”
\n“Oh great!”
\nThe worst though was my ex-boyfriend. He started bringing strings of girls around to flaunt in front of me. I remember our homecoming dance being such a nightmare. The insanity was unreal. The girls would whine and complain “I hate Pansy! How would you like it if you were trying to get with a guy and she were having his baby? She didn’t have an abortion because she just wants his money.” or because “she just wants to keep him tied to her,” Yeah, like that ever worked.
\nHe used to torment me with his “boys” in the lunch room, they would stand and point and talk about how I better watch myself on the stair well, because if I’m not careful, I might have an accident. The teachers all loved-let’s call him “Amir” because his father was on the school board and he was witty, blah, blah, blah. He used to spend his time in the guidance counselor’s office whining about how hard this was on him, and what a golddigger I was etc. He missed 70 days out of that school year and should not have graduated. He cut class to have parties at the shore with his friends, and later told the school he was so screwed up because of my pregnancy and they agreed. He graduated. I didn’t miss 70 days, btw. I did start homestudy when I went into preterm labor. But I still studied.
\nThe teachers, and administration gossiped about me. My neighbors found out about my confinement because of the gossip from school officials, not because me or my family told anyone.
\nOn March 30, 1989 at age 16, I had an 8 lb 1 oz baby boy three weeks early which I named John Paul. I picked the family out prior at Catholic Charities. Much of what happened in this time period is an extremely, painful blur and I have a hard time speaking about it, let alone having a desire to go through the selftorture of wanting to remember in detail. I actually have not even said this much in many years. I will say I loved my son madly and did not want to give him up, but I knew I could not provide for him the way the family I had chosen would have. Handing him over at the hospital left a hole in my heart the size of Antartica. But here is the thing, I have nightmares sometimes that I caved in to the harrasment and had an abortion. In these dreams I cry and I cannot look myself in the mirror and am left brokenhearted after having given in to everyone else’s wishes. I wake up with a huge sense of relief that my son is alive, and that I was able to help a family who wanted a child and could not have one on their own. That hole in my heart will never close but knowing that I kind of did the noble thing keeps me at peace. If I had aborted him, I think it would be a festering, gaping wound, and I don’t know how I would live with myself knowing how I feel about motherhood. I think I would be in big trouble without some type of major outside help or intervention. I am true to who I am, and that is important to me.
\nOddly, after that, one by one, all my friends started turning up pregnant, and one by one they had abortions, many at the prompting of their boyfriends. One came to me crying that she didn’t want to tell me because she knew I was pro-life, but in the end felt she had nowhere else to turn or no one to talk to.She had an abortion because her boyfriend convinced her. He used to tell her that he had dreams of his dead, Catholic grandmother holding a baby, and looking at him and shaking her head in dissappointment. I brought her to a priest and he told her he had to start by forgiving herself\u2026
\nMy other friends, our friendships got really ugly and bizarre. Knowing the challenges, I simply said “I don’t agree with abortion, but You’re my friend and if you need my help afterwards, let me know\u2026” I remember one friend, she used to call her ex-boyfriend and say “well, I wanted to call you because one year ago today, our child would have been born\u2026” Of course the guy couldn’t hang up quick enough.
\nMy best friend who had multiple abortions, she was present at my son’s birth, she was my matron of honour at my wedding, she spent a lot of time talking to whoever would listen to people behind my back, including my husband that I was a liar and not as sweet as I seemed, and that I had “four abortions” but never told anyone-and that pro-life stuff was just an act. She told everyone this, even “Amir”. I don’t even know what conclusion to draw from that except that somehow abortion distorts people, granted I am sure she started out unhinged, but this was her fixation. Part of me is glad that didn’t let that happen to me.
\nComment posted June 4th, 2006 at 4:41 am<\/i> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n