It's My Choice and No One Else's!!

I was having a discussion the other night with a friend of mine regarding our views on abortion.  In case any of you have missed any of my previous blog postings...I'm a huge left leaning liberal.  My friend on the other hand describes herself as more traditional.  After our discussion, I thought back on how I came to decide that I was Pro-Choice.

I went to St. Gregory High School in Dorchester.  An all girls Catholic high school, where the ideals and teachings of the Catholic church were rammed down my throat repeatedly in hopes that I would become a good Catholic.  And we all see how well that turned out.  Oh, the price I paid for a decent education....

St. Greg's had a rival school, Cardinal Cushing High School in South Boston.  They would call us St. Pregs and we would in turn call them Cardinal Conception.  Unlike other Catholic high schools in the Boston area, we did not hide our pregnant teens by scurrying them off to a special school where they could continue their education behind closed doors protecting their shame.  I don't think we had any more pregnancies than any other Catholic high school, we just didn't hide it.

I think the Sisters at school decided that in light of teen pregnancies they would show us a very special film to deter us from choosing abortion in the event of a pregnancy.  This very special film showed us an actual abortion.  Some girls chose to walk out or just flat out not watch the film.  I stayed and I watched it.

Some girls cried and took up their torches, they became Pro-Life.

I watched that film and saw the harshness of the procedure that even seemed violent to me.  It was horrible and shocking.

The movie was over and I too picked up my torch.  And to the surprise of Sr. Katherine...my torch was Pro-Choice.  Even after seeing the film, I still chose the right to choose....

I had a friend growing up, lets call her G.  She was a couple of years younger than me, but we were still close.  Her mom was the younger sister of family friend.  She was always regarded with suspicion as she didn't live a "traditional latina" kind of lifestyle.  She would go out to parties and OMG...she would date.  Since she was a single mom, my mother and the other family ladies believed she should only live to raise her daughter and have no needs or desires of her own. 

She eventually found a man.  He moved in.  And everyone thought that he was a stable guy who would put this woman on the straight and narrow.  Her paryting stopped and she was no longer "being a loose" woman.  Well, "loose" as my  mom and the other women saw it.  The years went on.

At the age of 11, G finds out that she is pregnant.  Her mother's boyfriend had been raping her since she was 6 years old.  And now she was pregnant with his child. 

After it all blew over, we couldn't help but notice that G never had the baby.  We were told that  the test was wrong and she was never pregnant.  I was much more innocent then and now I know, the pregnancy was terminated.

While some people will say that she should have had the baby (and I know people who do feel that way), I think for once her mother did the right thing.  G was 11 years old and carrying a baby.  And she was expected to carry that baby to term when she wasn't much more than a baby herself?  I think that is cruel.  She was raped repeatedly from the time she was 5 years old, hadn't she suffered enough?

I'm going to let you all in on a little secret.  I lost my virginity at 17.  Soon after the loss of said virginity, I was convinced I was pregnant.  However, I used Fort Knox level birthcontol.  I used everything...condoms, birthcontrol pills and the Today Sponge.  But as a guilt ridden Catholic, I had convinced myself that one sneaky sperm had managed so bypass all that security to fertilize my hypothetical egg.  Luckily I was not pregnant.

Fast forward 12 years... 

I wasn't feeling well.  I was so tired all the time.  I had heart burn that would not go away.  And the very sight of chicken made me nauseaus.  Turns out I was pregnant. However, I was married, I had a college degree, a job I loved and a medical insurance. If not now, then when? 
So I made my choice.

Had I gotten pregnant when I was 17, with no job, no boyfriend, no education and no medical insurance, my choice to continue with the pregnancy might have been much different.

When a woman, like the woman in the film, chooses to have an abortion, she does not come to this decision lightly. I figured that the woman in the film must have thought long and hard about the procedure.  It must have been described to her and she must have been told what she was in for.  And she still chose to go through with it.  She must have agonized over this decision and then she made her choice.

No one in the Pro-Choice movement thinks that having an abortion is great.  And no one in the Pro-Choice movement thinks that ALL pregnancies should be terminated.  But we do believe that it should be a choice available to women.

I hope I will never have to make that choice.  But I am glad that since I live in Massachusetts, I have the right to make that choice.  I get to decide. 

I am glad that that decision lies in my hands and not in the hands of a priest who has never walked a single step in my shoes, or that old lady with the rosary beads in front of Planned Parenthood who screams at you even if  you are just going in for a pap smear, or a politician who just wants to keep his congressional seat .  Its funny, these are also the same people who throw a fit when we suggest making birth control more readily available to prevent unwanted pregnancies...hence avoiding abortions.

So yes, I am a woman, I am a mother and I am Pro Choice.  I have never had an abortion, but if I ever find myself having to make that choice I believe that choice is between me and God... an no one else.