I had a conversation with my son about abortion.
Actually, I’ve had more than one. We talk about politics, about blogging, about feminism, about all these things. And at some point I knew I had to make the personal political, and the political personal. What he didn’t have, what our intellectual conversations weren’t providing, was a face on the issue, a human, real face.
So I told him. I had an abortion.
And here’s what I said: “I was twenty years old. I had left my first husband and was living in my mother’s basement.”
And he jumped in and said “…you had no choice.”
In that moment, I saw what the face of abortion was to him: It was compassionate to the point of pathetic. And that’s what we do, isn’t it? If we don’t slut-shame, we patronize. Poor sad girls with no choice, nowhere to go, no money. Tut tut we should support their right to make this sad tut tut choice.
And sometimes that’s true. Sometimes it’s the very end of an unraveling rope. Sometimes a life is at stake. Sometimes there’s just no other way.
But what I said was, “No. I did have a choice. I could have had that baby and scraped by somehow. But it wasn’t the life I wanted. I didn’t want to be a girl in a basement with a baby and a shitty job. So I made a choice.”
And see, that face isn’t much there in the abortion conversation. The face of a smart young woman who sees her life shriveling up and says NO WAY. Not going to happen. Not to me. Because I have a choice.
I think my son learned something from that conversation. I know I did.
That must have taken A LOT of courage to do. I am sure you son has quite a bit to think about now.
Thanks. I was genuinely scared but it worked out.
Right on, Deborah. I think you’re right that we need to guard against disempowering narratives on all sides, whether it’s “you’re not able to make this decision for yourself, so we the state are going to make it for you,” or “poor thing, you were desperate, so of course you felt abortion ws your only option.”
Thank the Goddess you had a choice and chose to exercise it responsibly. Because you made the choice to have an abortion when you were 20, you were able to make the choice to have a child when the time was right.