You Are Not Owed a Reason for Somebody's Abortion

[Jilly_in_VA]

ByCaitlin Cruz

​Kaia was nearly 42 when she learned her fetus had a chromosomal abnormality that would likely lead to a painful death. Liz found out she was pregnant right after a long-distance relationship ended. Ophelia, already perimenopausal, was raising two children with mood disorders. Natalie wanted to be homecoming queen. Dima knew the dude wasn’t right. Layidua was undocumented and attempting to change her immigration status after getting married. Yas was about to start her senior year of high school. Deb had just graduated college.

I have interviewed dozens and dozens of people who had abortions for dozens of articles. I have spoken to people who chose to self-manage their medication abortions at home, who chose first-trimester abortions in hospitals and clinics, who got later abortions, multiple abortions, secret abortions, people who got abortions as minors, whose fetus wouldn’t survive, who did it to protect their health, who didn’t want to be parents ever or just not right now, and who couldn’t afford the procedure. Every one of these safe and wanted abortions was a good abortion.

After each interview I come away with profound disbelief that this is my life’s work: chronicling the stories of people who decide to divulge their private health information in service of others. They spill their abortion secrets in the hopes that their public honesty might mean those in power finally realize people who have abortions are simply that: people. I am so grateful for them. I wished I could offer them a better outcome than an accurate record of events. All I can offer them now is my own honesty.

It took me years to make so bold yet so fundamental a statement as “every safe and wanted abortion is a good abortion” on behalf of these people, because the notion of capital-J Journalism still had a hold over me. The profession has sworn, from William Randolph Hearst to Marty Baron, to not bring a point of view to practice; journalism forgets that Ida B. Wells was a reporter, too. I trained at newspapers in New Orleans, Seattle, and Phoenix. Even when I moved into political reporting, it was still a toe-the-line liberal blog. When I got to outlets that could take a bit more bite, I held back. I wrote about the fight for abortion access without explicitly mentioning the goodness of these choices. And I was fair, always trying to find the balance between pro- and anti-abortion sources and stories.

https://jezebel.com/you-are-not-owed-a-reason-for-somebodys-abortion-1848317442

[cilla4progress]

1. So good.

Thanks.

Really resent that the pro-lifers have successfully injected guilt into my own experience of many years ago.

I am Deb,

[agingdem]

3. I don't feel guilty..

48 years ago, second pregnancy, placental abruption, bleeding...my OB hinted at termination but because abortions were not legal in Texas, I bussed 11 hours to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and terminated the pregnancy..Nora Ephron once said "Marriages come and go but divorce is forever", so, too, are abortions forever...I'm 73 years old, a widow, a mother of two, grandmother of five, and there isn't one day of my life that I don't think of THAT DAY ...so the pro-lifers who secretly have "medical D&C's"..go to fucking hell and take your lying incompetent unqualified monster judges with you...

[cilla4progress]

4. Good for you!

A "good" abortion... ie, for the "right reasons," excusable.

[agingdem]

5. Not "good"..necessary

[Haggard Celine]

2. Reminds me of the people who ask how a person contracted AIDS,

or any other disease. There are some things you don't ask people, even if you know them well. If they want you to know, they'll tell you.

[slightlv]

6. I killed my twin in utero

therefore, am I now a murderer?

[Collimator]

7. Some women I know claim to be pro-choice.

But then they bring up "a woman they know" who has had multiple abortions and it bothers them that such a woman can be so cavalier about it.

So, do they somehow owe you a pound of flesh in the form of self-doubting angst? What difference does it make to you if she isn't scarred for life by the event? Do you resent disfigured people who refuse to hide and find joy in life? No, of course not. Those people are heroes to you.

There is a small part of me that would judge a woman who doesn't have enough sense to use birth control and relies entirely on abortion for her reproductive freedom. But that attitude is my problem, and I don't need to make it someone else's. More importantly, if a woman isn't responsible enough to use contraception and instead secures abortion after abortion, then I don't think that cutting off her access to the procedure and insisting that she become the caretaker of a demanding, helpless person is a good idea.

But that is at least part of the thinking process of forced birthers. Irresponsible slut, getting knocked up? She should face the consequences! Make her have that baby! That will teach her!

Because punishing people who "ruined" their lives by giving them another person's life to screw up is completely logical. It's the same reasoning why courts in the past have taken children away from Gay parents and handed the children to their straight grandparents to raise.

[Jilly_in_VA]

8. It's not my business

who's had an abortion, or how many they've had. It's just NOT MY BUSINESS. I have bigger things to worry about, and so should you, Mr. and Ms. RepubliKKKan. Keep your eyes on your own paper, as my teachers used to say.

I had an abortion. It took me a long time to be able to say that out loud, and even today I'm careful where I say it. I was 39 and hadn't really intended to get pregnant. I was back in school and heading for nursing school. My train had been derailed once but I was okay with that. I could handle it. I was just a little ambivalent about this pregnancy and the late ex seized on that because he really wasn't at all. He didn't want another baby. Period. So I had an abortion at 16 weeks. Only a couple of people even knew I was pregnant, two of my good friends at school and the friend who kept my kids while I was at the clinic. I still think about it and wonder what would have happened if I'd gone ahead and had the baby--the effect on my career, on my marriage, and on when I would have left my late ex. Because that would have happened sooner or later anyway. And I wonder if I ever would have met my present husband, or indeed would have ever gotten married again. Stuff you think about.

[Solly Mack]

9. K&R

[Paladin]

10. K&R. (nt)