Reply #77: A different perspective [View All]

[Northwind]

And a little something to think about, from the knee-jerkers on both sides here. The following is a true story as it happened to me when I was 20.

I was raised Roman Catholic. For most of my younger life I did not question the dogma the church hammered into me from my earliest years. I especially never questioned the church's stance on abortion. I remember being shown films of mutilated fetuses and the feeling of horror this engendered. I remember helping my brother pain a sign for a protest march at a local abortion clinic. he was older and was participating. I was too young and pouted because I did not get to go. As I grew older, I did begin to question the teachings of the church, eventually distancing myself considerably from the dogmatic expression of christianity. In all this time, however, abortion never entered my world, and if I probably never did question that, even if only because I did not consider it.

Flash forward, 1990. I am 20 years old. I am deeply (and stupidly, as it turn out) in love with a young woman of my same age. We are soon living together. Those who wish to judge me for “living in sin” may do so, I really do not care. We were, quite naturally, sexually active together, entirely monogamous, of course. We were responsible, and used birth control. Life seemed good.

Then one day, she (I will avoid using her name) got sick. She was ill all the time. Every day, it seemed, all day, she felt sick. So, naturally, she went to the doctor. I could not go with her, With her so ill, I was the only one working and we could ill afford to lose a days wages. When she came home that day, she said the doctor gave her something for her stomach, and told her she had a very serious stomach virus. I believed her. Why would I not? She said the doctor had told her she would be better in a couple of weeks at the most. I accepted this, and did my best to care for her as she needed. Then, one day, she got better. Very suddenly, she know longer felt sick all the time, although she was very tired for a while. But the fatigue passed and she was better, and things seemed all right again, except that she was preoccupied and seemed depressed a lot. She did not want to talk about it, so I dealt with it, hoping it would work itself out in the fullness of time.

A month later, I open my bank statement. The account was mine only, we did not have a joint account. In there I found a check, in the amount of about $500 (I do not recall the exact amount) made out to her mother. She had written, and signed my name to it. I knew nothing about it, and I asked her what it was for. She became very upset. She cried, and I just sat there confused. After a while, she started to tell me the tale. I am sure everyone has figured out that there was no “stomach virus”. She had been pregnant, of course. The $500 was to pay her mother back for paying cash for the abortion she got. She became pregnant with my child, and aborted my child, and I never knew until it was too late. When I think of this (and I do, often), my sentimental side imagines my child would have been a beautiful little girl. She would have been 13 this past August. But I never knew her. No one did.

The most painful part of this was the fact that all of this was done without my knowledge. Without my choice. I know what it means to have your choices taken from you. I may be a man, and therefore I do not believe the decision should have been all mine, but nor was I some one-nighter who took off, or some absentee boyfriend. I should have been told. I should have been included. In truth, if I had been told, I may have come to the same conclusions as she did. We were 20. We were not ready for parenthood. We certainly could not afford to raise a child. But I do not know what I would have done, not really, because no one let me have a say. No one let me have a choice. That is why I am pro-choice. Not because of an abstract moral argument, or because of a political agenda, or because someone told me I should be. I am pro-choice because I understand what it means when choice is taken away.