Becoming Anti-Choice
Pro life is not enough
I used to describe myself as pro-life. Cradle to grave. As soon as I knew what abortion really was, I knew that it was a horror. It’s so violent, and hopeless. Blobs of cells don’t become human beings, but smaller human beings do become larger ones. After decades of enduring constant pro-choice rhetoric and propaganda, I have changed my mind. I am not only pro-life - on the issue of abortion I am anti-choice.
I found out I was pregnant with my first child in a Taco Bell bathroom. I was just seventeen, and in a complicated relationship with someone with whom I was not planning to spend the rest of my life. After the shock wore off, I was left with the terrifying realization that my plans to go to college were in grave jeopardy. It seemed likely that I had ruined my life.
As I was frantically trying to figure out how to gnaw my leg out of the trap I was in, I made desperate calls to colleges I was hoping to attend. Was there housing for undergrads who had a baby? No, I was told - the only housing for parents was reserved for graduate students and faculty. With no skills and a tense situation at home, I felt like the option I had was to go down to Georgia in an ill fated attempt to parent this child and somehow survive.
Unless, of course, I chose to abort him.
Exercising my right to “choose” was the only thing that stood between me and my dreams. Right there, just out of my grasp, was the future I had planned for my life from the time I was a young child. I would just have to step over the dead body of my son to get there. And I chose not to.
A society that allows and encourages women to choose abortion in these less than ideal circumstances relieves itself of the responsibility to find solutions that allow everyone to live. The “easy” solution of abortion absolves society from getting creative about ways to support both mother and child.
Under this system, I chose to keep my unborn child, so I deserved to bear the full brunt of that choice. Our government does not have the will to support young unmarried mothers, and has even actively fought crisis pregnancy centers which attempt to step in to help them. All the while, they use tax payer money to tell young women that all they have to do is choose and the problem goes away.
Choose to what? We need to get honest about the fact that we are demanding that a woman choose between economic security and the death of her unborn child. And then get busy fixing things so no one even thinks to choose death over life. And then we need to make it illegal for doctors to kill anyone - not the unborn, not old people, not sick people… doctors should care for the health of their patients, not end their lives.
When my oldest child was 26, I took another pregnancy test. This time at the age of 43. No, I wasn’t in a Taco Bell bathroom; I was at home with my husband and 6 of our 8 children. When I was 20 weeks pregnant, we found soft markers on the ultrasound. My last pregnancy was a crisis pregnancy of a different sort.It was difficult to navigate the medical system where some providers thought I ought to choose to end my baby’s life.
After she was born, she was very sick. Some of the providers in the hospital refused to treat her with dignity. She was restrained. She was experimented on. She was often treated as less than human. I had to fight for her every step of the way. You see, it’s not about choice. It’s about killing children to eliminate the problems their existence creates.
When abortion is an option, there is a not so subtle pressure on women in less than ideal circumstances and women who are carrying less than perfect children. The truth is, that no person should be in a circumstance where they must decide if an innocent lives or dies. Any society that puts that terrible burden on a woman’s shoulders has utterly failed her.
I am absolutely 100% anti-choice - in every circumstance. Abortion doesn’t unrape a 10 year old. It doesn’t provide economic opportunities. It doesn’t cure disabilities. It just makes a woman the mother of a dead baby, and that is always a tragedy.
I am anti-choice. And you should be too.
This is the most powerful, nuanced, and enlightened essay against abortion that I’ve ever read. Thank you! Now I too am not only pro-life—I am anti-choice. Brava!!!!
So well said, Susan! Life is sacrifice. We are sacrificial whether we want to be or not. It is pure evil to sacrifice the life of another for our own convenience. I was pregnant at the same time as a friend. Let's just say she was very capable but didn't want the 'inconvenience'. I begged her to give him to me. My husband was all in. She chastised me as an idiot for wanting two at once. I guess she never heard of twins. It still haunts me, and he wasn't even mine. Last winter I published a novel as a sort of memorial to him - The Advacado Tree. Check it out. I think you'd appreciate the story. Our blatant disregard for life is pure evil. God forgive us.