I’ve spent a long time wondering what, and if, to say anything about abortion.
It’s a divisive issue.
And it’s a gift for for keyboard sancti-warriors everywhere, and I’m not really one to put my head on the chopping block for no good reason.
But I’m going to. Because this IS a good reason.
I’ve chosen to post in particular because I’ve not only been following what’s been happening over in America, but some of what’s been happening here as Britain’s pro-lifers have been galvanised by the ‘victory’.
[I’m going to say now that I’m really happy to discuss this issue in comments, but I reserve the right to stop talking to you if I feel it is unproductive, and I will immediately block you if you are disrespectful. This is my page, and I can choose what I share, how I spend my time and energy on it, and who I let in].
I’m sorry I’m late to the Roe v Wade response-party. But I’ve been watching, and listening, and processing.
And I’ve found some of the coverage and comments very disturbing, in many different ways, but in particular for the stunning lack of empathy and imagination I’ve witnessed – for other people’s pain, and for other people’s pleasure.
Because fundamentally when I’ve boiled it down to it’s roots, abortion opposition seems to stem largely from a belief that women SHOULD NOT BE ENJOYING SEX.
This is actually the crux of the matter. If you don’t want a baby, and if you’re not prepared to take whatever risks that involves for you, you shouldn’t be having sex at any time, FOR ANY REASON. Particularly not because it feels nice. That’s not a ‘good’ reason. That’s dirty. And wrong. And if you do it you deserve everything that’s coming to you.
But remember, also don’t do anything ELSE fun (and more expensive) to feel good, like drinking, or taking drugs, or dancing, or dressing up – because that’s also BAD, and you deserve what’s coming to you. Again.
Look, you should basically just stay at home and be safe and small and miserable, as God intended.
(I’d be interested to see, incidentally, what this would all look like if the religious masses were coming after MALE sexual pleasure, because I suspect if would look very different).
It has been made very clear from the pro-life camp that women should not be having sex if they don’t want the baby-consequences. But even if they are ‘virtuous’ and abstain, but someone has sex with them anyway against their will, they should STILL have the babies. (See the miserable clause).
It’s here I’ve seen beleaguered pro-choicers try to appeal to the common sense of the pro-life-at-all-costers, citing cases of rape or incest or extreme youth – followed by cases of fetal abnormalities and risk to the mother’s life.
But this is a mistake. Not only because they seemingly can’t listen to reason or nuance – but because IT’S NOT ABOUT THE EXTREME CASES.
You don’t need a ‘good reason’ (as defined by a branch of Christianity, or anyone else at all).
The only reason a woman should need to have an abortion is that she doesn’t want to be pregnant.
And while the cells involved are at the organising stage where there is no sentience, no viability and NO DAMN LIFE – that should be it. Period. (Which you might not even have missed until you’re already 6 weeks along).
If you’re really pro-life you should be pro the life that actually real-life exists already – the mother – and what she wants and feels as a person. Not a vessel. Not a publicly-owned incubator.
You should of course also be PRO child-lives when they exist in the world outside the womb – and ready to support them through the simple expedient of paying more taxes for public and social services, and doing practical things to help families in your community. Because if birthing and raising kids was safer and less expensive, having babies would be more a viable option – and you say that’s what you want.
But pro-lifers never seem to want that, do they? The people picketing outside the clinics typically aren’t doing anything to actually help mothers. And mothers who DO choose babies outside of the very strict parameters vast swathes of pro-lifers prefer – including heterosexual marriage, being between 20 to 30 years of age and sticking to 2.4 by the same father – are also vilified by them as irresponsible, promiscuous, selfish, or tainted.
Sigh. Look, I’ve seen a lot of coverage about pro-lifers only being pro-fetus, and there is so much that has been said and is still to say about institutionalised sexism and deep societal problems and the problematic role of religion in politics – but that’s not actually I want to talk about right now.
I want to talk about my own experiences.
I’ve come to believe we should all be talking about this more often. We don’t talk about our fertility journeys, our losses, our choices or lack of them, our menstrual and gynaecological health and traumas – or our struggles with motherhood. And our collective reproductive privacy, secrecy, shame and fear have been used against us to get to this point. At the end of the day, when it came to Roe v Wade, we simply weren’t the ones shouting loudest.
I have two children.
But I have been pregnant four times.
I have been pregnant when I really, really wanted a baby.
And I have been pregnant when I really, really, didn’t.
And the difference was complete and utter, and undoing.
I am not going to go into the minutiae of the circumstances that have resulted in me not having four children, but I DO want to talk about how it FELT. Because I feel like it’s a bit of the picture that’s been missing.
I’ve read the extreme examples, and how it feels to desperately want a baby and for something to go wrong to make abortion a neccissity – but I’ve not read anything about how it feels just to plain NOT WANT TO BE PREGNANT.
So. Here’s what I want to add to all of this.
I have been pregnant when I wanted the baby so much it was all I could really think about, to the exclusion of all else, and I floated through the rest of my life willing it to stay, to be, to just make it all the way through to my arms. When I felt that baby in my heart from BEFORE I saw two blue lines. When I loved it with the sort of subwoofer love that you feel in your chest, that rings in your ears, curls your fingers, buckles your knees, clenches your womb and eventually drips from your breasts in milk. A violent love with the whole of your body, the whole of your mind, and a little bit more of you that wasn’t even there before it.
And then I have been pregnant, and not pregnant, and grieved for a baby when it wasn’t even there – when it wasn’t even real. When it was an empty egg sack. But it felt real to me – I wanted it. I loved it already, truely and wholly and desperately. And when I lost something I never really had in the first place, it felt like I had lost a slice of myself. I HOWLED at the empty. And there is still a space inside me where it was. Or wasn’t. Still.
I have also been pregnant when it wasn’t my choice. When it wasn’t fair. When I had done everything right. When I had been good. When I didn’t want it, and didn’t want it and didn’t want it in every single fibre of myself, every single second, profoundly, profusely. When I felt like my body had betrayed me and I wanted to punish it, to hurt myself, to claw this alien thing out of me before it robbed me of everything I knew, and dreamt, and planned, and WAS – until I was a scream inside out of myself, vibrating and keening and helpless and IMPOTENT. It was so other, so foreign, so invading. It was raw rage and resentment, flat, bone-deep repulsion and souring, soul-deep refusal.
So here’s what I know, and what I’d like you to think about.
I know that up to a certain point, a baby is a baby because you BELIEVE in it. It is an idea as well as a bunch of cells.
But if you don’t believe in it, if it wasn’t your idea, it’s not. It can be a violation.
I don’t think any pro-lifer is going to read this and suddenly have an empathy revelation by understanding something of what it’s like to lose control over your own body. But people who are on the fence might just read this and think that maybe, just maybe, not wanting a baby desperately and viscerally…. IS a good reason. Maybe people who have been in this situation might feel seen. Maybe people who will inevitably be in it someday sooner or later might remember this, and feel validated.
Whatever your views on abortion, I really, really hope you or someone you know never has to experience what it’s like to be pregnant – and not WANT to be pregnant.
And if they do, I hope they get some sympathy – and some mercy.
I hope they get to have some control over what happens next.
And I hope there are still good, safe options available to them.
Because – believe me – they WILL take the bad ones otherwise.
And if you felt like this – if circumstances you are lucky enough to currently be unable to imagine put you HERE, in this head space, in this body that is no longer your own – you might too.