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I was a little surprised when I ran across this article in Salon about abortion as a Twitter meme. It appears that in the wake of Dr. Tiller’s death and ensuing trial / publicity, women around the world are sending messages with the #ihadanabortion hash tag.
- Those who are ANTI-choice shd B glad #ihadanabortion. I went on to finish college, support myself, marry ... have 2 honor students. Nice, huh?
- #IHadAnAbortion @ 17 ... no one helped much; every1 tried to protect the dude's reputation. Yuk. Grateful I had the option. I vote #prochoice.
Wow.
I’m not surprised that there are so many women who have abortions. Or that their speaking out has inspired media coverage. I am surprised, actually, by the fact that so many people have such strong spines to speak out about something that so many other people still look at with such shame. I was surprised to tears, actually.
I have LONG advocated for transparency, honesty in communication, a coming together of our fears and weaknesses because they are what unite us, more than anything else. As differently as we all may look and behave, our core desires to be loved and supported, our core fears that we will be rejected if flawed and imperfect are universal. There is not one of us who has not – or will not – made a “mistake” that we will learn from.
As my un-husband always says, “it’s not the decisions you make, but what you make of your decisions that counts.”
But abortion – anything sexual, actually – holds a unique spot in our collective psyche because it is rooted in religion and then infused into our political system as the most divisive go-to issue when thousands of people need to be whipped into a quick and furious froth. For some reason, we have decided that this is THE issue on which lives, political races, politicians, and a population can be judged. And that’s just on where you stand on the issue, nevermind if you had one!
So fine. Judge me. If you are the type of person who would judge the sum total of my existence on the fact that I had an abortion when I was 16, then you are not the type of person who’s opinion holds an ounce of relevance for me. Our value systems are not aligned, and not just on the abortion issue. But on everything around it – freedom, judgment, conformity, narrow thinking. You name it. I do not believe that I have the right to decide what’s right for everyone. If you do, you are an ignorant fool, it’s that simple. (Also, you're probably religious, which is a bit odd, since I think you would have to say that only "god" can judge, so do you think you're god?)
I was 16. I have never regretted it. Hell, most of the time I don’t even remember, until something happens to remind me. I have never looked back and thought “I wish I hadn’t done that.”
I was 16! I had left home to escape an untenable home life. I found, for the first time in my life, a sense of independence and strength. I changed my life for the better, to meet my own needs, and no one could stop me. A small part of it was a summer fling that both set the standard for how I wanted to feel and be treated, and also left me pregnant.
I was well-educated and well-raised. I had used protection, but in the flawed way that 16 year-olds often do. As soon as I realized that I was pregnant, I knew I would terminate it. Because I was 16.
When I look back, I am so glad that I did. Not because I would have been a horrible mother, (indeed, it turns out that I am really good at being a mother,) but precisely because I would not have been. I would have thrown everything I had into it. I would have been high on the teenage myth of infallibility and believed I could do it all, and I would have tried. And I would have failed. Because as every adult knows,
