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I don't see it.
A friend's father said to her after giving birth, "Still pro-choice?"
She answered, "Even more so." Looking down at the wonder of life in her arms and all the responsibility that this new little being entailed, remembering everything she'd gone through to bring that baby into the world she couldn't imagine being forced to do so. Could you?
My great aunt was married with 3 children when she had to have an illegal abortion. Her husband was a no-good lout who was already cheating on her every chance he got. She had never gone to college nor had she worked a paying job. She loved him and depended on him completely...always thinking he would change. It was what she was raised to do. Her mental health was already precarious and she knew she wouldn't survive another pregnancy. She never knew when she was going to be left with 3 children on her own. The illegal abortion was just one more humiliating brutality for her to survivie in an already grim existence. She committed suicide while waiting another night for a husband who never came home.
When I went for a pregnancy test in high school, I walked alone to a clinic after school. I snuck there before play rehearsal. It was a nondescript place behind the school, not far from the hospital. I'd found it in the phone book. It advertised as a place that would give girls free, anonymous pregnancy tests. I told no one I was going. I didn't have really close friends who I knew were having sex. I didn't have anyone to tell. I felt completely alone. The boy? Please.
The woman in the cardigan seemed nice enough when I walked in although the place looked more like an office than a clinic and when she took my blood her hands shook. I ended up reassuring her that she did ok. But then she gave me all these pamphlets about adoption and fetal development and said, "You know you might have a baby in you, right?" I was in too much shock to do anything but stare at her. Was she kidding me? Would she still give me my test results if I disagreed with her? I had to come back to this creepy place in 3 days to find out if I was pregnant or not. I didn't want to make her mad at me. I felt like I was completely at her mercy. Had I written down my phone number? What if she called my parents?
As a parting gift, she gave me a hollow pink plastic fetus. She told me that this was what my baby looked like inside me. This thing was about 6 inches long and had the features of about a 6 month old infant. My period was only 3 days late! Luckily, even at the age of 17, I had the sense to know this woman was nuts. I threw the plastic baby in the bushes on my way out and made it back to school in time to rehearse the second act. Of course, my biggest act was pretending to be a normal teenager when really I felt like my life was about to be over. Thankfully, my period bloomed the bright red flag of independence the next day and I never had to go back to that
