Brave Bloggers Share What It Is Like to Have an Abortion

read this please!  You will not believe it!   k...in our country, we allow abortions up to 8-9 months...FULL-TERM!  Google "partial birth abortions" and if you can stomach it all, google the images as well.  Baby is pulled out by the feet to where only the heads still in, they stab scissor tools into the back of the neck, then pull out the brains...god...takes 8.5 months to realize you should have called the trojan man.  Baby is alive, awake and feels it all!  Call 1800-395-help. 24/7 verification on what I am saying.  I am pro-choice to an extent and under certain circumstances but this?  Oh no, no, no. WTF????  I had no clue until my sister found out and decided to tell me tonight.  I researched, and called that # and it is true!  A fucking real, live, ready to live child!  A woman can get prison for abandoning her child anywhere other than at a safe haven...well I now think, at least it gets a chance to cry for help!  Who has this job anyhow?????  I used to think people with abortion signs were mean and torturing young girls for "choosing" but now I see that the signs are there for shit like this and I feel compelled to join in....people need to know this!  I mean...should this be called an "abortion" at this point?  Really?  I think its beyond that....it is delivering, then murdering an infant.  I do believe women should have a choice to end a pregnancy but this is not the same as that.  Abortions should be done early and before hearts beat...still not great but it is not a living breathing child....they say the use this "technique" because the bones are now solid and a DNC cannot be done. WTF???????

If first trimester abortions are stigmatized, second trimester ones are even more so. I am appalled by the number of people who support first trimester abortions, but condemn later ones because they don't understand what they entail or why someone has to have one. It is so important to share with people, and I am so grateful to you for doing so.

Suzanne Reisman ( http://www.blogher.com/member/suzanne-reisman ), Contributing Editor - Feminism & Gender ( http://blogher.org/topic/feminism-gender )
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants ( http://cussandotherrants.com/ )

For all of the reasons above, I have been blogging my second trimeser elective abortion.  1outof3 at blogspot

I am doing it anonymously, for reasons I explain there, but I am also slowly coming "out of the abortion closet," a process I think it crucial to ending the shame and stigma

Kudos to each and every woman who has decided to share something so personal on their blog. It takes balls to talk about such a "taboo" topic. Hopefully, as more and more women discuss their decision this controversial topic won't be so shocking in the future.

The Moxie Report. Giggles. Gaffes. Girl Talk. From television producer, writer and mom Tracy Evans. http://themoxiereport.blogspot.com ( http://themoxiereport.blogspot.com/ )

We are all faced with choices everyday of our lives, and living with the consequences of all of the choices that we have made. Either good or bad. We all need the freedom to make those choices.

It would be a scary thought to go back to the days where a woman would stealthily sneak into the filthy dark room in the darkest depths of town to have an abortion, worse yet hiding in her own home with a coat hanger, because there will always be women determined to have one.

One thing that sticks in my mind I cannot shake, is when I was pregnant with my one and only living son, I was able to hear his heart beat at 10 weaks. I was further along than that when I had my abortion.

So many ways of looking at it. No matter how you look at it, it is a decision that should not be made lightly. 

This is so what is needed to deal with all these in the closet things we women had to cope with for so long and I love that sites like this allow us to now share and get support for these burdens we lived with too long.

Of course the society and its thinking influences how we feel and how we behave, as our real feelings and desires are knocked out of us long ago and replaced by the 'one for all' fit.

Why is sex at 15 not good? If you feel like it go for it, if you don't don't, what is dirty about sex? Who invented that? Not us humans, we love it but somehow something outside of us decided differently and was powerful enough to override our own feelings.

If you cannot bring up a child or don't want the pregancy, there is a reason, why not support and certainly NOT judge the person so they have to carry a secret for the rest of their lives.

It all sucks how we women have to deal with all these issues in such an unhealthy way, because of how we would be looked upon. It is not that long ago that they burned withces at the stake, so it is no wonder we are careful with what we say.

But now all that can change, we can support each other in overthrowing this sad and idiotic situation where women are made feel bad, and ashamed and not good.

Lets turn around all that judgment and support each other in whatever decision we make and have us feel good about our choices.

I so love it that we can, we have the tool  . . . . the internet, lets use it like these women bloggers and Suzanne who has brought it up 

Are we aware how great this is?

Wilma Ham

www.wilmasblog.com ( http://www.wilmasblog.com/ )

I could never say the decision I made has wrecked my life.

I have been on more than one forum where the question was asked, "Knowing what you know now, if you could go back, what if anything would you change."

My answers has always been, that even though there are things in my past that I am not proud of, they have still played a part in who I am today. Therefore, I would not change a thing, because I like who I have become.

It seems extremists on both sides on the abortion debate have an interest in making it seem that either abortion is not such a big deal, or that it will wreck your life forever. As in most things the truth usually lies somewhere between. I imagine these issues are especially magnified when one has beloved child(ren) following or even before an abortion. The "What If" factor is especially clear then.

But as someone said the other day, in the abortion debate, choice is the default position. I worry that as memories of illegal abortions fade, the population will stop caring enough to guard this right.

It doesn't give people the breathing room to reflect what it means to them, within their values and beliefs systems. It's interesting because I know that if I became pregnant, I would have an abortion, and yet I would not tell anyone except maybe my closest friends (and, of course, husband, who better come with me!) because although I don't think it is wrong, I really don't think I could handle the judgment that would be heaped on me.

Suzanne Reisman ( http://www.blogher.com/member/suzanne-reisman ), Contributing Editor - Feminism & Gender ( http://blogher.org/topic/feminism-gender )
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants ( http://cussandotherrants.com/ )

I always thought that was part of it.  Maybe if I had not been met by protesters outside the clinic, I would not have suffered as much as I did.  The terminology and rhetoric surrounding the issue certainly does affect us.

I'm sure that is part of it, without a doubt, but there will always be that feeling that I committed murder. Not only of another living soul, but a part of me. But these are all feelings that, like I said, have been baried deep inside. Things I don't allow myself to think about long, let alone talk about. So I have never allowed myself to process those feeling extensively enough to believe I have come to any answers, let alone release.

But the shame is not all centered around the abortion either. I was 15 years old, and way to young to have engaged in sex, in my opinion. Even though I am going on 50 years old and have more than enough fingers to count the intimate lovers in my life, which in this day in age is quite an accomplishment, it appears, I also feel shame about the age I gave in to that urge. But then again, something I don't allow myself to think about too often.

I made a mistake, and I took the responsibility for that mistake, and handled the consequences on my own.  

By the way, although I was forced to attend church every Sunday as a child, I am not religious, at all, but more spiritual. But I cannot honestly say that upbringing has not influenced my feelings.

I will have to go deep inside and have to pull it all out, and write an indepth article or two, on the subject, and where I believe it has led me from that day forward.

I wonder if "what it does to your soul" might be something different if there wasn't fear and stigma around saying "I had an abortion"?

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager

Flamingo House Happenings ( http://www.flamingohouse.net/ )

Suzanne Reisman ( http://www.blogher.com/member/suzanne-reisman ), Contributing Editor - Feminism & Gender ( http://blogher.org/topic/feminism-gender )
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants ( http://cussandotherrants.com/ )

I have sat here for quite sometime wanting to speak up, but holding back. The same holding back that has followed me for 30 plus years.

Even though I am not for or against abortion, I only know how mine has made me feel most of my life.

I had an abortion when I was 15 years old, and to this day only two other people know besides me. It has been my dirty little secret, secured tightly within a box of shame, and fear, and grieving. It is something that haunts my soul just as much, if not more today, than it did then. The strangest part of it all is I believed then, and I still believe today, I made the right choice.I guess that is why I am so undecided. Glad I was given, and was able to make the choice, but also aware of what it does to your soul.

Probably one of the reasons I have not been able to let it go, is because of the shame and the fear of letting others know what I have done. I have never been able to talk about it.

So here I sit having written what I have, and fighting within myself over whether or not to hit that "Post comment" button.

On my old blog, I blogged about my abortion,but then restricted who could read it. I suppose I was afraid of offending my more conservative readers. I'm actually reading a very good book now which deals with the subject of women actually sharing their expriences. 

... a few times, actually, and yes, it was terrifying to do, but also necessary, because a) as a mother now, my feelings about having done it are complicated (not regretful, but also not not regretful) and b) because I kinda feel that (for me anyway) being morally responsible about it requires me (and I stress that this is only for me) to own it and to reflect upon it. That's not for everybody, I know, but *I* needed to write about it, to sort out my own feelings.

I so wish that more women would, but I understand totally why they do not.

I agree that this is a good thing.  I wonder about how true tales of others' experiences will impact the decision making of those facing unwanted pregnancy. 

This is a little thorn in my side, the fact that women are necessarily afraid of blogging their abortion experiences. I do think it would put some powerful information out there, but it's certainly understandable that next to no one does it without being anonymous.

Liz Rizzo ( http://blogher.org/blog/liz-rizzo )

I blog at Everyday Goddess ( http://everydaygoddess.typepad.com/ ).