Choice Tested

I believe its hard to take a stance against something you have never been though. Its easy to be pro-war when you have never been a soldier or an enemy in a global conflict. Its easy to sit in our homes and say "I think this, or I think that" having never experienced what it is like to be that thing or be in that situation. Its human nature to make judgements based on little if any knowledge, but as Descartes said 400 years ago, while judgement is infinite, knowledge is finite...meaning while we can judge everything we can know very little about anything or any given situation.He also believed we cannot know anything that we have not directly observed or experienced.

Sitting on a toilet waiting for a stick to turn pink (yes not all of them are blue) is not what I wanted to be doing Easter morning, in my friends apartment where my boyfriend and I had spent the night on a bunk bed. Its not what I wanted to be doing after my boyfriend had been kicked out of his parents house and was all but homeless. The last thing I wanted to do before going back home to my sisters house where an "Easter Party"was taking place, where my mother would be, is waiting for a stick to turn pink.

Actually I didn't have to wait for it to turn pink. It was pink the second I took the test, what I was waiting for was for it to remain pink, my destiny set after five minutes of waiting in my friends bathroom on a toilet. I never said I was pregnant. I just handed my boyfriend the test, the stick with two pink lines on it that told me that without a doubt I was either pregnant or had cancer. My boyfriend hugged me and said "well I'm happy". I could only think how its easy to be happy about a pregnancy when your the one who will never have to be pregnant, ashamed, or insulted for it. Its pretty easy to be ok with your girlfriend being pregnant when you are 29 and you have always wanted children. Instead of being over joyed like women are supposed to be about having a child, I started crying.

I started crying because I promised myself I would never become this, another teenage pregnancy. My sister, my mom and her mother's mom before her all got pregnant at the age of 18 or 19. All of them ended up divorced. All of them with the exception of my sister were completed destroyed by having children. Not physically, but emotionally, their dreams completely crushed under the stress of having to take care of another person when they could barely just take care of themselves. I didn't want to be destroyed, I didn't want to give up all that I had managed to achieve in order to have a child, at this age no less. I explained all of this to my boyfriend who only responded with cold words, "you wouldn't be the first girl I took to an abortion clinic".

That's just it. I didn't want an abortion either. I didn't want to kill my boyfriends hopes and dreams by getting rid of the cells growing inside of my body. I remember my sister saying to me once "sometimes you just have to realize that at some point your goals have to change, your idea of being successful has to change"...that is exactly what needed to happen. Like my boyfriend pointed out to me, just this morning once again is that our point of living as human beings is not to have careers. Its to have children, to re-produce in order to sustain the population. Even if I had an abortion it would not have changed that I did get pregnant at 18, that I did make a mistake I promised myself I would not make.

I have accepted that this is my destiny, a fate that was created before I was even born. It must be genetics or some critical flaw past down from generation to generation in my family. My boyfriends mother also got pregnant at the age of 19. I'm going to have my child and do the best I can to encourage it and love it. I want to do so many "mom" things...I want to start knitting baby clothes and afghans, I have already started looking at baby carriers and strollers. I want to make my baby's blankets and pillows, I have already selected a bedroom theme (moons and stars). I want to go home and get my fairy tale books.

I have always believed in a woman's right to choose. I remember looking at a "Proud to be Pro-Choice" pin on my mother's bulletin board when I was a little girl. You could say I wanted to be pro-choice before I even knew what being pro-choice was. Sitting here a pregnant teenager, I now understand more then ever why abortion is a fundamental right. Yes, I chose to have a child, I am choosing to be a parent. However, I can't say I never thought of abortion as a way out of this situation. I can honestly say I am lucky. I have a boyfriend who supports me, we found a two bedroom apartment right after I found out and a job soon after that. If I didn't have my boyfriend, if I didn't live in this apartment, if I never had the eight years of experience taking care of children that I do have, I would not have made this choice. Several people have congratulated me on being pregnant, others have messaged me online saying how strong I am, how much courage I must have. Personally, I know, as a woman its just as hard to have a child. I also know as a woman that to have an abortion also takes alot of courage. I can only imagine how it must feel to walk down that long side walk to Planned Parenthood as other women yell at you, "why don't you want me mama? Its going to hurt mama, its going to hurt" or to sit through another woman telling you what your fetus is going through, showing you pictures of the thing inside your body you are ready to destroy, perhaps for your health you have to destroy. I can only imagine the strength it must take to say to yourself that you are not ready to have a child, you may not even be ready to take care of yourself yet. Or to pick between the fetus growing inside you and the child you already have to support, the child you already love. All these women have my respect.

I feel like now that I am having a child, I need to do even more to defend the rights of women to choose. I don't want my daughter or son growing up in a world where women are treated like sinful parasites, where women are not allowed to access their most basic rights, where women are treated like animals and children, not adults. I used to be ok with parental notification laws and some limits on abortion access. Now I am not because sitting here I know that nothing should get in the way of a woman and a procedure that could save her life. All women who are pregnant are risking their lives and their health, physically not just emotionally. No one should be forced to risk their lives for any reason, whether it be to fight for their country or bring a child into the world. Like women used to chant at pro-choice rallies "Pro-life your name's a lie, you don't care if women die!".

Here are two links about the abortion debate. The first is from the 1980s and the second was made in the present...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/twenty/watch/abortion.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/twenty/watch/abortion.html

A pro-choice mother is who I am now. In a few months I will have a child who will call me Mommy one day and ask me why women have to have abortions. I'll tell them my story and explain that many women in my same situation needed to make the other choice.