It’s a guide on what to expect if you were to have one. This coincided with some thoughts I’ve been having lately on the “pro-life” camp.
- I hate that term: pro-Life. Unless we’re talking about sociopaths, EVERYONE is pro-life.
- If you are the type of person to stand outside of a Planned Parenthood with signs and slogans and you have not yourself adopted a child…
- Wouldn’t a better use of time and resources be working on legislation to make the adoption process easier than heckling women making difficult, and ultimately, personal decisions?
- Wouldn’t a better use of time and resources be working on legislation that provides more social services so that women who choose to terminate pregnancies for financial reasons have more support rather than protesting them for not keeping the baby they can’t afford to have?
- And back to the issue of adoption, one woman left this comment:
“I am currently about 15 weeks along with a very-planned, very wanted pregnancy, and this experience so far has made me more pro-choice than ever.Maybe adoption is the right choice for some women who don’t want to be parents, but pregnancy is no joke. I’ve had plenty of days where I would like more than anything to stop being pregnant, and I’ve wanted this baby for years! And I am not even having a particularly difficult pregnancy. I can’t imagine being forced to go through this for a baby you don’t even want because you don’t have access to abortion. That is just insane.”
I don’t think people talk enough about how traumatic carrying a baby to term–especially if it’s a difficult pregnancy, as one of my friends had (nonstop nausea, bed rest, sciatica, insomnia, anxiety, high blood pressure, a broken rib!!)–can be. Not that I think abortion is a walk in the park. For the 3 women I know who’ve had them, the decision was “the least-shitty of a bunch of shitty choices.”
- If you believe that abortion is wrong because you believe that life begins at conception and that that life is a gift from God, then why can it be okay in instances of rape and incest? What makes those cases any different? (Side note: I caught an episode of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and one of the women has a long-term houseguest. They got into a discussion about his background and it was revealed that he had a shattered relationship with his mother as a result of him being a child of rape–or at least, that’s how he saw it. “How could she love me when I was born out of an act of sheer violence? How can anyone love me when I’m not supposed to be here?” Absolutely broke my heart.)
- I wish that people who were pro-choice and people who were not pro-choice could sit down and agree that what both sides want are no unplanned pregnancies and that comprehensive sexual education (including abstinence and the emotional consequences of sex which was barely touched on in the official sex ed that I got) is really the best shot at that.
I don’t know.
I’m not solving anything.
I just wish that every child who came into this world was wanted and prepared for.
Footsteps On Concrete 