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August 10, 2005

Abortion: No regrets

A few weeks ago I read a piece at Sheelzebub's other blog that I've churned over and over in my mind ever since.

An excerpt:

I'm not one of those people who decry abortion as a necessary evil. I'm not one of those self-righteous misogynists who would pass judgement on pro-choicers, pregnant women, or women who chose to abort. I don't hate abortion.

I think it's wonderful.

I think it's wonderful because it frees women from unwanted pregnancies, it keeps women from enduring the risks and complications that can arise from pregnancy, and it gives them say over when they will have children. If ever.

So I will not give the whinging line, "Oh, abortion is horrible, but I guess I'll have to allow it." Because the woman sitting across from me could have had one. Or my mother could have had one. Or an aunt. Or my friend. They could have had one, and not been sorry for their decision. They could have had one and known full well that their lives were better for it. Telling them what they did was horrible but permissible, an evil albeit a lesser one, tells them that their lives are worthless. The better life they have is based on a sin and evil and that they are unworthy.

When I was 19 years old I had an abortion.

I've never regretted my decision to do it. I was halfway through my sophomore year in college. My boyfriend had recently become my ex boyfriend because I'd caught him cheating with another girl. I was emotionally, spiritually and financially unprepared for pregnancy and subsequent motherhood.

As one of their excuses for banning abortion, the anti-choice set has insisted that abortion lays too heavy a burden of guilt on the woman. They say that many women wear this guilt like a millstone and we have to protect young women from this unbearable weight.

I've never experienced that guilt. Not once.

I have however thought perhaps that something was out of whack in my own psyche for not toting that burden around. Why do all these women feel so bad for what they've done and I don't? What's wrong with me? Am I so evil and unfeeling because I don't have regrets for not bringing an unwanted child into the world?

As it turns out..guilt is what you make it. Or what is thrust upon you, in my case.

Instead of lugging abortion guilt..I lugged "lack-of-abortion-guilt" guilt.

Sheelzebub doesn't know this because I didn't tell her, but her piece helped to lift that from me. It helped me to realize that my lack of bad feelings from my abortion isn't some sort of oddity that I have to hide under a bushel so as not to be considered as some unfeeling freakish woman.

I waited to have children until I felt the time was right. I didn't place an unwanted infant into society. I took responsibility for myself and my actions by ending an unwanted pregnancy.

I have no regrets about those decisions because they were the right decisions for me.

I'm a better parent and a better person for having made them, too.

Posted by Carla at August 10, 2005 11:27 AM