This blog post is an unfinished product. This blog post carries my raw, unrefined emotions. I know that my logic is not fully expressed and I know that my writing is a little rough. I beg of you to bear with me and read through this blog post anyway. Hopefully soon a more thorough blog post about this subject will be forthcoming shortly.
One issue I find myself struggling with recently is abortion. With the upcoming elections as well as all the recent Planned Parenthood videos, it seems that all the conservatives on my Facebook are posting non-stop pro-life posts. One of those people posting pro-life stuff is my own dear sister. Seeing some of the stuff that she posts makes me angry. Angry because I know that we share the same DNA and I know that she is capable of not being closed-minded. I am angry when I see her make such broad generalizations about abortion, such as posting stories of second-trimester abortions and crying for Planned Parenthood to be defunded, while most second-trimester abortions are not even performed by Planned Parenthood.
I agree with my sister on one thing, those stories that are out there about second- and third-trimester abortions are heartbreaking. I would never want a baby to go through the pain some of those babies go through. But I am frustrated because I feel that she blinded by the generalizations. Yes, those abortion stories are horrific, but not every abortion is like that. I can guarantee you that almost any normal, sane woman would not want her fetus to go through what those aborted babies went through. In my logic, those stories are only for the case of discontinuing second- and third-trimester abortions. To me, if you want to stop first-trimester abortions, you need to make a case for why those are bad as well. Stop trying to just pull on our heart strings about the terrible things that happen in a totally different category and then throw in there "life begins at conception." I am an educated woman who uses logic to reason through my decisions. If I were to be using these pro-life posts to help me reason through my first-trimester abortion, I would find the logic inapplicable to my situation.
Alright, I am done with my rant for now. I hope I have not completely lost all of my readers by this point. One thing that I consider while thinking about the issue of abortion, is how different my young adult life would have been if I felt that abortion was available to me. One such situation is burned clearly in my mind. A couple weeks before I moved out of my parent's house to go to college, I feared that I was pregnant because my period was late. I remember spending several nights up all night crying and praying to a god that I did not believe in and writing in my journal. I was devastated. I knew that if I were pregnant, my father would not pay for me to go to school. I did not have a job at that time and, although I was already 19, I knew that I would be put on strict lock down. I knew that if were pregnant, I would probably not be able to leave the house alone. I would not be allowed to drive. I would have my cell phone taken away from me. Going to college was my way to finally get out of the house. Those sleepless night I was so angry with myself because I thought I had blown my only hope of ever getting free of my parents. I knew that if I were pregnant, my life may as well be over. I knew that if I were pregnant, the man that I was in an abusive on-and-off relationship with would have nothing to do with the baby. I knew that if I were pregnant, that man would probably never try to speak to me again and I also knew that my parents would prefer it that way.
Looking back on those dark nights, I wish I could tell my young self that there was hope. I was not stuck in a terrible, dark situation just because my parents had failed to educate me and I could not leave my abusive relationship. Abortion would have been a means to save my life and to also save the life of the unborn baby. I knew even from my earliest memories that I never wanted a child to have the same childhood that I had. One of my first memories is promising to myself that I would never treat my child the way my Mother treated me. If I had been stuck with a pregnancy in that situation, I would be forced to raise a child in the same environment I was raised in.
I blame my Mother for me being in that awful situation. As I have mentioned many times before, I had very limited sex education. My sex education came too late and only covered the basics of how babies are made. The only other thing that was told to me was that I had to wait until marriage. I wish my Mother had told me about protecting myself. I wish someone had told me that I have a right to want a condom every single time. I wish someone had even told me that it was normal to use a condom. My boyfriend hated them and refused to use them most of the time. I was perpetually terrified about getting an infection or getting pregnant. I thought I had no other choice. I thought that was just my luck. I just wish someone told me that I had options.
