Abortion: A woman's choice (?)

One afternoon in early 2009, I sat in the bathroom of my small apartment, holding a pregnancy test and crying. I had been crying for several days; the pregnancy test was just an additional reason to do so. All week I had been crying and screaming and smashing things on the ground like water glasses and eggs. I knew something was wrong with me, for my usual depressive episodes were usually not this intense and out of control. 

I had been going to psych therapy and taking antidepressant medication for about three weeks. Now, holding the fateful pregnancy test in one hand, I knew for sure. I was pregnant, and somehow it was driving me out of my mind. I tearfully reported my findings to my husband at the time, who had come to wear a permanent scowl on his face due to pressures from school, work, and now his wife's erratically destructive behavior. Later we both sat on the bed, his scowl having melted into a look of weariness. 

It was as if the situation had physical weight on both of us. I had recently left my low paying security guard job as my condition had rendered me unable to work. He had just been laid off from his software engineer job. We already had one child, and lived in Los Angeles, in a roach-infested box of an apartment that one could cross in twelve steps. We were both tired. And this wasn't supposed to have happened.

"We can't have a baby now," I remember him saying while staring at the wall. "Just go for the abortion. I won't hold it against you." And so I did. The following day was frustrating, and heavy with the weight of the decision. We arrived only to realize I'd forgotten my ID at home. He yelled at me for it, and I started crying again. We drove home, and returned again to the clinic. We waited our turn in the waiting room, along with three or four other women. When I looked at them I could almost feel their stories, hanging heavy on their shoulders as we tried to distract ourselves with the soap opera showing on the tiny waiting room T.V. A part of me sat in judgment of them, as if for a moment I was only there to observe. Or at least, as if I was in some higher order of abortion recipients. On the higher level were women like me, who did everything "right." I was married, and had been using birth control that had simply failed me. On the lower level were the irresponsible party girls who hadn't bothered to use a condom. Surely I wasn't in the same ‘class’ as these "others."

For the first two decades of my life, I had been taught that abortion was wrong (except in the cases of incest or rape, as I was told when I was older). I was taught that unborn babies were innocent, and had to be defended from the immoral, scared, and/or confused women who would abort them. Part of me was leveraging those old thoughts, trying to somehow give myself  morality points in order to ease the learned shame I felt at being in that office. However, I saw these thoughts for what they were and kept them subdued the best I could. All of us there, in reality, were in the same boat, waiting to swallow the same pill.

I at first wanted to share an argument in favor of a woman's choice to abortion, but then I felt in my spirit that I should include my own personal story. I was 23 when I got pregnant a second time. I was in an abusive marriage with a husband I was eager to leave, but couldn't because I didn't have what I needed to take care of myself and my child. 

I'm now 30 years old, and the past decade of my life has been characterized by betrayal, divorce, financial suffering, frequent relocation, abandonment, isolation, and abuse. It would be another two years after the pregnancy before I would finally leave my husband, but if we had had a second child, it would have been further leverage against me. All of the problems I have experienced in my life would be amplified, and my children would be at the center. I would have spent nine months in mental suffering, perhaps doing harm to myself and to the people around me. Most of all, I knew the child would've been born into a very hellish situation from which I could not protect him.

In recent months, the U.S Republican party has seemingly strengthened its so-called pro-life efforts (I believe that term is a misnomer, and I will explain why). Government funding for the Planned Parenthood organization has been shut down, and states are now trying to pass legislation that would make it even more difficult for women to obtain an abortion. Pro-life activists will be quick to call themselves champions of the unborn, while giving little to no credence to the women who are carrying those unborn in their wombs. If they do acknowledge the women themselves, they're painted as depraved, irresponsible, hysterical, or otherwise unreasonable women who need to be protected from themselves. When in reality, a good many of us are able to give thoughtful consideration to what the physical, psychological, emotional, communal, and financial implications of having a baby would be.

"Life" involves more than just the biological. I've mentioned before that one issue I have with the pro-life stance is that its advocates will be very quick to call abortion murder, yet offer no solutions on how a woman is supposed to obtain the resources to care for another human life. If you've ever been a mother with little financial or family support, you know that birth and motherhood aren't something to be take for granted.

Women cannot only die and develop serious health conditions during pregnancy and childbirth, but they can also face financial hardships and, depending on the circumstances, rejection and threat of physical harm from their family and communities. In my case, it would have cost me my mental stability and an opportunity to escape an abusive marriage.

No victories are won when a woman has no choice but to bring a child into the world that she is neither ready nor able to care for nearly every day for the next eighteen years. It is possible that she might find it within herself to be a mother to the child after all. It is possible she may love the child. It is possible she may resent the child. She may leave the child with a relative. She may injure the child with her drug or alcohol addiction. She may abandon the child. She may abuse or mistreat the child. She may surrender it for adoption. There was a time in my life where my mind was closed to the complex difficulties a pregnant woman may face. However, once I found myself in such a difficult situation, I was forced to shift my viewpoint.

Overall, abortion is not a bad thing. Neither is it a good thing. Like so many things in life, it simply is. There are so many reasons why a woman might choose not to go on with a pregnancy. Some of us are mothers, and know that we simply cannot, with soundness of mind, welcome another child into the world at a certain time in life. I've written this for any woman out there who finds herself, or has found herself, in a situation such as mine. Please know that you are not evil. You aren't wrong for considering it. Please don't allow society to paint you with its brush. And while shame may battle you on every front, know within yourself that you're not alone. Know that the decisions that you make today, whether to bring a child into the world or not, will affect the course of your life. Know that you have a choice. And may no one ever raise their hand to take it away from you.

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Tiffany Howard is a freelance writer from California, currently living in Accra, Ghana.