Abortion

I picked my husband up after work. “Happy birthday!” I said and gave him a quick kiss. “Can we take a short walk? I have something for you.

We walked a few blocks to the arboretum and found a quiet bench to sit on. I handed him a birthday card and watched his face as he read the last words on the page: “I’m pregnant.”

I waited for a reaction–any change of expression–but he just stared at me. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I burst into tears.

There are those who speak heatedly about abortion, either for or against, from a distance, their voice hypothetical. There are those who sit with a woman, listen to her story, see her broken heart revealed and hold her hand as she cries, “I can’t have this baby.” And then there are those, truly on the frontline, who perform abortions.

It is 1989. My earliest memory of myself is of riding on my dad’s shoulders and holding a placard that reads “Pro-Choice.” Chants of “Her Body, Her Choice” reverberate around me. I’m barely four years old, but this is not my first protest. In my family, abortion has never had a question mark after it.

My boys were four and six, my husband and I had been separated three months, and I had just started college. I saw no way to continue this new pregnancy.

Abortion was not a concept that played a role in my life. I never imagined that rape would leave me with an unwanted pregnancy; I refused to consider that any future child would face multiple disabilities that might diminish or eliminate his or her quality of life. Instead, I married and, nine months later, found myself pregnant.

Unfortunately, I discovered my pregnancy after getting special vaccinations for a trip to Greece. The doctor feared that one of the shots he had given me might affect the fetus, leading to birth defects in my first child. I remember his looking directly into my eyes and reciting my options: remain pregnant or abort.