Ten years ago yesterday, it was four days before Christmas. At the time, I was a mostly devoted wingnut. I say mostly because on that day, I had an abortion.
At the time, I'd just started a new job. My health insurance had lapsed between employers, and on the pathetic salary I earned there was no way I could afford COBRA...over half my monthly income was needed just to pay rent. Hence, no Pill, which I'd been on for many years. I took a chance, and, well, Fertile Myrtle I proved to be.
I knew I was pregnant several weeks before that fateful day. I'd been seriously ill with morning, noon and night sickness for a while, and had fainted in the elevator at work more than a few times. But I was in denial. Maybe it would go away. Maybe it was stress. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Until the Saturday a little over a week before Christmas.
I don't remember what triggered it, but I'd just gotten off work around noon and decided enough was enough. I grabbed the Yellow Pages and called a clinic about ten miles away, asking for and getting an immediate appointment for a pregnancy test. I don't remember the details of going there, except that I was alone. But I remember my telephone rang almost the minute I got home. It was the clinic. And there was no more denial.
I immediately made an appointment to have the abortion the following Saturday. As I hung up the phone, I decided to call the guy I was seeing to tell him. He was at work, and very low key about the whole thing. Since he lived at home with his parents and not only paid no rent but made more money than I did, he agreed to pay the $350 cost.
That's about all he did. Well, he took me to the clinic and dropped me off. He picked me up and took me home at the appointed hour. He sat with me for a little while. And then he left to go party on the Sunset Strip in LA with his buddies. Since he was the only one who knew, I was alone.
I don't remember much about the days that followed, except that it was the worst menstrual period of my life. I had horrible cramps and just wanted to sleep. But I went back to work Monday without missing a beat. And I went back on the Pill before I agreed to have sex again.
The reason I'm writing this is to say that, for good or for bad, I never once felt guilty. The loneliness that came afterward was a result of needing someone to help me because I didn't feel well, not because I was traumatized. I couldn't fathom the idea of being a parent at that point in my life, much less ever. I'd never wanted kids to begin with. I didn't want to be pregnant, and I made sure I wasn't for very long.
Four days after the abortion it was Christmas, and I had to return to my childhood home to hang out with the wingnut mother and whipped father. The entire time I was in their house, I knew that all I had to do was tell them and I'd be cast out forever.
Am I callous? No. Am I hard-hearted? No. I went on to have a child a few years later, only to lose him in a bitter, drawn-out and costly custody fight. I love my kid and would do nearly anything for him. He taught me a lot, and continues to each day that we're together, and every minute that we're apart. And when I told my parents that I was expecting my kid, the only reason they DIDN'T toss me away like yesterday's trash was because I was getting married. They made that perfectly clear.
Every time I read some wingnut's opinion about why abortion is morally wrong, I scream inside my head "According to WHOSE morals, exactly?" In my heart, it's more wrong to bring a child into the world that you cannot care for and whose birth is wholly unwanted than it is to end the matter at the beginning.
Just one more woman raising her fist in the air and shouting "IT'S MY BODY AND IT'S MY LIFE! STAY THE FUCK OUT OF IT!"