I was driving in San Francisco today, on the freeway approaching the Bay Bridge. And there it was, in its 20x60 glory:
And I thought... bullshit.
Set aside the fact that being denied access to birth control and safe abortion hurts women -- and nearly all birth control methods are defined as some form of abortion these days, in case you weren't aware.
Set aside the fact that those women who do experience mental and emotional turmoil after an abortion probably wouldn't if the the so-called "pro-lifers" weren't constantly issuing hysterical descriptions of babies screaming in agony while being aborted and oh yeah, telling the women they were going to be haunted by this the rest of their lives and that they need counseling (from them, of course) to get over their trauma. Also? They're probably going to burn in hell. You know, that kind of thing can really stress you out.
No, let me focus on this: I had a legal abortion nearly three decades ago and I am utterly untraumatized. I don't regret it, I don't think I did anything wrong, and I'd do it again.
Some of you are now going, ummm, Christie, aren't you a lesbian? Yes, I am, but in fact, the rate of pregnancy among LGBT teens is higher than among straight teens. In my case, however, it wasn't sexual identity denial or confusion but substance abuse that led me to do the stoopid deed that resulted in my pregnancy.
Nine days after the stoopid act in question I headed to my nearby women's health clinic to be tested for STDs and pregnancy. (This was in the days before HIV.) I had no STDs but I was pregnant, and the next day I had an abortion.
I didn't make the decision lightly, but instead, very seriously. But I didn't and don't believe a cluster of cells is a human being, and so that was not part of my decision-making process.
Certainly I can imagine feeling differently if I had been more than a few days pregnant. I'm not telling other women how to think or feel. But abortion is simply not going to scar you or traumatize you unless you let it or are forced into it against your will.
There are many people in my life who don't know I had an abortion, not because I hid it from them but because it never crosses my mind. And until today, I'd never written the words "I had an abortion," making this perhaps the only thing in my life I've never written about.
But I'm done with that. That billboard -- and the self-congratulatory media campaign that accompanied it, as the Christian right squeed over spreading their message to all the suffering, traumatized women in San Francisco who have had abortions -- opened my eyes to the manipulative propaganda that's poisoning this debate, to the lies and self-fulfilling prophecies.
I regret getting wasted and getting pregnant when I was 20. I am glad I had an abortion, and glad it was easy, safe, legal, and affordable. I intend to see it stays that way for all women in this country.
Put THAT on a billboard.