It's funny, but when I was a teen, a teacher who was educating her students about debate had us pick a topic and take a side. It didn't have to be the side we were on, but a side. My best friend in the class took pro-abortion and I went against. She was a genius and more sophisticated about women's liberation - feminism - at that point in our lives.She had the voice of authority while I simply said Abortion is wrong because it is wrong and it is gross.
Now, we are in the complete opposite corners.
She used to say she hated babies, but then maybe that was because after school she had to take care of her little sister who had come as a surprise in her parent's dying marriage. She also made more money per hour taking care of children for a single mother who had to work than I did working as a cashier and seemed to be upset that the father of these children provided no support even though he had been married to the woman. As an adult, my old friend has been married and the mother of four for some time and rarely has a moment for our friendship. She's become a religious person and no doubt thinks women like me are sinners. You could say that she is no longer a feminist.
I remember as a teen going against abortion because it was and is nasty. At the time there was no abortion pill and young women in my high school seemed to be getting pregnant with ease also because they had no contraception and the young men were also as foolish. Some had their babies and quit school, with some promise that they could go on living with parents who helped them. Some parents demanded the baby be born and be put up for adoption elsewhere or sent their daughter out of state to do the same. Some parents took their daughter to another state where she could get an abortion that was beyond the three month point. One pitiful girl took herself to New York for the same reason, the waiting time about her having to earn the money to pay for it and to travel. I can only think of how lonely and frightened she must have been.
My classmates were without parents who told them about sex or contraception and some of them seemed to use abortion instead of contraception. All of this scared the hell out of me and I was determined to avoid sex.
I saw pictures of aborted fetus including cut up ones in a pan. Still grosses me out. I could never ever work in nursing or any profession that requires gross. I could barely dissect a worm in biology class. I would not be able to eat meat if I had to hunt or slaughter. I admit it.
What I was NOT well educated on was how dangerous, painful, life-threatening, and otherwise icky childbirth is. During the teenage debate my friend said "All surgeries are gross." She was right.
Nothing unites us with the animal mammal kingdom than the realities of childbirth. It's an experience I never wanted to have, an experience I feared, even if just about every woman I knew growing up had gone through it. I wasn't sure I'd become an NM but I was sure I wasn't interested in having children. This has been interpreted as my hating children but I do not hate children. It's just that I'm not gooey about children. I don't think they are all cute. I also think they deserve and need a whole lot more than most get. (Although encounters with the spoiled brats leaves me thinking that some are demanding and unappreciative and too precious.)
I read on a blog recently a young mother complaining about how painful and damaged her nipples were from breast-feeding and the frustration of having a baby who was not gaining weight despite all her trials of attempting to feed it. Further she'd had a traumatic birth and was becoming an advocate for other women. She said the birth was so traumatic (she meant horrible) that it changed her consciousness.
Nature designed women to bear this trauma and all else until we die. A very small percentage of women made it to ever go through a menopause. I had sympathy for young woman but I also hoped she would realize she is no 'natural mother' and make sure she had ended the possibility that she would put herself through this again.
The great number of women leaving their children orphaned; that was an initial reason why some contraception advocates were active a century ago. Even spacing children so that a woman could potentially recover from a birth and feed her latest infant became controversial. All of it - including death - were supposed to be 'natural' meaning fateful. Biology was to be our destiny. I knew I didn't want it to be mine.
Though much of European history, women who were without a husband trying to have a child on their own or because they were widowed were almost forced to marry someone else quickly or become prostitutes or sometimes went to a "work house." In other cultures a man could have more than one wife, so long as he could afford them all.
Contraception, including sterilization and legal abortion changed that. If a person is willing to use these. If a person is able to get health services. If a person is able to get a legal abortion, which is the safer alternative to other methods. If only...
What Anti-Abortion advocates do not care about is the MOTHER. Quite possibly the MOTHER OF OTHER CHILDREN ALREADY. Quite possibly someone who cannot have a relationship without being sexually active but who cannot herself or with a partner afford to raise a child. What about women who are abused but stay in relationships because they can't afford to raise their children alone?
Why is our government making CHILDBEARING regardless of a woman's self determination MANDITORY? Aren't there already enough people on earth?
This is why I became PRO-CHOICE and still am.
C 2022 Never Married No Kids - BlogSpot
