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I had an abortion

By ANONYMOUS  |  September 24, 2008

Years later, my experience still causes me to feel guilty that I lived in a state where no one, other than those who were directly involved, questioned my decision. It makes me somehow embarrassed to admit that all I had to do was cross a street, while others have to bridge state lines, family boundaries (I still haven’t told my parents), and financial constraints (my boyfriend put the procedure on his credit card; I paid him back for half as soon as I had the money). Essentially, I’m sorry that I was more privileged than other women who are in similar circumstances.

This is my story, and mine alone, and the one I’ll carry with me forever. But the fact is, most women’s stories are more like mine than they are like the extreme scenarios that are bandied about when politicians — and even regular people — talk about abortion. So where does that leave women like me? Should we feel ashamed? Does anyone think about us, the people who have actually gone through with an abortion, and come to terms with it, and accepted that it was the right decision, for whatever reason, at that time?

Some of us don’t feel safe, mentally or physically, sharing our stories, because they are not the extreme. We are not the women who needed a medical procedure to save our lives, or whose bodies were violated by strangers or loved ones. Our decisions, therefore, seem less ethically justifiable in today’s society. Yet we chose what we did for our own reasons, which sound trite and selfish to many, but which speak volumes in our heads every time the debate comes up in conversation or the news. The law has been interpreted to protect us. We shouldn’t feel so alone.

Why am I anonymous?
The women in Jennifer Baumgardner’s book are so brave and confident. I’m not quite there yet. I do tell some people about my abortion, if it’s relevant to a conversation I’m having. But because of the stigma that still exists, I haven’t yet told my family and I’m not sure if or how I’m going to do so — and I know that I don’t want to “tell them” in a newspaper that thousands of people read each week. So why tell my story at all, especially to run alongside this other, about a book that encourages openness and attempts to challenge the very stigma to which I’m falling prey? Because I believe that any narrative, even a nameless one, helps take away some of the mystery and shame associated with abortion. Because I want to remind people how the public political debate can sometimes have very personal ramifications. And because I’m committed to fighting this battle, even if it’s from the sidelines.

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Comments
Re: I had an abortion
 this story sounds like a friend of mine. Whenever the debate comes up and worst case scenerios come up, I think about her. Her life could have been really hindered.
By skybleach on 09/30/2008 at 2:50:09
Re: I had an abortion
 A woman's right to choose should not be taken away. I am a Republican, but I still believe in choice. If a woman chooses to have an abortion, it is a decision that she will have to live with the rest of her life. Is that not hard enough? We then have to tell her that it is not ok, that she does not have the right to decide what happens with her own body? As far as no abortions for rape/incest victims, this is insane. I am an overall supported of Sarah Palin, but this is one issue that we definitely do not see eye to eye on. To all of you women out there, take your time. You will have to live with your decision the rest of your life, whichever way you decide. Good luck.
By Jakeb64 on 09/30/2008 at 3:19:02
Re: I had an abortion
 Hindered? Darn it if that would have happened. Good thing your parents chose life for you. My argument is if you wanted to keep the baby and the Father (J) didn't, should he be able to choose aborting child support, emotional, financial and physical? Why are there no laws protecting men's rights on this?
By namelocbob on 09/30/2008 at 11:53:30
Re: I had an abortion
You were irresponsible, and didn’t want to have the inconvenience in your life, and so you went and murdered your baby.  Spin it anyway you want, but that is a life and you took it.  I pray for your soul, and your conscience. There are other options available to people that make a mistake and you took the one that would be the most expedient and convenient for you at the detriment of your child. 
By Your Baby on 10/01/2008 at 6:53:57
Re: I had an abortion
The circumstances around my unplanned teenage pregnancy were also "incredibly mundane".  Despite the fact that neither the father nor myself were ready to be the parents this child deserved, I opted to let that rice-sized human being live.  I gave my child up for adoption.  It was the hardest thing I ever did, but I am not ashamed of what I did.  I am proud of my decision and do not have to remain anonymous. - Sara MacDonald
By sMacDonald on 10/01/2008 at 10:31:40
Re: I had an abortion
I think she made the right decision to have an abortion. Yes, she made a preventable mistake, but she was unable at the time to care for the child. Even if the child were put up for adoption, what are the chances that the baby would actually get adopted into a truely loving and caring home? She made the decison about her life and her body. She will learn from her mistake, but it wouldn't be fair to the baby to have a life less than the best without 100% love and devotion. Babies should not grow up knowing that they were a college mistake. 
By nja123 on 10/02/2008 at 10:35:52
Re: I had an abortion
"You murdered your baby."  Wow. THAT's why women stay anonymous on this topic. How about "You made the best choice for yourself at the time, and undoubtedly the difficuly of the experience will stay with you forever." ?People who judge others usually do it without walking in the other person's shoes, and they let dogma, closemindedness and self-righteousness prevent them from considering the other person's situation.   We certainly don't communicate and dialog the way we used to. It's a shame.
By KeegsMom on 10/15/2008 at 10:27:53
Re: I had an abortion
As a woman, I’m surprised that so many feminists despise Palin. There was a time when feminists were sort of in favor of practically any woman in office, no matter what. But as a woman, I’m also not surprised. It’s not exactly about politics, because there are men with similar political views who aren’t hated so violently. There’s some envy in the extreme reactions, but I’m sure it’s mostly because of the abortion issue. It would be interesting to find out who among those who hate her the most have had abortions, and who’ve had them not because the baby had Downs syndrome or some other serious disorder, but because the pregnancy was inconvenient. Statistics say that perhaps one-fourth of all pregnancies in the U.S. are terminated by abortion because the pregnancies were “unintended” and maybe 40% of American women have had abortions. Whatever the number, it’s huge.

What’s changed since the days before abortion was legalized is that now there’s a feeling that abortion is not a painful decision brought on by extreme necessity, but rather it’s what any rational woman should do for any reason or without any reason. From there it's easy to get to the position that someone who doesn’t do it (and who has five kids!) is contemptible (and she makes other women anxious). Why?

            In my experience with friends who've had abortions, it seems that over time the abortion decision made some of them touchy about people with children, particularly if they ultimately never had any. One friend and her husband got angry about a trivial family comedy movie that they said glorified “breeders”.  In a perverse way it’s a kind of Puritanism in new guise: whereas spinsterish types used to have a squeamish contempt for fertile women, as in the movie Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), today the spinsterish types are sexually active but produce no issue, to use an antique phrase. Puritanism is alive in a lot of the quasi-religious fervor of current beliefs about what you should eat and smoke and drive and how many children you should have. And it’s about class too. White trash have children when sophisticated people have abortions (as in the movie Idiocracy).

            But I knew the Palin contempt was also about guilt, and the article by Anonymous in the Boston Phoenix (an “alternative” paper) confirms it. She writes about the abortion had as a 19-year-old college girl in Boston six years ago, when she wasn’t financially or emotionally ready to follow through with the consequences of her decision to have sex, for which she was apparently ready enough. (Why hasn’t sex education fixed all that?) When she learned she was pregnant, “There was nothing else to think about,” she writes. Her guilt isn’t about the abortion per se, she says, but about forgetting to take her birth control pills regularly and about being so privileged that all she had to do was cross the street to get an abortion while other women have to, what, go across town? She had a “medical” abortion rather than a surgical abortion (she took a pill, but surgery is also medical, which I only mention because she meant chemical). The day afterward, she went to an editorial meeting of her school newspaper, where they decided not to print a lucrative pro-life ad because it was against their “principles”. She doesn’t remember if she said anything in the meeting. Anonymous felt guilty and angry when she read about Palin’s pregnant daughter and Palin’s opposition to abortion. While Anonymous acknowledges that some women face more extreme situations, she thinks her own inconvenience is the equivalent of other motives for abortion. Her highly valuable college life might be hindered temporarily. "Today's society" makes her decision seem somehow less ethically justifiable. People like Sarah Palin make her feel “trite and selfish”. That’s why she’s angry. Her self-esteem has been impinged upon.      Perhaps in tomorrow's society abortion will be cheerfully encouraged, and even surviving post-abortion, uh, creatures need not live to encroach on the peace of mind of their, um, unintendeds.

By Rhonda Keith Stephens on 10/23/2008 at 6:13:39
Re: I had an abortion

As a woman, I’m surprised that so many feminists despise Palin. There was a time when feminists were sort of in favor of practically any woman in office, no matter what. But as a woman, I’m also not surprised. It’s not exactly about politics, because there are men with similar political views who aren’t hated so violently. There’s some envy in the extreme reactions, but I’m sure it’s mostly because of the abortion issue. It would be interesting to find out who among those who hate her the most have had abortions, and who’ve had them not because the baby had Downs syndrome or some other serious disorder, but because the pregnancy was inconvenient. Statistics say that perhaps one-fourth of all pregnancies in the U.S. are terminated by abortion because the pregnancies were “unintended” and maybe 40% of American women have had abortions. Whatever the number, it’s huge.

What’s changed since the days before abortion was legalized is that now there’s a feeling that abortion is not a painful decision brought on by extreme necessity, but rather it’s what any rational woman should do for any reason or without any reason. From there it's easy to get to the position that someone who doesn’t do it (and who has five kids!) is contemptible (and she makes other women anxious). Why?

            In my experience with friends who've had abortions, it seems that over time the abortion decision made some of them touchy about people with children, particularly if they ultimately never had any. One friend and her husband got angry about a trivial family comedy movie that they said glorified “breeders”.  In a perverse way it’s a kind of Puritanism in new guise: whereas spinsterish types used to have a squeamish contempt for fertile women, as in the movie Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), today the spinsterish types are sexually active but produce no issue, to use an antique phrase. Puritanism is alive in a lot of the quasi-religious fervor of current beliefs about what you should eat and smoke and drive and how many children you should have. And it’s about class too. White trash have children when sophisticated people have abortions (as in the movie Idiocracy).

            But I knew the Palin contempt was also about guilt, and the article by Anonymous in the Boston Phoenix (an “alternative” paper) confirms it. She writes about the abortion had as a 19-year-old college girl in Boston six years ago, when she wasn’t financially or emotionally ready to follow through with the consequences of her decision to have sex, for which she was apparently ready enough. (Why hasn’t sex education fixed all that?) When she learned she was pregnant, “There was nothing else to think about,” she writes. Her guilt isn’t about the abortion per se, she says, but about forgetting to take her birth control pills regularly and about being so privileged that all she had to do was cross the street to get an abortion while other women have to, what, go across town? She had a “medical” abortion rather than a surgical abortion (she took a pill, but surgery is also medical, which I only mention because she meant chemical). The day afterward, she went to an editorial meeting of her school newspaper, where they decided not to print a lucrative pro-life ad because it was against their “principles”. She doesn’t remember if she said anything in the meeting. Anonymous felt guilty and angry when she read about Palin’s pregnant daughter and Palin’s opposition to abortion. While Anonymous acknowledges that some women face more extreme situations, she thinks her own inconvenience is the equivalent of other motives for abortion. Her highly valuable college life might be hindered temporarily. "Today's society" makes her decision seem somehow less ethically justifiable. People like Sarah Palin make her feel “trite and selfish”. That’s why she’s angry. Her self-esteem has been impinged upon.      Perhaps in tomorrow's society abortion will be cheerfully encouraged, and even surviving post-abortion, uh, creatures need not live to encroach on the peace of mind of their, um, unintendeds.

By Rhonda Keith Stephens on 10/23/2008 at 6:15:30
Re: I had an abortion
Perhaps in tomorrow's society abortion will be cheerfully encouraged, and even surviving post-abortion, uh, creatures need not live to encroach on the peace of mind of their, um, unintendeds.
By Rhonda Keith Stephens on 10/23/2008 at 6:16:07
Red pill or blue pill?
 There was once a time when men and women were responsible for every action they took in life. if they had a litter of children, our grandparents still made ends meet. through grit and pain and hunger - they made ends meet. Today is a society full of The Matrix-Blue-Pill-Take-Me-Away-From-Reality-Chugging wimps that can't handle any stress. I am 32 years old and have lost most of all of my respect for people around my age and younger. A society full of babies who never got released from the nipple for five seconds to fend for themselves.
I think all responsibility has effectively left our culture.
By blahbalicious on 10/26/2008 at 12:41:31
Re: I had an abortion
  There was once a time when men and women were responsible for every action they took in life. if they had a litter of children, our grandparents still made ends meet. through grit and pain and hunger - they made ends meet. Today is a society full of The Matrix-Blue-Pill-Take-Me-Away-From-Reality-Chugging wimps that can't handle any stress. I am 32 years old and have lost most of all of my respect for people around my age and younger. A society full of babies who never got released from the nipple for five seconds to fend for themselves.
I think all responsibility has effectively left our culture.
By blahbalicious on 10/26/2008 at 12:42:15
Re: I had an abortion
I am also pro choice, so don't be offended, but I just though I'd point out that this statistic is extremely misleading:
"Forty percent of American women have abortions by the time they're 45. I'm one of them."
According to http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html:Twenty-two percent of all pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion. Maybe you are mistaken with the following statistic: Nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion.  -Mae
By missmae on 10/26/2008 at 12:06:18
Re: I had an abortion
Did adoption never cross your mind as an option? I'm just curious. I understand that you are really sad and feel the guilt about it, and you should be.  I don't buy that you say, "I was 19, unprepared, blah blah" because you were obviously old enough to know about sex. And making excuses about your "hectic schedule" being the reason you missed your pills is just silly. You were just being ignorant, trying to play the, "i don't get it" stupid-girl role when you knew very well that missing pills could surely get you pregnant. You were an adult, be it a young adult, and you still knew right from wrong. This is probably perhaps why you still haven't told your parents about what you did. The guilt and shame will probably never go away, you may as well have killed a baby in a crib, because that little soul was in your crib. I also agree with another commenter, that it is sad the father really has no say in this situation. Poor you, though. You would have had to endure 9 months of discomfort while your baby was lucky enough to have never been born at all.  Hopefully, you've got your tubes tied by now.
By tankgirl13 on 12/11/2008 at 12:55:08
I also had an abortion.
No one on here should ever judge someone for making a decision they felt was right for them. It's their decision just as you have that same right if you were in a similar or worse situation. How dare people act as if it could "never happen" to them.When I told my Mother that I was pregnant she insisted that I get an abortion. I told her no, I am keeping the baby no matter what she says. It's MY choice. I talked with my boyfriend to make sure it was what he wanted, and he said he wanted to have a child with me; so we did. I had my child at 18. I am 23 now and I have a 5yr old. I am still with her father as well. I got pregnant while on birth control, yep, that's right, and I was consistant too. Go figure. At the age of 23 I had to make the hardest desicion I have ever had to make in my life. Mind you, I have always felt abortion was wrong and never even thought I would have to make the decision to have one. My boyfriend was graduating college in a month, and we just weren't making ends meet in the least financially. We are so poor sometimes that we are down to ramen noodles for a week or so for food. How could I expect to bring another child into what already is a bad situation?? The reason I made my decision was because of the child I have now. She would have suffered as well as the next child. Yes, you might say "what about adoption?" but I would have never given a baby up after carrying them 9 months and seeing the look on my daughters face as I give her little brother or sister to another family. I know there are a million and one reasons not to have an abortion, but I also have a million and one for why one might be nessesary. Ultimately, it is our right, and our decision on what we do with our bodies. I don't think we should be forced to be parents if we don't want to be. If that is selfish, then so be it. We will always go round and round on this subject. Don't you think it would be a terrible world if EVERY pregnancy in the world continued? How many unloved children would there be? I know I wouldn't have wanted to be an unwanted child. I'm sure there aren't enough adoptive parents in the world to cover that kind of population. I expect harsh feedback, but I don't care. I just felt that another woman should be heard against all of the comments on here slamming this womans decision. Leave her alone. I love my daughter, and I don't feel regret for the choices I had to make for the sake of my family. 
By Motherof1 on 01/15/2009 at 9:35:48
Re: I had an abortion
Although I too have gone through this experience, I did not understand "anonymous" when she wrote this:
"Back at the dorm, hours later, I know that I writhed in my twin bed, suffering from debilitating, convulsing cramps. My roommates, best friend, and boyfriend hovered around; they brought me pain killers, Tiger Balm, hot-water bottles, and applesauce, and all the while they stroked my head and conferenced in the background about how I was doing. I bled profusely as my body rejected the fetus that had been described to me as “the size of a grain of rice.” I threw up. And finally, I fell asleep." Were you trying to make the experience of what you did seem more painful? by writing "writhing" and such words in the painful experience? I'll admit, it is painful, but be honest with yourself. Come to terms with what you did instead of trying to make YOUR situation seem harder than others. It hurts, you did it to yourself, and you are trying to justify it with this illusion that it's more painful than it was. I've come to terms with it, maybe you should too. What I had to do was a terrible thing to do and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. The choice was mine, and mine alone, but it also was no easy choice. I think you need to re-write this and at least put some blame where the blame is needed. Truth hurts sometimes, and I just think you really need to take a good long look in the mirror. Coming to terms with it all will make things a lot easier for you and a lot easier for you to tell others of the choice you made. 
By Motherof1 on 01/18/2009 at 7:08:37

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