I'd self-abort by any means necessary, as I don't have the funds to travel out of the state/country for an abortion.
Why? Because: 1) In part, I'm poverty stricken, & I'm not about to struggle through a pregnancy while poverty stricken. 2) I'm disabled (a multitude of problems: neurological, lungs, gastric; some I was born with, some are a result of a psych disorder), bulimic, & bipolar, so I'm definitely NOT about to struggle through a pregnancy while dealing with those issues. I simply do not wish to endanger my life by carrying to term, & with my my various health problems I figure an illegal abortion would be safer than attempting to carry to term for someone like me. I don't care about the 'possibilities' of what 'may' be. All I care about is what I feel is safest.
Then again, I'm the furthest thing from a 'pro-abort'. I'm just 'pro-choice', & someone with a lot of her own fears & worries. I'd like to avoid pregnancy altogether, because I'd like to avoid surgery altogether, & I'd especially like to avoid having to attempt DIY surgery of any kind. Most pro-choice people I've met would prefer to avoid surgery. Surgery sucks. We'd rather be out doing fun stuff.
Luckily, I will never find out that I'm pregnant, because I'm male. So this will require some sympathetic imagination to answer, but if I were in the position of a woman who was pregnant, with all my past history in place, I can say that I would do one of three things: 1) find an provider of illegal abortions, 2) do it myself using my knowledge of the properties of plants, or 3) kill myself and take care of everything that way, including the pregnancy. In fact, the prospect of being pregnant under such an intolerable, despotic, and misogynist government and legal system might be the very last straw. I'd be the perfect demonstration of why a psychological exemption to a ban on abortion was necessary—which is one of the things the crass woman-hating crowd of fanatics imply is nothing more than a case of malingering.
The reason that my outlook is so bleak is that I was the subject of physical, verbal, and emotional abuse from as far back as I can remember until the time I moved out of the house and out of state without telling my parents where I was going. Though I will say the physical abuse did end at around 16-17 years-old, when I finally started hitting my father back (as I had earlier done with my mother). My mother was the primary abuser, and someone with a severe undiagnosed mental disorder which might have bipolar or borderline personality disorder. Suffice it to say that I was constantly walking on eggshells around her, because the slightest thing would set her off. In between times, she did everything she could to mentally control me and display her utter contempt for me. Unlike most cases where parents are contemptuous of their children, she didn't encourage me to leave, but instead did everything she could to keep me there so she'd have someone to work out her aggression upon. When I started fighting back against her—and it will give you some idea of how terrified I was of her when I say I was already 7-8 inches taller than her and still afraid to hit her back—she then delegated the physical abuse to my father, and stepped up the verbal abuse and mind games. Eventually, I got to the point where I could hit my father as well, and that ended the physical element of the abuse, but the twisted mind-games continued up until the day I moved out.
I never reconciled with my mother, and fortunately she died about five years ago, so I no longer have to. As a side result of that legacy of abuse, I have post-traumatic stress disorder (nightmares, and even waking flashbacks), anxiety, and major depressive disorder. The prospect of nine months of wild hormonal swings, daily nausea, and all the rest of the symptoms of pregnancy, including the possibility of complications that could severely damage my health would be much more than I think I could handle. Yet I'm lucky enough to never be at risk of that prospect, so the notion of forced pregnancy leads us to the conclusion that half the population need not suffer any of this, but the other half of the population must go through this or face prison for refusing their role as an incubator.
I really think it says something that these anti-abortion groups are simply retreads from the anti-Equal Rights Amendment groups that sprang up during the 70s and needed a new justification for their existence after the ERA had been defeated. And they hit on the perfect issue, really, because pregnancy was the justification for lower wages for women, less job security for women, less promotions for women, etc. With Roe v. Wade came the prospect of women who could control the time and manner of their birth, which threatened all these systems of gender inequality that had been carefully cultivated over centuries and millennia. So to keep women's rights from ever becoming an issue, all one needed to do was tie women down again to the domestic sphere under the headship of a man as father and husband: Kinder, Küche, Kirche as the Nazis put it—Children, Kitchen, Church.
I would give birth to my second child. My spouse and I have a home, good health insurance, and would be delighted to welcome another child.
That's because I am pro-CHOICE. I believe in the right of each person to make their own choices about what happens within their bodies. If abortion became illegal, and I found out I was pregnant, I would be looking forward to giving birth while helping others access safe abortions if they needed it.
I'd self-abort by any means necessary, as I don't have the funds to travel out of the state/country for an abortion.
ReplyDeleteWhy? Because: 1) In part, I'm poverty stricken, & I'm not about to struggle through a pregnancy while poverty stricken. 2) I'm disabled (a multitude of problems: neurological, lungs, gastric; some I was born with, some are a result of a psych disorder), bulimic, & bipolar, so I'm definitely NOT about to struggle through a pregnancy while dealing with those issues. I simply do not wish to endanger my life by carrying to term, & with my my various health problems I figure an illegal abortion would be safer than attempting to carry to term for someone like me. I don't care about the 'possibilities' of what 'may' be. All I care about is what I feel is safest.
Then again, I'm the furthest thing from a 'pro-abort'. I'm just 'pro-choice', & someone with a lot of her own fears & worries. I'd like to avoid pregnancy altogether, because I'd like to avoid surgery altogether, & I'd especially like to avoid having to attempt DIY surgery of any kind. Most pro-choice people I've met would prefer to avoid surgery. Surgery sucks. We'd rather be out doing fun stuff.
Luckily, I will never find out that I'm pregnant, because I'm male. So this will require some sympathetic imagination to answer, but if I were in the position of a woman who was pregnant, with all my past history in place, I can say that I would do one of three things: 1) find an provider of illegal abortions, 2) do it myself using my knowledge of the properties of plants, or 3) kill myself and take care of everything that way, including the pregnancy. In fact, the prospect of being pregnant under such an intolerable, despotic, and misogynist government and legal system might be the very last straw. I'd be the perfect demonstration of why a psychological exemption to a ban on abortion was necessary—which is one of the things the crass woman-hating crowd of fanatics imply is nothing more than a case of malingering.
ReplyDeleteThe reason that my outlook is so bleak is that I was the subject of physical, verbal, and emotional abuse from as far back as I can remember until the time I moved out of the house and out of state without telling my parents where I was going. Though I will say the physical abuse did end at around 16-17 years-old, when I finally started hitting my father back (as I had earlier done with my mother). My mother was the primary abuser, and someone with a severe undiagnosed mental disorder which might have bipolar or borderline personality disorder. Suffice it to say that I was constantly walking on eggshells around her, because the slightest thing would set her off. In between times, she did everything she could to mentally control me and display her utter contempt for me. Unlike most cases where parents are contemptuous of their children, she didn't encourage me to leave, but instead did everything she could to keep me there so she'd have someone to work out her aggression upon. When I started fighting back against her—and it will give you some idea of how terrified I was of her when I say I was already 7-8 inches taller than her and still afraid to hit her back—she then delegated the physical abuse to my father, and stepped up the verbal abuse and mind games. Eventually, I got to the point where I could hit my father as well, and that ended the physical element of the abuse, but the twisted mind-games continued up until the day I moved out.
I never reconciled with my mother, and fortunately she died about five years ago, so I no longer have to. As a side result of that legacy of abuse, I have post-traumatic stress disorder (nightmares, and even waking flashbacks), anxiety, and major depressive disorder. The prospect of nine months of wild hormonal swings, daily nausea, and all the rest of the symptoms of pregnancy, including the possibility of complications that could severely damage my health would be much more than I think I could handle. Yet I'm lucky enough to never be at risk of that prospect, so the notion of forced pregnancy leads us to the conclusion that half the population need not suffer any of this, but the other half of the population must go through this or face prison for refusing their role as an incubator.
I really think it says something that these anti-abortion groups are simply retreads from the anti-Equal Rights Amendment groups that sprang up during the 70s and needed a new justification for their existence after the ERA had been defeated. And they hit on the perfect issue, really, because pregnancy was the justification for lower wages for women, less job security for women, less promotions for women, etc. With Roe v. Wade came the prospect of women who could control the time and manner of their birth, which threatened all these systems of gender inequality that had been carefully cultivated over centuries and millennia. So to keep women's rights from ever becoming an issue, all one needed to do was tie women down again to the domestic sphere under the headship of a man as father and husband: Kinder, Küche, Kirche as the Nazis put it—Children, Kitchen, Church.
I would give birth to my second child. My spouse and I have a home, good health insurance, and would be delighted to welcome another child.
ReplyDeleteThat's because I am pro-CHOICE. I believe in the right of each person to make their own choices about what happens within their bodies. If abortion became illegal, and I found out I was pregnant, I would be looking forward to giving birth while helping others access safe abortions if they needed it.