National Blog for Choice Day

Cecily brought to my attention that today is National Blog for Choice Day, an idea sponsored by NARAL to coincide with the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Since I'm just finishing this post around 9:00, you'll probably be reading it the day after National Blog for Choice Day.  Sorry about that!

I've made my feelings about the right to choose clear on this site.  I have a deep personal history with abortion - something I never pictured myself saying - after having to decide whether or not to end my son's life when we discovered he was suffering from a severe form of Arthrogryposis.  If you haven't read that story, please do before you comment today.  It's important to me that you know my whole story first.

I have always believed in a woman's right to choose.  Even though I was raised as a Republican (remember, there was actually a time when Republicans believed in small government that steered clear of religious topics), my parents both shared forward-thinking views on things like women's rights and race, and it was my privilege to learn from my mother at a young age that abortion is never an easy choice, but that life doesn't always give us other options - especially for those who are struggling with things like poverty, prejudice, abuse, addiction, and disease.

So the decision we made with Thomas didn't change my view on abortion so much as strengthen it and give it a new scope.  I had no idea that women like myself, Cecily, or Julia existed.  It just never dawned on me that very much wanted pregnancies don't always end in babies.  Once I did, I felt a strong call to speak out; to let people know that abortion is not always the "oops" scenario they believe it to be.  And that even when it seems like a casual, easy-way-out to the outside world, ending a pregnancy is never, ever easy.  I wanted to scream at everyone I met to look!  Look at me!  I am normal!  I am God-fearing!  I did what was right for my family and most of all for my son!

And much to my relief, I found a world in which many people really did listen.  They opened their hearts and minds and really tried to put themselves in my shoes.  Some of them even changed their vehement views and made me cry tears of relief. 

I also found myself a lighthouse of sorts for other women who are facing poor diagnoses.  My phone rings or I get an e-mail about ever six months or so.  I help them in any way I can.  Some have gone on to terminate.  And others have not.  It is this fact that makes me rejoice because it celebrates the very essence of this fight: CHOICE.

CHOICE.

Choice to do what is right for you.  For your child.  For your situation.  For your GOD.  Choice to have the courage to do what you think you cannot, even if that decision translates into completely different outcomes for different women.

Choice to believe in yourself and to listen to your higher power, no matter how hard the message is to hear.  Choice to follow your convictions.  To stand by your decision in the face of those who would shame you and persecute you.  Choice to say this is mine, and only mine.  My relationship with God. My conscience.  My soul.  My marriage.  My child.  My heart.  My body.  My love.  My heartbreak.

For those of you who contend that the real debate revolves around when the heart starts or when "ensoulment" happens, I offer this:  I have been pregnant five times.  ALL of my children had beating hearts. And to date, only one has come home to live with me.  God asked me to make a decision on behalf of my son.  The next two times he blessedly took that responsibility away.  I believe that every one of them had and has a soul, and it is precisely for that reason that I defend choice.*

To those who have accused me of denying Thomas the opportunity for a miracle, I offer this: If this isn't Thomas's miracle, I don't know what is.

I know women who stand behind their belief that abortion is a black and white issue.  And I have no qualms with those who disagree with me - especially when the do so in a respectful way. That is why I believe they should be afforded the same choice.  I, too, wish abortion would end.  But I know that human beings are not capable of making that happen.  Women who disagree with me have no right to assert their beliefs over mine; their relationship with God over mine. All the legislation in the world will not make abortion go away.  The only way to do that is to end the need for abortion.  And only God himself is capable of that.  But he, in his wisdom, has let people be the imperfect beings we are.  And I have to agree with his call.

But you already know all of this.

What I wanted you to think about to day is the way in which money and privilege is so directly tied to choice in our world.  Last week when we went for our first perinatal appointment, I got a chance to talk with our genetic counselor - the one who got us through Thomas's death - who I now count as a friend.

I asked her about how things things were going, given some of the new laws Texas has passed restricting women's access to safe abortion.  We now have a 24-hour mandatory waiting period that is not waived for women with poor prenatal diagnosis, even if it is terminal - a law that would have forced me to leave the state, had it existed when we terminated.  All women are given a booklet full of blatant propaganda and misinformation, also not waived for women like me, that includes pictures of healthy pregnancies at each stage.  Women are required to read it and sign a statement swearing they've read it.  (To me, this is tantamount to telling a grandma that she's going to die of cancer and then forcing her to flip through an album of grandmothers enjoying life with their grandkids.  "There.  See what you won't get?!") The booklet also states that women who've had an abortion have a higher risk for breast cancer - a complete lie. 

And perhaps most damaging of all, Texas passed a law requiring all terminations performed after 16 weeks be performed in a hospital.  While this may sound logical, you have to consider the ramifications.  If you'll recall, I had to leave town because all of the hospitals in my town are religiously-affiliated and will not consent to a termination without approval from a review board.  Typically, those review boards only allow it if the defect is absolutely fatal.

This means that if you don't live in Houston, you have to come up with the money to travel out of state (way out of state) to find a safe hospital that will legally perform your termination.  Texas is a big state.  Many women live hours away from a hospital of any sort, let alone one that can and will perform abortions.  Now, what if you're on Medicaid?  What if you live in far West Texas, more than ten hours from Houston?  What if you can't afford tonight's dinner, let alone a trip for three or more days out of town, with a hotel stay for your husband and a termination that you'll have to pay for out of pocket ($17,000, thank you very much).  What if you're a teenager?  What if you don't speak the language?  What if you have other children to consider?

Take the case of an actual woman I knew.  She was a Mexican immigrant, very young, unmarried, and spoke only the most basic, broken English.  She had the grave misfortune of choosing a doctor (slim pickings when you're restricted by a lack of insurance) who refused to perform ultrasounds until the 30th week.  She did not know that this wasn't the standard practice.  Her boyfriend took off once he learned she was pregnant and she was struggling to stay afloat with a minimum wage job.  At her first ultrasound the doctor revealed to her that the baby was lacking the majority of her brain.  She was alive, technically, because her heart was beating.  But she was, and always would be, brain dead.

At 30 weeks, this woman had no options - not in Texas.  There were, at the time, two other states who could have performed the termination, but how could she get there?  She couldn't.  The baby was born blind, deaf, and brain dead.  And whatever hope this woman had of living her life, or securing a financially-stable future for herself or any other children she might have was stolen from her.

This is just one example.  But you don't have to be particularly imaginative to understand how wealth and privilege - even if we're just talking about the courage to feel justified asking for help and alternatives - make all the difference.

That woman had every right to save her daughter and herself, just as I did.  Roe v. Wade and the right to choose goes beyond the idea of a beating heart.  It's about protecting women and children.  It's about affording the same rights to the rich and the poor.

If you value freedom, your right to practice your religion or lack thereof, your right to protect your children and your body, then please do me a favor: look into the laws of your state.  Find out what women there are faced with every day.  And do whatever you can, big or small, to make sure that the rights of all women are protected where you live.

* A quick Google search and a bit of reading will tell you that nearly all major organized religions recognize the need for abortion under extenuating circumstances, including severe fetal abnormalities.  There are very few exceptions.  And yet, it is these later-term abortions that are being targeted by most recent restrictive laws.

Comments

[Arwen]

I was so thrilled to find my blog under that link.

Blessings to you.

[Julia]

Of course, Arwen. You've always managed to disagree with me without making me feel judged. That's a talent few posess.

Blessings to you, too.

[luolin]

Thank you Julia. You are one of my heroes for writing your story and testifying to the Lege.

[Liza]

Bravo.

[Joy]

This is really good, Julia. You should be proud. Thank you.

[chanie]

you have done a beautiful and eloquent job of illustrating the complexities of choice. thank you for sharing your story.

[Jen]

I still can't figure out trackbacks, but I've quoted you today in my post. Just wanted you to know. And to thank you again.

[KellyH]

Julia- what a beautiful post. I've been reading you for a couple of years now, and you are so eloquent. Thank you.

Was Asherman's the condition Thomas had? I was thinking it was something by another name, and maybe the Asherman's contributed?

[Lisa]

Thank you Julia. I never realized how important certain rights were until it affected me personally. Thank you for all that you have done to help protect those rights for me and for other women.

[Natalee]

Thank you, Julia. As always, your passionate eloquence on this subject moves me to tears.

I too, have been pro-choice almost all of my life-ever since I was 4 years old and my mother had to make the painful decision to terminate a severely congentively deformed child who not only had no chance of survival outside the womb, but due to my mother's numerous uterine biopsies, causing the walls of the uterus to become extremely thin, the pregnancy would have eventually ruptured her uterus, killing them both.

I have also known a young lady who made some bad personal choices, and terminated two pregnancies as a result. There was no way she should have carried those pregnancies to term. If she had, they would've been severely drug-addicted, and would have had physical and mental problems. She's since cleaned up her life, and has recently married and given birth to a healthy boy. However, not a day goes by that she's not haunted by her other two pregnancies. She knows she made the right choice, but that doesn't make the choice any easier.

I'm just relieved that she and my mother were allowed those choices. It is something that should never be taken for granted, nor taken away.

[Lisa]

I quote you, but failed to trackback. I am a dum.

[Mary]

Thank you for speaking your heart. Your eloquence is powerful!

[susie]

Thank you so much for all that you've shared on this topic. What an amazing post.

[Christine]

I've wanted to e-mail you in the past, but just never have. Your experiences and your writing have been very eye-opening for me. Your experiences are aspects of the abortion debate that I have never considered. For much of my life I considered myself pro-life, at times vehemently so, writing on the topic and demonstrating in support of it. More recently, I haven't really considered myself on either side. It just wasn't something I thought about because it didn't really seem to affect me. But this entry and others in the past have made me realize this does affect me - as a mother, a woman, and an American.
I really admire that you have had the courage to be so vocal about your experiences in the face of what I can only imagine is hateful criticism by people not willing to even listen. I hope that I am just one of many who have come to a clearer understanding of the real issues at stake here.

[Nikki]

Beautiful. Thank you.

[Michelle]

Wonderful post Julia. (I know it is just a typo, but you may want to edit clarify that it wasn't Asherman's that Thomas had, in case people Google it and get confused.)
The point about wealth and privilege is rarely made, but it is real. I know a woman IRL who had to fly down to LA from San Francisco to terminate when she found out at 30 weeks that her baby had half a heart. No other place in the state would do the abortion. These women are real - if you know one and I know one, think of all the poor women who are denied a choice because of income level or where they live!

[LizC]

Julia,
thos is so beautifully written, so eloquent. I wish you had never had to experience any of this, of course, but I thank you for sharing it and using your experience to help so many women and families. You are right: abortion is never an easy choice, and no one ever enjoys it, but sometimes it is the right thing to do, and no one should make that choice but the people directly involved.

Thank you so much for sharing your story. I came here from Jen's link, but I will come back later and read more of your blog.

[Aurelia]

Thank you for writing this. I blogged too about my son's death and our decision to end the pregnancy, both for my sake and for his. Stories like the ones that you have written make me so sad for women who have to travel so far, or are denied access to safe health care. I feel so lucky that I never had to worry about payment or access.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[wealhtheow]

Amazing post, Julia. I'm headed down to Richmond, Va., in a couple days to lobby with Planned Parenthood, and I'll carry these stories with me.

[R]

Excellently written. I couldn't agree more.

[Lauren]

Beautifully said. I am in awe of and grateful for your eloquence.

I also had to make the heartbreaking decision to terminate a pregnancy- my first. My daughter has monosomy Turner's Syndrome and was delivered (stillborn) at 20 weeks 5 days. Read here: http://sofiassister.livejournal.com/10215.html

Again, my thanks for your courage on behalf of ALL women who need to have choices.
Lauren

[rachel]

thank you for writing about this again. I hope that speaking from the heart will help people understand tbe need for choices.

thanks for visiting and commenting, too.

[Dea]

thank you.... it was well written and succinct... perfect.

[Mary]

Amen!

[Lisa]

This is one of the most eloquently worded arguments for choice I have ever read. You brought up a lot of things (laws in Texas, etc) I was not aware of. Thanks!