On a Halifax sidewalk a spray-painted stencil reads “40 Days of Bullshit” and “It’s your body, it’s your choice”, in response to the 40 Days for Life vigil being held in town. When I walked over this stencil, I had to cringe, because there’s no argument there. It’s just an insult, a crowd chant, but there’s no reasoning behind it. Women who find themselves pregnant and considering abortion feel they have to choose between a life of poverty, or abortion. They feel they have to choose between losing their partner, or abortion. They feel they have to choose between not finishing school, or abortion. Think I’m wrong? Read these testimonies:
my baby was disabled
- –and my husband could not bear to raise a child with special needs. He was suicidal. I felt I owed it to my two older children to keep their father in their life. I terminated my pregnancy at 17 weeks and I’m grateful that it was legal to do so (even though it was extremely difficult, both emotionally or logistically). I wanted that baby very much and I miss him every day.
- —Guest simone
Matter of who’s life ?
- It was 1972 in January, just after Roe and Wade.It was a time when single mothers were shunned. They wasn’t any form of help for single women. Because of my pregnancy, I became homeless, I’d been staying with a widow who had rooms for single girls, I was kicked out my church (they said I could come back when the situation was taken care of). My family turned their backs on me. My boyfriend was getting a divorce. I was desperate, suicidal! It came down to making the final decison of TAKING MY BABY’S LIFE OR MY OWN! I’ve been able to cope and deal with this decision. Since then I’ve gone through much counseling although on the anniversary date,I break down. The pain will never go away. When looking back, I know that I did the only thing I could back then. Today I”m doing well and I have helped many girls who find themselves where I was. I am so grateful for the women of today. There are so many services, especially counseling available for them . FREEDOM OF CHOICE IS VITAL FOR WOMEN.
- —Guest Vicki
A reader recently quoted that Joyce Arthur herself admitted that “all of our decisions are constrained”. Personally, I think that having to choose between poverty/losing your partner/dropping out of school/homelessness or abortion isn’t a choice (even a “constrained” choice) at all, it’s a threatening ultimatum.
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Andrea adds: The testimonies you posted are of the most dire variety. Or are they? I can only think that when abortion was not an option so readily taken, some of these people would not have manipulated their partners or themselves into this positioning of “my life or the baby’s.” It is very, very hard to move forward with a pregnancy in certain cases. But in those testimonies we are presented with “if” scenarios that we simply don’t know would have played out. (Historians are taught not to play the “if” game. As in “if the Allies had bombed the rail lines, there would have been no Holocaust” etc.)
These women tell us after the fact that they would have killed themselves if they had not had an abortion, or their husbands would have killed themselves, but if there is one thing I learned from reading Giving Sorrow Words it’s that men–and women–can come around to their own “unwanted” children. I believe to a certain extent, their guilt over their actions forces them to create an extreme box so that we could begin to understand why it was ok to kill a defenceless (disabled as in the example above) child. One last thing: at the debate, a young woman came to me afterwards, and asked me (kindly) about my positioning on rape. Wasn’t it OK to have an abortion then? I talked to her at some length and I ended up challenging her to watch an abortion, since she hadn’t. We forget how vicious the act of abortion is. I don’t want women to forget that and then delude themselves into thinking abortion was an act of compassion–too much pro-choice rhetoric in our media and the culture at large will do that.
by 
Fear that this is a tread softly posting. Regardless, daresay that years ago two women I knew both felt they had no choice yet there was lots of money, lots of help and friends, adoption agencies, no medical emergencies and yet they felt they had no choice. It always seems there is an overemphasis on what one feels and an underemphasis on what one thinks.
I think we need to recognize too that society today is not welcoming of children. The idea of having kids and family is not the welcome life that it used to be. Many women feel that children are simply a burden and they prefer the freedom of no kids. Men seem to be inclined even more this way. So the societal atmosphere is not helping women continue in pregnancies, even though single motherhood is not the stigma it used to be.
I know I’m often guilty of a “soft approach” 🙂
I also know, that even with all the resources in the world, some women will still have abortions. This is why I believe things like PWPL are so important, because a change of heart and mind is required in the way we view and value human life. These aren’t concrete things we can give to people, it’s something in the linguistic framework that needs rebuilding. Abortion will always be an option without these crucial changes.
I do also believe that there are many women out there who have abortions out of fear (aka “constrained choice”). Knowledge of one’s resources can help eradicate that fear and beefing up what working resources we already have is a good place to start.
I agree with Julie that we’re currently living in a place that is not entirely welcoming to children. For example, yesterday I was walking with my two toddlers (pushing one in a grocery laden umbrella stroller while corralling the other to stay close). A gentleman walked by us (no one else was on the roomy sidewalk), he made eye contact with me as we approached each other but kept his course, then I had to swerve with all my weight to the other side to let him pass, nearly tipping the stroller. He said lifting his hands in the air, “Did you not see me?” and rolled his eyes. Now, I’m not saying this man is indicative of the Canadian view towards women and children on the whole, but I certainly have never experienced that kind of interaction in the south of U.S. (a pro-life region) or in rural Ireland (an equally pro-life area). If our society felt that those children on the sidewalks were more valuable, that it was partly our duty to ensure they’re born and cared for, then maybe that man would’ve stepped aside to make my stroll home from the shops a wee bit easier. The treatment we give each other every day sets the stage for a pregnant woman’s interpretation of her own future life.
When people have more kids, we in turn become more welcoming of children. When you see a family with 3, 4, 5 and more kids you begin to understand that it is not strange or impossible, but both possible, normal and oftentimes fun. People who never see these things (me, up to about age 26) won’t understand it. That’s the catch-22 of our current culture.
Great point Andrea! I didn’t consider that family sizes in the aforementioned countries probably varies a great deal. All the more reason to support the Walk, Rattle & Stroll for Birth coming up in Halifax, to see and be seen.
I was, though, walking in an area which coincidentally houses a lot of mothers and their many children. I felt like it was more of a “you’re a nuisance” gesture. I think this man felt he had seen “too many” children.