Why I believe in abortion rights

[ellid]

We were living in Virginia then, sometime in 1971 or early 1972. It was a nice enough day that we were outside, and I was walking behind my father and one of his co-workers as we strolled through the grounds behind our townhouse.

I don't know how the conversation started, but suddenly I heard my father say, "If it happened to Martha, I'd demand that she have an abortion. She almost died once. I'm not going to risk her life!"

I didn't know what he meant. It wasn't until several years later, after Dad had died and I was an adult, that I learned that my mother had had a difficult pregnancy, including a bad reaction to a prescription medication, and that she had nearly bled to death about a week after my birth thanks to a sudden hemorrhage. Her gynecologist told her at the time that she was lucky to have survived, and when she asked about more children he said something along the lines of "you have a healthy daughter. Don't push your luck."

That was why Dad was adamant that if Mum had become pregnant with a second child and things had started to go wrong again, not only would he have consented to an abortion,* he would have raised holy hell to make sure that she got the medical she needed. The joyous birth of his only child had nearly cost him his wife, and he was furious at the mere idea that the state could allow her to die because she counted for less than a fetus in the eyes of the law.

I've been in favor of reproductive rights ever since. No woman should have to depend on her husband's goodwill or the willingness of the local hospital to receive the healthcare she needs and deserves.





*This was in the bad old days, forty years ago, when many states required women to get their husbands' permission to have an abortion, open a separate bank account, purchase property in their own name, or use birth control. Yes. Really.

Comments

[harpnfiddle.livejournal.com]

My parents secretly drove to Vermont for a weekend getaway some time after my youngest sister (#5) was born, for the vasectomy that wasn't allowed in MA. My mother was sick through all 5 of the pregnancies, and with #5 there were complications that caused nerve damage to my sister's face, and trauma to my mother's birth canal.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

People today have no idea what it was like as recently as my childhood. They really don't.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

And when it comes to the intrinsic risks of pregnancy and childbirth even in an otherwise healthy woman, even now. They think it's low risk, no big deal, just because most women now manage to get through (with C21 medical care) without permanent death or serious disability - with no real consideration that "risk to the mother" isn't just a catchphrase.

(In the UK, the law changed so that women could get loans without a guarantor when the ridiculousness was brought home by the realisation that there was probably about to be a Prime Minister who would be able to nuke Russia, but not buy a sofa on hire purchase.)

[ellid.livejournal.com]

My mother was fired from her job upon becoming pregnant, even though she was a happily married 31 year old; the sight of her growing belly would have been an unwholesome influence on high schoolers, it seems.

She was then stuck in my parents' nice new house in the suburbs, with no car, no friends, no women her own age, and her best friend (my aunt) at work in Pittsburgh during the day. The house is on a rather steep hill, a couple of miles from the local library, and there are no sidewalks, not to mention that walking back *up* the hill would have been all but impossible for her as her pregnancy advanced. She also no longer had a separate income (they didn't lose the house because the mortgage was based solely on *Dad's* income, of course), and she couldn't get unemployment because it was perfectly legal to fire a pregnant woman.

Her doctor, worried that she was "nervous," prescribed tranquilizers. Mum turned out to be allergic to them, and the subsequent drug reaction, which came just as my adult teeth were forming, is a reason why I have a mouthful of crowns.

People have no idea how bad it was for women before the feminist movement. No idea.

[shalandara.livejournal.com]

My sisters are 9, 8, and 6.5 years older than me. By my mother's 4th wedding anniversary she had all three of them. I once asked her why there was a gap until me. Basically, she found a dr who would giver her a diaphragm (our family doc being Catholic). This was the decade of the 60s.

(I also got a lesson in how birth control methods don't work 100% because I was an accident baby.)

[tena524.livejournal.com]

I have a vivid recollection of the day that the Roe vs. Wade decision was announced in '73. My grandmother was visiting, an unusual occurrence at that time, since the farm wasn't sold until '76, and my grandparents were rarely away from home. Grandpa wasn't there, he presumeably had to stay home and milk the cows. I think Grandma was only there for a couple of weeks while Mom was recovering from another round of back surgery.
Anyway, Mom and Gramdma were sitting at our kitchen table sipping coffee with the radio on in the background. The news came on, the decision was announced, and they began to discuss the recent coverage of the case.
Mom made some scornful comment that she did not believe that women would deliberately harm themselves in order to avoid bringing a pregnancy to term. She felt no woman could possibly be so desperate in such circumstances and was certain the pro-choice activists had been exagerating wildly.
Grandma mildly offered the comment that they both knew (or had known) a number of women who had self-aborted or attempted to, some successfully, others not.
Mom gasped, and immediately wanted to know who Grandma was talking about.
Grandma wouldn't name names, but said that nearly every family in her (very) small town had someone in the graveyard because of such things. She knew becaused she had nursed a number of them.
A little family background - my great-grandfather died young, leaving a young widow with four children. Great-grandmother was determined that her children, and most particularly her three daughters, would have something to fall back on in life. She insisted that they all learn a profession that would enable them to earn a living. Her oldest daughter studied nursing. She never practiced, as she married soon after graduation, and it was expected in those days that a married woman would not work.
Nowadays, we would add the phrase "outside the home", but despite the fact that my great-grandmother (and grandmother in turn) ran simultaneously multiple home-based businesses, including the farm, a boarding house and a day school, it was presumed way back then that neither of them worked. Go figure.
As I said, Grandma never 'worked' as a nurse. However, one of the closest neighbors was the local doctor, who would, on occasion, ask Grandma to 'help out' with a case, when the family in question needed help sooner than a professional nurse could be called in, or the family didn't have the means to hire one. So, Grandma had first-hand knowledge of a few cases where discretion was at least as important as decent medical care, and both could be had under the guise of merely being neighborly.
When I read of the continued under-reporting of sex crimes, I often think of how frequently these self-abortions were reported as natural occurrences for the sake of local reputations. Unfortunately, some things haven't changed much.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

It's what anti-abortionists keep forgetting: abortion did not start with Roe v. Wade, and it will continue regardless of whether it is legal or not. Uncounted millions of women died or rendered themselves sterile because they could not get a safe, clean, legal abortion when they were desperate, or when a second or third trimester pregnancy suddenly went wrong. To think otherwise is ridiculous, and cruel.

**********

And how have you BEEN????? It's been ages since you posted! How are you doing?

[gardengirl6.livejournal.com]

My mother had severe (undiagnosed) postpartum depression after each of my brothers, who were born 13 months apart. One was colicky, and the other just awake at night. She was a basket case. Her periods didn't come back for months after the second brother was born, and she says to this day that if she'd been pregnant again, she'd have done whatever she had to do to get to Puerto Rico for an abortion - since that was the only place such was available. I came along - planned - 7 years after the second brother. I have always supported women's right to access to safe and legal abortion, though my prayer is that one day we will become pregnant only when we want to be pregnant, and abortion (as contraception; not addressing congenital defects not compatible with life outside the womb, nor grave risks to the mother's health during pregnancy) will no longer be sought.

[fionaniconnor.livejournal.com]

I'm here via [info]brickhousewench[/info]'s link to the post.

This is a lovely post, and I thank you for making the point to stand up and say something about it.
I grew up Catholic in a decidedly far-right-wing family, and sex stuff was specifically not talked about. I once asked my mother what she thought about abortion rights, and I discovered that she and I have very different views on the subject. Mom almost refused to talk about it, only saying that it's wrong, it is not to be done, and it is against God.

Well, personally I would rather not see abortion happen, however it is my firm belief that the folks on Capitol Hill need the keep their hands the hell out of my reproductive organs. I will always fight for my right, for the right of other women, to do as we will with our bodies and may litigation be damned. While I personally believe that conception = life, I would much rather see abortion be a medically safe option, instead of going back to the Bad Old Days of throwing oneself from a horse, or a clothes-hanger wriggled anywhere it doesn't belong. It's a sad state of affairs when women, especially in developed nations, may not have the option of doing what they want with their own bodies.

So... thank you.