Not Anonymous - Sex~Kitten.net

It took me years to say that word. For many, many years it was only referred to as ‘the A word’ or ‘my A’ - even in private thoughts to myself.

Before any of you then assume I regret the choice, or that I am Pro-Life, let me make this perfectly clear: I am Pro-Choice, & if I were back in the same circumstances, I would make the same choice.

How can I in one sentence be struggling with my actions, & in the next, be sure of the rights, absolute in my choice?

Because one thing that is so often overlooked in all the abortion debate is the struggle with the choice. The personal, moral, ethical, and human parts of making a choice, all happening in an arena of public display.

This is not easy. This is not taken lightly.

It’s an intensely personal matter. Just as making many choices are in this world. Consider the choice to file bankruptcy. There are folks that will judge your for your financial sins, who will believe you are weak, that you lack integrity, and who will tell you at every turn that you are doing the wrong thing. You are judged by those actions. However, it is your legal right. Your last option. But it is your option.

Yet, as you stand before the attorney’s door, you are not faced with an angry mob, yelling at you, calling you names, pleading with you for your moral integrity. As you stand, pen in your hand, finalizing your 'deal with the devil,' there are no mourners, no crowds of strangers who believe they have all the answers to your life.

I know there are passages in the Bible that one could apply to financial sins... But no one goes as far as to organize a group attack on a person's choice to take these legal actions, no matter their personal beliefs on the subject.

There are no people or groups threatening to blow up the joint either.

Sure, the argument can be made that the life form that is about to be ended is more precious than credit, creditors or financial promises. I agree it is. But both are legal rights. Both are personal matters. Both require thought, and some waiting time which prevents purely emotional reactions instead of well-thought-out action on a person’s part.

What makes folks think that the awesome responsibility that is Choice, is not treated with an amount of thought equal to the choice at hand?

The fact that an abortion involves a life form, the status of which is still not conclusively defined, I assure you, only makes the power-holder that much more aware of their power. Acutely so.

When you & your loved ones make a decision to let Great Grandpa ‘go’ and have the doctors unplug the machines that keep his tissue alive, you only do so after agonizing thought. You consult all of ‘those with the answers’ and they tell you that without those machines, life is not viable. You cling to those words, and you decide that the life support will stop. As much for 'you' as for 'them.'

Again, there are no angry persons in your way, no mobs with graphic images reaching for you, saying “Stop!” And no one threatens to blow up the hospital. Why? Because, like it or not, it is legal. And (most) folks respect the medical opinion that the life you ‘ended’ was no longer viable, not really alive, the soul was gone, it was just the tissue being kept ‘alive.’

And that’s how I viewed my procedure: It was not viable if I no longer kept it ‘plugged in.’ I had/have no proof of it’s soul. If I kept it alive, I wasn’t sure of my own viability. Selfish? Maybe. But that is my issue; it is between me & my maker. If I am willing to live, and die, with this choice, that’s the end of it.

No one blithely, glibly, nor impulsively makes the decision, nor carries it out with little regard.

There are facts, and there are questions still unresolved. When you play God, when you have the power to terminate, annihilate, and end life, you are very, very aware of this power, this choice you have. You are very aware that you will not have all the answers & insights needed. It is the absence of facts that makes you think, pray, & dwell...

It is not a position a person takes lightly. Even the most ardent supporter of Choice will acknowledge how personal the choice is, how each situation is different, how each person is pulled & swayed by different needs & beliefs.

No person goes through the procedure with absolute certainty that they are all-knowing, and that this is ‘right’ by every definition.

(And don't counter with "You can't make 'all' statements!" Just as there are likely, by the odds makers, a handful of 'crazies' making rash knee-jerk reactions in these situations, there are other 'knee-jerk' folks on the other side that let women die just to say they wouldn't allow an abortion. Let's leave all those folks, those extremists & fools, out of this conversation, shall we? Like 'bad lawyers' and other bad apples, they exist in all areas, and ought not affect realistic discourse.)

It is a decision, a choice that weighs heavily upon the wielder of such God-like power. It is one that requires a person, a mere fragile human, to not only call into question their ‘sides’ politically, & to dig deep within themselves for answers that human beings are not equipped to answer, but it also requires that same self-acknowledged ignorant being to live with it.

My early fear & reluctance that led me to only be able to refer to my actions as ’the A word,’ was born partly upon self-recriminations, as I knew that when I finally will have all the answers to my questions, it will in effect, be too late...

But those fears, pains & uncertainties were also created by the hands that physically reached for me as I went into the clinic, by those picket signs showing graphic images... and yes, the worst, by those strident voices that did in fact penetrate the clinic walls (like the very sperm entered that egg, unwanted & despite seeming laws of science), to reach the silent forms that were women in form, but temporarily bereft of souls, having been numbed by the spaces & situations which brought them there. Those women, myself among them, sat there, each in her own universe. No eye contact, no smiles, just zombies, whispy-light in forms making no noise as our heavy hearts thudded, motoring ourselves to respond when pens & forms were proffered, when names were called. Those voices reached us even then.

Those voices reached us when we lay in sterile environments... nothing lived there, not even us; nothing that is, save for those voices... “Mother, save me, I am your child!” they cried. “Don’t do this!” they yelled. “Please, Mother, hear me!” they pleaded.

I lay on that table, watching the red & white mobile of cranes which they had placed above it. Listening to the doctor & nurses, whose voices were oddly quieter than the voices from outside, even if they were more reverent, respectful...

I remember the pain of the procedure. I remember it was as soft a pain as the medical people’s voices, at least compared to the loud screams I hemorrhaged within. My internal screams still did not drown out the voices from those outside. There are times when they still echo...

When you mob, assault & verbally attack another person, you don’t ‘save a life,’ you scar one.

How can I say then, that I am Pro-Choice? How then can I say I would do it all again? Because I know my circumstances. I know my limits. I know that I had a right to make that choice, even if I did not have the choice to have that egg fertilized. It was my option. I also know that I had made peace with myself, my faith, my beliefs, My God, if you will. I knew then that it would not be easy.

But still, I did it. I did it because the other options were, in my opinion, worse, less kind, less full of my faith. When Pro-Lifers say "abortion stops a beating heart" and "the unborn feel pain" I beg them to remember that women have both beating hearts and their own pain -- why should her life here and now be forfeited for that which is not? Why would the unborn's rights be stronger than my own? It is my own body, my own soul, which I must have concern for & live with.

My own viability is at stake.

So why the long silence, the original intent to be anonymous?

When a Pro-Choice person counters a Pro-Life person with their emotions, we are seen as ‘weak.’ We are viewed as having an opening, a spot to attack us on. (It's true, we are vulnerable in a sense. But we are also wiser, having the experience from which to speak.) Or we are deemed in need of salvation. Sometimes we are merely dismissed as not participating in 'the real issue.' Then, not only are our political intentions dismissed, but we, as humans are!

So we turn to logic. Facts, numbers, & when there are none (as science cannot answer all our human needs yet), we turn to the lack of information as a tool: “Prove this tissue has a soul? Prove it is a person?”

This often leads to proponents of the Pro-Choice Movement as seeming cold & abrasive. We come across as if we have no hearts, no souls, no conscious, no emotional reaction to what we do or how we view a moral issue. Or worse yet, you call us ‘defensive.’ Well, we are defending our rights, and our personal choices, after all. What can put a person on the defensive more than having one of their largest decisions in life questioned?

So, we counter your pleas, your cries, your assaults, with parries of cold facts, because any show of emotion, any show of our own travels into personal faith (something that no one can honestly prove or attest to another human), is viewed as weakness.

But when we do that, when both sides forget that there are people making choices, we all loose. We all loose perspective.

Because abortion is just that, a personal choice. It was for me to decide. Not some other person who doesn’t have to live with the consequences, in either direction.

No one has the right to prevent me from my legal rights.

And no one has the right to try to make me apologetic or shameful. Just as I accept the full burden of my choice, you must respect my rights to make that choice. You are not my maker; I have not broken your commandments. I have not broken the law.

I am no longer going to act as if I have some scarlet letter upon my chest. I’m not going to hide anymore. Not from you who disagree. Nor from the other women who carry similar burdens.