Earlier this week, on Facebook, I posted the following status:
"I got pregnant with my third child under circumstances that were not ideal - a crumbling marriage, the certainty of being a single parent . . . I did not have an abortion - instead, I had Marc Mpulse Maxfield, one of the brightest lights in my life and a gift to the music world. Now, I could be the poster child for anti-choice, but although I never once considered abortion, I also never once thought that other people in my circumstances should do what I did, I always believed the road to abortion was everyone's for the walking - get what I'm saying? I had a CHOICE, and I made it - and if you CHOOSE differently, more power to you . . . it's the power of one word."
After many, many positive comments on the thread, I was treated today to this from a female Facebook friend: "Nothing like heaping on the guilt in a back handed manner while acting self righteously "accepting". This kind of posting does nothing to help the pro-choice platform."
She went on say, ". . . It's about the heaping on guilt - "i could have aborted but I didn't and now my child is heir apparent to sainthood so I am the best" BUT I am even more special because if you want to have an abortion, you go ahead because I am so nice, I wont criticise . . . The subliminal message just feeds the anti-abortion mind set. Everyone makes choices for a reason, and to compare one choice against another with the wording used here I feel goes against being pro-choice. It is rather sanctimonious . . . I interpert this as a backhanded way of saying choice is fine BUT look at me, I made the "right" choice."
This friend went on to lecture another woman, saying, "The way we represent the pro-choice message is critical . . . This I feel leaves wide open the interpretation of anti-abortion to be THE way by saying that this person had the best baby in the universe against all odds. The anti,abortionists will cling to that part of the message NOT the 'abortion should be a choice' part of the message . . . Anti-abortionists are so extreme, that is my point . . . ."
This was like the pro-choice version of "show your papers," and it left me wondering: What would be required of me to lay claim to the staunch pro-choice creds that I've held all my life? Clearly, choosing to have a child didn't cut it - and I'm past child-bearing years, so I guess an abortion is out of the question.
I'm a proud, self-identified liberal and feminist, and in my life I've never been anything but pro-choice: I have written on the issue of abortion and contraceptive freedom, decried any laws that inhibit a woman's right to an abortion, have strenuously and vocally objected to the 900+ anti-choice bills we've seen bandied about within the past couple of years, have debated endlessly with anti-choice individuals, got myself in hot water with anti-choice Lila Rose supporters due to one of my Examiner articles, have been demonized and villified for my stance on abortion, which is clear and unequivocal: A woman's right to an abortion is sacrosanct, whether she has one or a hundred. I've long held firmly and publicly to the position that she shouldn't have to explain her reasons, shouldn't have to watch movies of blobs depicting fetuses, and shouldn't have any restrictions at all on her right to this legal medical procedure, abortion. I defend first trimester abortions and late-term abortions, and anything in-between: Anything else is a slippery slope of restrictions, and unpalatable to me.
So I read these comments, and the conclusion I reached was that my one great failing - well, two, actually - was, first, choosing to have a child instead of an abortion, and second, being glad that I didn't terminate one particular pregnancy that turned into a treasured child. Keep in mind - though I didn't post this in my status - that I was 31 at the time, had two older children, and had a job earning enough to support a family, even as a single parent. My choice would have been different at 16, 18, or in my early 20's while in college: I would have been at the abortion clinic with my sack lunch and sanitary napkins in a New York minute. But why should I need to explain this to anyone, my choice to have a child? Is it not a hypocrisy in itself for someone who claims to be "pro-choice" to reject and deride my choice not to have an abortion?
If I had stated, baldly, "I could have aborted but I didn't and now my child is heir apparent to sainthood so I am the best . . . BUT I am even more special because if you want to have an abortion you go ahead because I am so nice, I won't criticize," as this person claimed, and made any judgments whatsoever on people who chose a different path, then people would have been free to deride away. I would then deserve to be castigated for what would obviously be an arrogant - and, incidentally, a very anti-choice - position. What I said was that I could have had an abortion (choice), I didn't have an abortion (choice, again), I am glad I didn't have an abortion because I love my kid (didn't abort, again, because I have the right to choose), but believe everyone should have the "road to abortion" open to her and that the choice I made was not for everyone (choice, choice and more choice). This allegedly "pro-choice" individual felt, apparently, uncomfortable with the fact that I am happy with the choice I made, 20 years ago, not to abort a child.
Part of "choice" is the right to have a child who happens to come along at an inconvenient time - and I doubt I'll be quickly confused with Tim Tebow or Jeremy Lin for saying this. Not everyone, even those who are in stable marriages, choose to have that child; not everyone should. I would never deign to question anyone's decision to choose to become a parent or choose not to become a parent at a particular time - or to never become a parent. There is nothing illegal, immoral, or shameful in having an abortion; it's a choice like any other life choice. Who was it that said that? Oh, yeah - me.
This critical attitude, from someone laying claim to pro-choice creds, made me uncomfortable: Evidently, the only way I could have maintained my own pro-choice creds was to: (1) have an abortion and to hell with my choice, (2) at least wish that I'd had an abortion, (3) reject the value of the child I gave birth to instead of having an abortion, or (4) for every live birth, have at least one abortion to balance it out and prove my pro-choice stance.
Since when did choosing to have a child - while fighting like a tiger to keep abortion safe, legal and available - become an anti-choice position?
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