This is just sick. A 14-year-old girl got pregnant - circumstances were not specified, so for all we know the baby was a product of rape or incest or other forms of coercion - and on her way into the clinic, a "pro-life" "activist" tried to talk her out of getting an abortion, got her phone number, and while she was in the waiting room, texted her to say "If you go through with this, we've named your baby Britney." When the girl went through with the abortion, the "activist" put up a pink cross with the name on it.
The wankstain who did it defends her actions and says she doesn't think she was being cruel, because "the sooner you deal with it the easier it is in the healing." What the fucking fuck? That girl might not have NEEDED any "healing" after the abortion, if that shitwad hadn't done her damndest to personalize and force an emotional connection to a pregnancy the girl didn't want, and emotionally abused her by trying to guilt her for "killing her baby" afterward!
Personal story time! In the six months or so following my abortion, I had a strange emotional dilemma. I felt guilty for not feeling guilty, if that makes any sense. As someone who, with her first unrestricted internet connection at age 18, dove headfirst into the contentious abortion debate message board on Beliefnet.com and would spend hours there arguing with people who really did believe all women who had abortions were murderers, I'd been exposed to a lot of anti-choice nastiness even before it was a personal issue for me. In the aftermath of it, although I didn't regret my choice, I had a tiny voice in the back of my mind asking what that said about me? If I could have an abortion and feel nothing but relief and gladness at having the matter taken care of, didn't that make me a terrible person? A terrible woman, specifically? And this was me at 21, intelligent, well-educated, informed about the issue and very well-practiced in the arguments surrounding it, and I still was able to be made to feel like there was something wrong with me because I wasn't unhappy or regretful or grief-stricken.
So when I think of a 14-year-old girl, having to make the choice that would let her keep her life as it was or change it forever, being cruelly manipulated into feeling guilty because of a total stranger's opinion of her decision, it makes me sick. Anti-choicers claim that abortion leads to guilt/regret/depression/etc - they've even named their made-up post-abortion condition "Post-Abortive Syndrome", despite the complete lack of evidence (and evidence to the contrary) that such a condition exists - but that's basically a self-fulfilling prophecy, isn't it? How many people out there who've had abortions suffer and struggle with guilt and regret not because those feelings organically arose in them - and they do, for some people, I'm not trying to say all abortion decisions are as uncomplicated as mine was - but because they feel like they should feel bad?
Anyone who wants to call themselves "pro-life" needs to concern themselves with the woman's life, too. That 14-year-old girl has a life, and trying to force her to feel guilty by forcing the pro-fetus framework onto her situation shows a distinct unconcern for the life of the girl.
2 comments:
That makes me feel like crying. How DARE anyone do that to another person?
I definitely don't think there's anything wrong with someone who feels relieved after having an abortion. I've never had an abortion, but I think I might sort of know what you mean; at least to a degree. Way back when I was twelve, I decided that if I ever got accidentally pregnant before I was in a stable relationship and had a stable career, I would get an abortion. Period.
It wasn't going to be a difficult decision, but the thing was, people kept making me feel like it *should* be. People made me feel like I shouldn't be so sure of something like that, or at least that I should feel like it was regrettable. People made me think that I should think of the fetus I would be pregnant with as my child, or something. It made me feel horrible, BECAUSE I didn't already feel horrible. I didn't give a rat's behind about an embryo that could be growing in me. It made me think that I didn't give a rat's behind about *my baby*. What kind of sick human doesn't love their baby, after all? I didn't have much contact with real babies, so it made me think I just hated *babies*, or something. After a few years, and a realization that I like babies (ADORE them, actually), I can say with confidence that if I were pregnant at this very moment, I'd still make my appointment. I'd have to. And I still don't believe I'd feel the tiniest bit guilty about it.
Exactly. I felt awful for not caring about "my baby" because what kind of monster doesn't care about their baby? But to me, it never was "my baby", it was an accidental and unwanted pregnancy. You put it very well, thank you.
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