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Archive for April, 2013

My Silence

Monday, April 29th, 2013

If you’re a woman, and maybe also if you’re a man, you’ve at some point been in a conversation about abortion. Come that time, maybe you felt everyone rushing around to find their role. There are the women and men who will talk about their abortions without shame. Good for them – it’s harder than it might seem. Then there will be those who nod and lament – they never had to make the decision and are uncertain what they would do. Then there are those who never had to make the decision but despite being pro-choice do not think abortion would be their choice. Then there are those who will sit in silence. I am one of those and I’m not proud of it.

Dr.King, ever so wise, said “In the end we’ll remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” I’d say that in the end we’ll remember not our friends silence, but our own. I had an abortion. I was seventeen and uneducated about sex and got pregnant. Home was unstable and I was working hard to be the first in my family to go to college. I didn’t want a baby. I wanted a college education and a good job and, when the time was right, a family. I had an abortion and it allowed me the freedom to educate myself. It allowed me the freedom to, as an adult, have the stability I wasn’t given as a child. I didn’t want to bring a child into more instability. I had an abortion and it was the right choice for me. I had an abortion and I don’t need to justify that choice. So why can’t I say that out loud?

I wish I could now tell a redemptive tale about that time, in a conversation about abortion, that I joined the loud and proud and said yes, I had an abortion and yes, it was the right choice for me. Yes, I am willing to risk stigma and judgement to protect that choice. But I haven’t. Not yet. What I’m afraid of I’m not sure.

I’ve heard the statistic that 1 in 3 women will have an abortion in their lifetime. But how many will admit to this? I’m realizing that if women like me, and me, can’t forward and stand behind our choice, then soon there might not be a choice. Abortion was the right choice for me. Now I just have to say it out loud.

And p.s. no MLK was not anti-abortion as some say.