Bookgirl Celebrates Choice

Two summers ago, I started volunteering for Planned Parenthood. I wanted to start giving something back to the world, and theirs was a cause I cared passionately about, so it was an obvious choice.

The New York City branch has a Political Action Committee, separate from their not-for-profit clinic. I took their activist council training, and it was official. I was a reproductive rights activist.
 
I all but had a membership card to prove it.

But here's the catch. I'm Catholic. Sure, I was raised that way, but more importantly it's where I find comfort and support and peace. I was given it as a child, but then I chose it as an adult. I have a great brain, and strong faith, and I firmly believe that those two aren't mutually exclusive.
 
So here's this Catholic girl, who quite frankly is a little bit ambivalent about abortion and isn't 100% positive it's not murder, volunteering at the clinic. Because my absolute, rock-solid belief that every woman should be able to make that choice for herself overrides any other feelings I might have.
 
I'm fortunate enough to not ever have had to make that choice for myself, and I'm not positive I could.
 
But I will fight for the rest of my life for your right to make it.
 
The first time I toured the clinic was really unsettling. Believing in choice as a theory is very different from seeing the procedure rooms. And I found myself wondering: While I believe in abortion in theory, can I support it in practice?
 
And then something happened. A much younger friend found out she was pregnant. She had already broken up with the baby's father and was in the middle of researching Ph.D. programs in public health. Her whole life plan was centered around making things better for under-privileged women and children, and it was about to go down the tubes.
 
When she told me she was pregnant, the first thing that popped into my mind, before I had time to think about all my usual moral and ethical questions, was, "Do you need a ride to the clinic?"
 
What I actually said was, "I'll support you in whatever you decide," and I expressed absolutely no opinion either way. But when she decided to abort, I told her I thought she had made the right choice. And yes, I gave her a ride to the clinic.
 
I realized then that while I thought I was ambivalent, in reality, if giving up this baby meant she could save thousands later on once she reached her full potential, then I was okay with that. I don't think it's a decision any woman should make lightly or carelessly. And I think it should be a last resort. But I think every child deserves to be born into a loving home, where he or she is wanted and cared.
 
I'm not nearly as ambivalent as I thought I was.
 
On Saturdays, I volunteer at the clinic as an escort. I'm a friendly face outside the doors, in a bright yellow traffic-cop vest, to help woman past the protesters. So alongside the prayer cards and rosaries and posters of mangled babies those people like to hold up, there's someone standing for them.
 
One Saturday a month, the local Catholic church comes out and says the rosary in front of the clinic. And I know all the prayers, and recite them along with them in my head. Sometimes I have to remind myself not to answer out loud or allow my mouth to move along, because that's not fair to the people I'm there to help.
 
I understand the protesters' feelings, and I respect their passion. But I can't respect their decision to come into what I believe is the most difficult moment some of these women will ever have to face, and make it more difficult for them. I see the tears they're blinking back as they past the protesters, and the looks on their faces.
 
Last week, the nun who was leading the prayers asked the Holy Spirit to come to me and soften my heart. And I was furious. Because I may not agree with you, but my heart is exactly as it should be.

Comments

[Polly Poppins]

I admire your commitment and your compassion.

I am not ambivalent about abortion. I am fiercely pro-choice. Not pro-abortion. Pro Choice.

I don't know anyone who is pro-abortion.

As the mother of a young daughter, the choices I plan to advocate to my own child will extend far beyond the last-ditch choice of unwanted pregnancy or abortion. I will teach her to respect her body. And by respect, I mean respect. Not punish or deny or demonize.

And by her body I mean her body. As in the body that belongs to her. The only one she gets but also the one that no one else gets to co opt--not without her permission--whether it be sexual partner, religion, or fetus.

[Pandora]

I feel so fortunate to know I am surrounded by people who would willingly drive me to a clinic and hold my hand if needed. However, I hope that they never are.

My parents are wonderful and I love them endlessly, but I sometimes wonder what my mom was thinking when raising me. The subject of sex was just a taboo in my household. F*ck, I was even embarrassed about telling my own mother about starting my period when I was 13. Everything I learned about sex, I learned from Google and Polly. I kind of wish my parents weren't so old fashion and that I didn't have to figure out all this stuff on my own. I feel like they lucked out on having me as a daughter. I'm savvy and know how to utilize my resources. Some girls aren't as fortunate as me. I want my daughters to know that you can have sex as long as you're safe and that I'll be there to hold your hand when the going gets rough.

I've come to the conclusion that I want to go on birth control. I don't care if it means my already huge boobs are going to grow more. I have killer cramps that wake me up in the middle of the night and don't go away until i've downed two extra strength painkillers. Problem is, I can't tell my parents that I want to go on birth control right around the same time I plan on telling them I'm dating this boy. They'll put two and two together and assume that, OMG OUR DAUGHTER IS HAVING SEX, even though I am a responsible 20 year old.

So, Dol and Polly? I'm enlisting in your help, please.

[Ramblin' Jack]

@Pandora. Boy, did you come to the right place. Polly is a walking encyclopedia of birth control.

And at least you had the internet when you were coming of age. All we had was torn, crumpled Penthouse pages some kids would sneak from their dads and show around on the playground. Sometimes you couldn't tell if you were looking at a woman or an Arby's ad.

I often wish I could do my life over with the internet.

[Matty]

I feel like I am violating an unwritten rule by even commenting on this post, and I know I am inviting the fire and brimstone to come crashing down on me but here goes. I believe in a woman's right to choose. I don't think the government should have any control over our bodies, what we do with our bodies, and who we choose to do things with our bodies. That said the most pain I have ever suffered through, continue to feel, is when an ex-girlfriend was pregnant with my child...that I wanted, and she chose to have an abortion, no matter what I said or offered. Including raising the child myself.
In no way does my pain come close to covering the amount of pain women through the centuries have endured when men do not take responsibility for a child they help to conceive.
But someday hopefully in the not-too-distant future, when the glass ceiling is shattered forever, when personal responsibility is again a core value and not a political buzz word, we are going to have to have an honest conversation about rights and responsibilities. Mine is a selfish pain, and at no time will I ever tell another person what they can and cannot do with their own bodies (except if I ever have children that they can't get tattoo's when they are nine.)
I don't have any answers, or even any suggestions. But I feel for anyone that is in a position where a choice has to be made.

[The Dol]

Oh, Bookgirl, I love you for doing what you do.

One point that I would like to add to the already interesting conversation is that I get frustrated with people who are "pro-choice" (and I prefer to think of them as pro-birth, because they generally don't actually give a flying f*ck once you're born). I get frustrated because they want to have dominion over women's bodies, but they don't want to educate young people about sex, and they don't want to provide health care so that people have access to birth control, and so that people can get their kids to the doctor when they're sick, for crying out loud.

I call hypocrisy.

It's fine if people want to have a difference of opinion about what constitutes life, but how does it make sense to devalue life incrementally the further you get from fetushood? That is insanity. No, scratch that: it's cruelty.

Oh, and Pandora, Polly and I are on it.

[Karita]

I love this post. Would you mind if I linked to it?

[Diosa]

I had an abortion. I'm pretty sure I got pregnant on my wedding night, many-a-woman's dream, but not mine. The timing was bad, real bad. I had just quit my job and gone back to school. But in the long run, like many things, I think it was something I had to go through. It made me really consider having kids, which I hadn't even wanted to consider before, and made me see what I was asking my husband to give up. I ended up giving in and we have two incredible and wild little boys that will be the end of me. But I also had the chance to wait and prepare myself for having them.

[Bookgirl]

Pol, I agree with you. A little education goes a long way toward making sure our little girls don't ever HAVE to make that choice. And while the girls in my life are still little, I'm the aunt known for occasionally, in the middle of unrelated conversations with my teenage nephews, asking, "You're using birth control, right?!?!?!"

Matty and Diosa, Thanks so much for sharing your stories. M, I can't imagine how painful that experience must have been. But I have so much respect for you for acknowledging that in the end it was her choice. I'm glad we got to hear the male perspective on this.

Di, You're a great mother. The first time I saw you with Trouble, I couldn't believe how natural you were at it. I think the fact that you got to choose the timing and wait until you were ready meant that you got to welcome him into your family in a very different way than "my back is against the wall, and I really don't want a baby, but..."

Pandora, I've been celibate by choice for a little while, but I stay on the pill at all times. Yes, my boobs got enormous. But quite frankly I'm a much nicer, kinder, calmer version of me without the insane mood swings and the 10-day periods. And my parents' idea of "the talk" was a brochure on getting your period called "growing up and liking it." I shit you not. At some point, I got the "sex is a beautiful and special thing between two people who are married" lecture, but only after they found a really dirty mad libs my friends and I had filled out.

Karita, I'd be honored. ( :

Dol, I agree completely. The same people who want to force women to have their babies are the ones bitching about people on welfare and wanting to cut medical benefits. What planet are they from??? How about we take all that money the pro-life folks are using now, and re-allocate it to condoms in schools? There's a word for kids who receive abstinence-only education. Parents.

Jack, thanks for the snort laugh. We got our hands on a couple of Playgirls in elementary school, but they never showed men with erections. It was just like men doing basic things around the house naked. Possibly the least sexy thing I've ever seen.