I had an abortion...

[ShazzieB]

38. I'm pretty sure I've told my story here at DU at some point.

I had an abortion, too. I live in the midwest, and it was 1972, so I had to travel to New York, where it was legal, to have it done safely and legally. Fortunately, I was able to do that, and everything went fine.

I was in college at the time, and continuing the pregnancy would have meant dropping out of school, at least temporarily. Realistically speaking, my education would have been over, or at least postponed indefinitely, unless I gave the baby up for adoption. My family would have supported me to the best of their ability, but the best of their ability would have been grossly inadequate for reasons I will not go into here.

People talk about abortion being a difficult decision, and I know it is for some. It's not hard for everyone, though, and it wasn't for me. I had plenty of time to think about it before I could confirm the pregnancy. There were no home pregnancy tests kits then; you HAD to go to a doctor, and even the doctors couldn't confirm it nearly as early as they can now. I had to wait over a month between missing a period and getting "official" confirmation. The whole time, I knew what I was going to do about it.

Fortunately, the women's studies center on my campus had a problem pregnancy counseling service, where you could get help to find out about all the options that were available and make a decision. I had already made my decision, so they hooked me up with a reputable abortion clinic in New York City, and I was on my way.

I never wavered in my decision. To be honest, it was the only choice I could even imagine. There was no way I was going to be able to raise a child, and I couldn't imagine having a baby and relinquishing it to be raised by strangers, as was customary in those days. (Open adoption, as we now know it, did not exist then. You signed away your rights, and an agency took it from there. Where your baby ended up after that was none of your beeswax.)

For me, abortion always seemed like a better alternative, or rather, all the other possibilities seemed too overwhelmingly life-altering to have any appeal. So that was the choice I made. I didn't feel any ambiguity about it then, and I've never regretted it. To tell the truth, I get uncomfortable when people talk about it like it's always an agonizing, gut wrenching decision. It is for some people; I get that. But it is simply not that way for everyone, and that's OKAY. That doesn't make me better or worse than someone who found it to be a deeply difficult decision, and it doesn't make me better or worse than someone who chose a different path. It just makes us all different from each other. And that's okay, too!