I had an abortion when I was 19 years old. I have tokophobia. I don’t want to be pregnant, I don’t want to give birth. I just wanted to finish my studies (now I’m almost done!).Mom was disappointed. Dad said that even if it was my body, I “had no right”. Tell me, have you ever felt like you weren’t a human being? Have you ever felt like an object? Have you been told that you have no rights? That basically your body is not yours? I have.Sorry, but I’m not sorry. I am the 1 in 3.AMAZING.
Let’s get one thing straight here: I love my son; however, I am very aware of the fact that I was too young when I had him. Too young to fully grasp the the situation I was in, too young to understand the choices I had, too young to take my options seriously, and absolutely, without a doubt, too fucking young to be a mother. So when I notice someone getting attacked about their choice to have an abortion or give their child up for adoption, I tend to lose my shit.
Let me start you off with a list of reasons why I sure as shit HATE being a 21 year old mother:
- The father of my child is a dumb ass, but he genuinely loves his son, so I have no right to keep his child from him. The father should be just as involved as the mother. However, it took a very long time to explain to him the importance of ALWAYS placing his son in a car seat when taking him for a ride ANYWHERE, the ongoing issue of hygiene (brushing his teeth every day, making sure he changes his underwear and socks daily, bathing him regularly, etc) to this day is a concept that he can’t seem to grasp, the importance of having discussions with me instead of yelling at me in front of our offspring, he still can’t manage to stop smoking in the house the two days a week that our former embryo is with him, and heaven forbid he actually teach him something that would help him in school.
- I have still not gone to college due to the fact that his father is so lax with rules and attentiveness that I am certain if I left him in his care that he would become extremely unruly or possibly just walk out of the front door, unnoticed, and promptly get lost/stolen/something else horrible.
- I cannot take my son with me if/when I go to school because I will not be able to see him enough to properly raise him since I am poor as fuck and will absolutely be working while attending school.
- I am not one of those little girls who dreamed of being a mommy when she grew up. That thought never crossed my mind. My son was the second baby I had ever held (the first one by choice, as the first one had been forced upon me).
- I am selfish. I think of myself first, and then my sons wants. The things he needs are always a top priority, but honestly, I think of myself first foremost.
- I am not financially stable.
- I am not mentally stable.
- I am literally SO stressed out about being a parent, that I cry about it every fucking day.
- I have fucked up my own life so badly. It is terrifying of thinking about how badly I’ve already screwed his up by deciding to raise him when I was 17. People who say dumb shit like “Nobody could raise him better than his own parents” are sincerely ignorant to the world of adoption. I don’t even understand where that logic comes from.
- My body is disgusting. I loath it entirely. My metabolism has slowed way the fuck down, my tits are about a size smaller and not even close to cute unless I grab a push up bra and pray to the cleavage gods that today my rack can look decent, my stretchmarks do not please me under any circumstances, and my c-section scar scares the hell out of me when I glimpse at my naked body in the bathroom mirror. Not to mention the fact that I have back problems and my period has been insanely messed up ever since I stopped breast feeding.
- I’ve been in love once in my life. One time. And he couldn’t handle the fact that I have a son because, like me,he is nowhere near ready for a child.
- Also, I live in a town that I hate and cannot leave because of my little guys father.
So really, go ahead and tell girls that if they are “mature enough to make the decision to have sex, than they are mature enough to deal with the consequences”. Go forth and spread your wisdom about the similarities between inserting a dick in your vagina and raising a fucking child. Tell girls that they don’t have the right to decide what to do with their bodies, no matter how mutilated and destroyed they become in the process of pregnancy. Tell us that we should keep our legs closed and our mouths shut, and I will sit you the fuck down, tell you about the joys of young motherhood, and tell you to shut the fuck up and let every girl make her own goddamn decision without being scared of being publicly stoned to death for making the wrong choice. Don’t scare little girls into being moms. Seriously. There are things that I absolutely love about being a mom, but I would have loved them more like ten years from now. Instead, I have a fucking migraine and am the kind of exhausted that you can only achieve when trying to chase after and understand an angry four year old boy all day while hoping to God that one day, I can once again sleep through the night or possibly have a career, social life, and maybe even a love life. Actually, I would settle for a day where I don’t cry. Fingers crossed!
It can take a lot of courage to talk about the things one dislikes, or even despises about parenthood. Young parents are under so much pressure, not only to take care of their children, but to prove themselves worthy to a society hostile to teen parents (and which simultaneously vilifies those who choose to end a pregnancy).
Nothing but respect here. Pregnancy, birth, and childrearing are some of the hardest things a person can ever go through, and I think certain people could do with a few reminders of that.
An interview from a 1985 edition of People magazine where actress Ali McGraw talks about her experience getting an abortion in the US before Roe Vs Wade.
The risks she had to take make frightening reading but the last part of the article, where she speaks about telling her mother and her mother’s reaction, is beautiful and heartwarming.
This is something I don’t talk about very much, so why I’m putting it on the internet, I don’t know. But I’ve had a long week and I feel like I just need to let some emotions out.
I got pregnant at the beginning of my senior year in high school. This was an extremely bad situation for me and my boyfriend, because, hey, we’re 18 years old, I work on weekends as a waitress and he’s a volunteer at the fire station, we can’t exactly afford a baby. Despite our awful financial situation, he wanted to keep the baby. I didn’t. I wanted an abortion before anyone but our families knew about this. I grew up in a small, conservative town in Oregon, see, and teenage pregnancy was very looked down upon and very rare. Eventually he agreed that this would be the best decision for us. But, when we told our families what was going on, they flat out said no. No abortion. You’re carrying this baby to full term, Sam, whether you want to or not, because abortion is murder. And instead of standing up for me and saying “Listen, we’re in high school, we don’t want a baby yet”, my boyfriend turned around and agreed with them. Told me that I should carry this baby, when just hours earlier, he’d agreed that abortion was our best option.
I was outraged, and rightfully so. I was forced into nine months of pregnancy, and word spread fast in our tiny town that little Samantha Johnson was pregnant, and oh, the things I heard said about me. My twin sister Lily used to come home crying because she’d overhear people saying awful things about how I was a slut, and when she tried to defend me, she’d get insulted too. Lily’s a sensitive soul who honestly sees the best in people, and doesn’t take well to insulting of any kind. I honestly think the worst part of this entire ordeal was watching my sister get shit for something I did.
I gave birth to Elliot Marie Jones on May 28th, 2009, and the next day, she went to live with her adoptive parents. My boyfriend was furious that I’d decided not to keep her, and he broke up with me a few days later. This all happened the week of my senior finals and graduation. Instead of my graduation being a good memory, all I can remember is the deafening silence as my name was called. Not even my own family clapped for me as I walked across that stage. Three days after my graduation, I emptied my bank account and my room and I flew to New York, where I started over, where I was not “the girl who got pregnant”. I was just Sam.
This is the reason I am so extremely pro-choice. I was forced into a pregnancy that I didn’t want, and all it got me was a lot of ridicule, from the same people who forced me into my pregnancy. Sometimes, a pregnancy is just the worst choice for everyone involved. Abortion should always be an option, and women should never, ever, be told what to do with their bodies.
