This post first appeared on Role Reboot and has been republished with full permission.
Having a baby would have changed my entire world. Mine, not his. So yes, it is my choice. But that doesn’t make it feel any better.
The line appeared quickly, so faint you could hardly see it. My hands shaking, I grabbed my phone and quickly Googled “faint line, pregnancy test,” which resulted in pages of infertility blogs with posts screaming “I had a really faint pregnancy test and now I have a beautiful 1-year old.”
Now in full panic mode, I drove back to the shopping centre I had just left an hour before, cursing myself for buying the cheapest, generic pregnancy test I could find, and purchased two additional (more expensive) tests, both of which confirmed what I already knew in my gut: I was pregnant.
I have always wanted kids, but I knew that this wasn’t how I wanted to become a mother. After an agonizing day, spent crying on my couch with a few of my closest friends, I woke up the next morning feeling clarity, knowing that I was going to have an abortion. While I cannot even put into words the anguish that came along with this choice (as my mother simply put it: “It’s a lot to give up”) it was, in the end, a pretty clear decision for me.
What was not as clear a decision, and something that has proven to be the most complex thing to navigate, has been my decision to not tell the guy. He wasn’t someone I dated—we had been having casual sex on and off for about five months when I got pregnant. A professional athlete who traveled a lot for work, he would call when he got back in town and we would pick up where we left off. From the moment we met, I had a very visceral, physical reaction to him. I joked to my friends that my loins reached out to him.
Top Comments
To all those who say the man is just a sperm donor for having sex. I wonder if we could take it from the other perspective. Because of you think its ok to abort his/their future child without informing him or giving him any say in the decision. Then the opposite could be said about a man making the decision to abort her/their future child by unbeknownst to the woman simply feeding her the morning after pill or abortion drugs. After all. If she's Sleeping around like him there are those below who could call her an egg donor of breeder just as he's called a sperm donor?
Yes. I know you'll still pull me up on her body, he'd right... but just to give a comparison on the unfairness and powerlessness to men in the comments below. I think taking her body etc out of the equation. We'd all be up in arms if he decided to terminate his baby in her against her will?
P.s Female poster here. And that foetus or zygote or mass of cells. Is a real human who can easily survive from 25 weeks which as far as I'm aware is an abortable age. They also have beating hearts, mannerisms and respond to sound while in utero. Kinda makes it a living creature in my choice. I'm not saying you can't abort. Especially when it's still a mass if dividing cells. But once formed, growing and alive I don't think you can try to justify and relieve your guilt by pretending it's just a blob. As long as you're aware that terminating a 25 week plus foetus is akin to killing a living breathing little baby in a special care nursery for instance. Then that's ok.
NO. Period. The fetus grows in HER body. Her body and it's functions are essential to the fetus... just like her body and it's functions are essential to her own well being. It's HER decision what happens with/to her own body. That's it. PERIOD.
If someone drugs her against her will, which does or does not result in the termination of the fetus, that's STILL illegal. Since drugging an unwilling/unknowing person is always illegal (IE: date rape drug). So please, spare me your "boo-hoo" stories.
If only we knew that men were going to be more supportive-fully supportive. But we do not have their full support. Women become pregnant and are having the baby. Men do not become pregnant, no matter how many women say 'we are pregnant'. Good luck for the rest of your life.