The Abortion, a Confession

The Abortion (1971), a novel by Richard Brautigan

How many of you have had or have been intimately involved with an abortion? Maybe you knew a close friend or family member? No one? Not one of you? It's a touchy subject, isn't it.  For some, difficult to admit. Maybe as a woman it saved your life. 

Perhaps you were raised to believe that the aborting of a fetus is the killing of a life.

Some religions believe that. Other religions believe that a fetus is not a life. It's certainly not a person. These believers think that life begins at birth when the fetus is detached from the mother and a child takes his or her first breath. Until that moment it is part of a living, breathing human being

Our language uses the verb “born” when a child comes into the world separated from the mother.

I had a philosophy teacher in college who believed that a sperm was no different from a fetus based on its ultimate purpose. That, to me, coincides with Roman Catholic doctrine that says the rhythm method is the only acceptable form of birth control.

How many of you believe that?

I'm going out on a limb here. I don't want to judge. I just want to get to the facts of an extremely contentious, sensitive situation with far reaching effects for all.

I wonder what our Founding Fathers thought? Or better yet, what our Founding Mothers believed?

Mothers weren't really involved in "political" decisions. Too bad. We may have been way ahead of this political game by now, a game that is actually a personal decision, not a political or governmental one. That is what I believe. Free choice. 

I don't like the idea of abortion. As a principle it repulses me. I am disturbed by abortion being a handy tool following conception. I was raised Catholic and although I've changed my mind about abortion, which I once believed to be murder, I hold a great deal of Catholic guilt about many things, including abortion.

I am one of many recovering Catholics who walk the streets carrying guilty baggage yet soothed by my understanding of the heart of Jesus's message: Love your neighbor as yourself. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I restate: a fetus is not my neighbor. It is a potential human being that until the final trimester cannot live on its own. The mother is my neighbor.

I believe in equal protection for all citizens as stated in the Fourteenth amendment (1868), which essentially declared slavery unconstitutional. Many slave women were impregnated unwittingly by their owners. Presumably, according to law, when Black women were freed from ownership, and accorded equal protection, that included being free like all citizens to make personal decisions about their bodies. 

I'm not a lawyer, just a fellow citizen trying to follow the laws and do the right thing. Our constitution applies to all citizens, whether they live in Alabama or Alaska, Texas or California. Whether they come from the White upper class elite or the poor Black ghettos.

Our 16th President Abraham Lincoln said  "a house divided against itself will not stand." If states within our nation want to outlaw abortion, a right of equality that has been protected since 1868, more specifically for the past 50 years under Roe v. Wade, we will eventually break apart. We will not be one nation. 

All of the polls I have seen reveal that about 60% of people in the US disapprove of outlawing abortion, with less than 40% approval of outlawing abortion.

The new Supreme Court voted 6 to 3 to make the decision a state’s right. Three of those six votes were by Justices appointed by President Donald Trump, who never won a majority of the popular vote. Who was impeached and appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett shortly before the Election in 2020 that he lost, no matter what he says. Two of the conservative justices on the recent decision were accused of sexual impropriety, Justices Clarence Thomas (by Anita Hill) and Brett Kavanaugh (by Christine Blasey Ford) during their questioning before the US Senate.

I wonder if either one was ever involved with an abortion to save his ass? 

We fought a horrific Civil War, in which more than 630,000 men, brothers fighting brothers, were killed because of a states’ right argument.

Kavanaugh is obviously a child of white male privilege, who fooled Republican Senators Susan Collins (R- Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R- Alaska) during questioning for SCOTUS. They understood that Kavanaugh would not rule against a Supreme Court precedent. They were alluding to Roe v Wade. He misled them.

I wonder if any of the three Trump appointees had been asked if they had ever been involved or knew a close friend or relative who had an abortion, how they would have answered? I think I know.

It's mainly poor, vulnerable women who are faced with abortion. The wealthy can ship an unwanted child off to a care home, or easily arrange an abortion and hide it. As though it never happened.

Just think if Justice Kavanaugh had copped to the truth that he attempted to rape Christine Blasey Ford which seems very likely. He probably would not have been named to the Supreme Court, but it would have been the right thing to do. He would have risen above the wimp factor.

"I like beer," he told the Senators.

I confess that I was a supportive participant in an abortion. There were all sorts of reasons and they made sense at the time. And whether I knew it or not, I had white male privilege going for me. It was most difficult for my partner and ultimately her decision. She handled it willingly and courageously.

The only way we will advance as a nation is to give women the right to make decisions regarding their bodies, as it's been for the past 50 years. Abortion is a personal decision, not a state's decision. Most of the states that are outlawing abortion have legislators whose districts have been gerrymandered to favor conservative white men. That's a fact, not fiction. Those are the same states that want to keep certain people from voting. 

That's my story. What's yours?