I am called a liberal hippie. I have been referred to as a feminist. In high school, I toted the slogan “a woman has the right to choose.” In those days of my youth, I always said that I would never have an abortion, but I would forever support a woman’s right to do that.
In college I became pregnant. The first words out of the fathers mouth were “I am too young to be a father.” He did not want the child and I didn’t know what to do. Numbly, I stumbled through the process as he led me to the doctors office. I laid myself down on a table in a planned parenthood clinic and lost a piece of my soul.
The process was too easy. I never had to talk about the emotional effect this would have on me. There was a 2 minute with a counselor before the procedure, but that wasn’t enough to make me understand the emotional toll this would take on me. There was no follow up therapy to help me through the collapse I experienced. Nobody told me that five years later I would be still thinking about what I could have done differently.
A woman has the right to choose abstinence, the right to choose birth control, the right to choose adoption. Life should not be a choice. In cases when a woman is raped or when a woman’s life is in danger or when the child is a product of incest, abortion should be an option.
When a young woman is scared she should have to face the fear that is a result of her actions. If we outlawed abortion, there could be serious ramifications, clothes hanger abortions in back rooms, women taking dangerous illegal drugs or throwing themselves down stairs to cause miscarriages, dumpster babies. However, handing out abortions like antibiotics isn’t a viable solution.
Serious time should be taken to show a woman all of her options. Someone should be there to talk with her about what abortion really means. More money should be put into places like Planned Parenthood so that they can pay for real counselors who can have multiple sessions with a girl before she makes the decision to abort, and if a woman still wants to have an abortion there should be multiple counseling sessions afterward.