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In my case, the decision to end a pregnancy is probably the most traumatic experience of my life. And I am a survivor of extreme childhood sexual and physical abuse that has left me with brain injuries, PTS and mutilated genitals. I've also been chronically poor and often homeless throughout my life, have been raped, beaten and robbed. So, when I say it's probably the most traumatic, it's not hyperbole; I know trauma.
I resisted the procedure. The pregnancy was killing me, but I felt like SUCH a failure: I couldn't even mother right, that I just wanted to die with my daughter. I CHOSE that pregnancy, planned for it, mentally, I mean. Being an abuse survivor, I'd been afraid, in the past, to mother; I was afraid I'd perpetuate the cycle of abuse. So, my decision to mother was a conscious, well-planned and deeply self-inspected one.
The problem with the idea of dying with my daughter was that I probably would not die, but might end up a vegetable. I had to undergo the procedure.
Because I'm low income, the only medical attention I could get was factory-style. My psychological state was never a factor. They did not honor my request to let me keep the remains for burial. It was all horrible, demeaning, traumatizing, indifferent, impersonal, cold.
If a woman needs a late term abortion, I can only imagine the personal suffering she must endure: the grief, the shame, the sense of failure, the terror. I do not believe any but a TINY minority of women (and that minority ought not mother, anyway, I'd guess) would feel that child growing in her body and not go through agony about ending that pregnancy. And I do not believe most would undergo the procedure only because a pregnancy would inconvenience them. I think that's a reactionary propaganda tactic.
I think we need to respect women, assume women can make our own medical decisions without the Big Brother State (of theocracy) telling us what to do with the contents of our wombs.
Women are not silly airheads. We don't have abortions on a whim. We get manicures, facials, plastic surgery and hair dos for that, if we want. An abortion is not a spa treatment and we don't think of it that way. For the men who think we do, go screw yourselves and stop screwing US!
In my case, the decision to end a pregnancy is probably the most traumatic experience of my life. And I am a survivor of extreme childhood sexual and physical abuse that has left me with brain injuries, PTS and mutilated genitals. I've also been chronically poor and often homeless throughout my life, have been raped, beaten and robbed. So, when I say it's probably the most traumatic, it's not hyperbole; I know trauma.
I resisted the procedure. The pregnancy was killing me, but I felt like SUCH a failure: I couldn't even mother right, that I just wanted to die with my daughter. I CHOSE that pregnancy, planned for it, mentally, I mean. Being an abuse survivor, I'd been afraid, in the past, to mother; I was afraid I'd perpetuate the cycle of abuse. So, my decision to mother was a conscious, well-planned and deeply self-inspected one.
The problem with the idea of dying with my daughter was that I probably would not die, but might end up a vegetable. I had to undergo the procedure.
Because I'm low income, the only medical attention I could get was factory-style. My psychological state was never a factor. They did not honor my request to let me keep the remains for burial. It was all horrible, demeaning, traumatizing, indifferent, impersonal, cold.
If a woman needs a late term abortion, I can only imagine the personal suffering she must endure: the grief, the shame, the sense of failure, the terror. I do not believe any but a TINY minority of women (and that minority ought not mother, anyway, I'd guess) would feel that child growing in her body and not go through agony about ending that pregnancy. And I do not believe most would undergo the procedure only because a pregnancy would inconvenience them. I think that's a reactionary propaganda tactic.
I think we need to respect women, assume women can make our own medical decisions without the Big Brother State (of theocracy) telling us what to do with the contents of our wombs.
Women are not silly airheads. We don't have abortions on a whim. We get manicures, facials, plastic surgery and hair dos for that, if we want. An abortion is not a spa treatment and we don't think of it that way. For the men who think we do, go screw yourselves and stop screwing US!
