Abortion » The Chronicles of Munchkin Land

Hypotheticals I’d Rather Avoid

Abortion, Adoption, in General, Parenting 4 Responses »

Aug 292008

A hypothetical question was posed in a community I frequent:

If, hypothetically, Roe v Wade was overturned. You find yourself pregnant, with no desire to keep it.

What would you do?

Oh, the hypothetical! Don’t birth parents live in the “What If” enough without questions like these? Despite wanting to launch into a lengthy debate with people who have little to no knowledge about adoption, I didn’t respond. Instead, I mulled it over for awhile before realizing, “Oooh! Blog fodder!”

And so, what would I do?

First of all, this is hard for me to now imagine. Having been through the placement of a child, knowing that relinquishment is almost always less about a desire to “keep” a child and more about circumstance, I really doubt I would find myself lacking a complete desire to keep my child. I also would move hell and high water to parent my child if I was ever again in a position in which finances or parenting situations were not optimal. So, I’m having trouble jumping into this hypothetical.

All the same, what would I do?

I would not place another child for adoption. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t be able to be the parent I need to be for the two boys living under my roof should I have to relinquish another child. And so, imagining that something has gone entirely wrong in my marriage and with my finances and has left me thinking and acting in crisis mode while pregnant?

I’d parent.

I know everyone was expecting me, Mrs. ProChoice Activist, to say that I’d cross the line into Canada and have an abortion. Or that I’d risk it and have some illegal abortion in the United States. But while I will fiercely protect a woman’s right to choose what she does in this kind of scenario, I don’t think I have it in me to have an abortion. I’m weird like that, perhaps. But unless it was a life or death decision on the table between myself and the child, I don’t think I could have an abortion. (Reason for the previous statement is because I need to be alive for my living children. Of course!)

And so, the naysayers are about to say, “OMG! YOU’D RESENT YOUR CHILD! HE’D RUIN YOUR LIFE! IT WOULD BE HELL! GIVE IT TO SOMEONE WHO WANTS IT!!!111??~~!” Well, all I’ve got to say is: I’ve been a mother. I am a mother. I know that there are good days. There are bad days. There are days when parents who desperately did everything in their power to bring a child into their family find themselves thinking, “OMG! WHAT DID WE DOOOOOOOO?!” And I know that guilt that crosses over you for thinking such a thing that very next time your son walks up to you and says, “Mommy, I love you,” after he’s been a complete heel all day long.

And so, I’d parent. I’d do it umpteen times over. In a crisis pregnancy situation that even had me contemplating such questions and actions, I’d high-tail it to therapy to help me sort through the issues before the child was born. But I’d parent. Hands down. No other option for me.

(And then I commented anyway! Headdesk for me.)

What Would the Numbers Say?

Abortion, Adoption, in General, Parenting 2 Responses »

Feb 212008

Found a site that kind of makes me ill. But this isn’t a scathing review of the site. (Not necessary. It’s ick enough on its own!) My question is about this statement:

83% of women who struggle after an abortion say they would have changed their decision if they’d had support from a partner, family member or special person during pregnancy.

Maybe it is true. (Though you can skew statistics to say whatever you want!) I don’t doubt that some mothers who abort have regrets. But that’s not my experience so I’m not going to hit on it anymore out of respect for the issues that come with that life decision. But I do wonder what the numbers would say about adoption.

How many mothers would have parented if they would have had support from a partner, family member or special person? How many mothers would have been able to calm down if someone had taken their hand and said, “It’s okay.” How many mothers would have benefited from someone showing them some info about assistance made available to them and their child?

It kind of breaks my heart a little. I find sadness in the fact that the decision to place is most made completely alone or with very little positive support for any other option other than placement. Choice is a relative term when everyone that “matters” in your life is telling you that you must do something or the consequences will be heavily paid. For those mothers that had absolutely no one, either by the choice of not divulging the pregnancy or because they were shunned after the pregnancy became known, I’m wondering if they ever felt that there was another option. At all.

I wish there was a resource without a presumptive name (like that site which gives expectant mothers a title that they don’t need until the Termination of Parental Rights is signed) that would just “be there” for mothers (and fathers!). I wish I could “do” more than sit here and write. But it’s all I’ve got right now.

So write I must.