A beautifully written and important thing.

[summer_jackel]

This lovely and sad piece of writing is one of the finest and most important things I've seen written regarding Choice in some time. Well worth reading.

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is an amazing link. I have often said that if I became accidentally pregnant I would consider keeping the child or aborting, but adoption was simply not an option for me. I cannot bear the thought of someone else raising my child. Someone else possibly raising my child in ways I disapprove of. That is just not okay. I'll have a child or I won't, but if I have a child I don't want it taken away from me.

Abortion is fine because it's just choosing not to have a child, and I really don't mind ending a pregnancy. Not that I don't have emotional issues with abortion. Although really, it's not abortion or the thought of an abortion that fucked me up. It was being late with my period and wondering if I might be pregnant and realizing that I absolutely hated the thing inside me if there was a thing inside me. I love kids. I want kids. But I wasn't ready to have them. And my reaction to the hypothetical exactly what I wanted but not yet was pure emotional hatred. Intellectually I knew that if I were pregnant, it wasn't possibly its fault. But I hated it.

It took me a while to deal with that. But an abortion itself... I don't think that'd have added that much to any emotional turmoil beyond what actually having it be a pregnancy would have added. I probably wasn't pregnant; I was probably just late. I often am late if I get sick or worn out when I should have been ovulating. I got my period before I got tested. It could have been an early pregnancy loss. I'll never know and it doesn't really matter. I was sexually active, but I was using condoms, so most likely I was just late.

But adoption was not and is not an option for me.

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

It really is quite an eye-opening story. I've often thought that adoption would be traumatic for the mother, even if she absolutely didn't want the kid---bonding to an infant is one of the most deeply ingrained instincts in most mammals, after all. And you really don't see anything written about it, probably because so many people are hungry to adopt babies. (the right color and problem-free, of course).

Thank you for sharing your own story---I can really empathize with how having the right thing at the wrong time would hurt like hell. As for myself, I never want a kid and would make a horrid mother, but every now and again, arrogantly thinking it would be kinda nifty to spread my genes, I've considered donating genetic material. Even there, it brings up that aversion to having someone else who I might not approve of raising my genetic spawn. I decided that I can easily imagine letting a close friend have some genetic material if he/she really wanted it (even if this person didn't raise the spawn exactly as I would, which is probably good since I'd do a lousy job mothering...) but I'd not want someone "not of my pack" to do so. An actual baby would be even worse.

[kimberly-t.livejournal.com]

An incredibly emotional piece that does indeed break the silence, on a topic that most pro-lifers abslutely ignore; their concern really does end as soon as the baby is born. Thank you for providing the link. *bookmarks it for later reference*

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

most welcome! Yeah, it was really touching to hear this woman's story; I've often thought that giving up a baby would be incredibly hard even if you absolutely didn't want it, but nobody ever talks about this.