OK. Suppose a married woman, or a woman in a long term relationship, gets pregnant. In most cases, her partner/husband will NOT be OK with her giving up the baby for adoption. Hell, even if a woman got knocked up from a one night stand, the rest of her family might not want her to give the child up for adoption, other than to another family member.
If I’d gotten pregnant when I was single, for instance, and my parents knew about it, they would have been shocked at first. But they would have wanted and expected me to keep the pregnancy, and then keep the baby. They would have been horrified if I had given the baby up for adoption.
An ex-roommate had sex with her boyfriend because of peer pressure. She was seventeen, maybe eighteen, mixed-race, but raised by white adoptive parents who probably adopted more children than they had the emotional resources to raise. (Some of the children in the family may have been acquired biologically rather than via the adopt a foster child route–I no longer remember for sure.)
At any rate, bad (limited) sex education from her peers led her to believe that if she didn’t have sex by a certain age, she’d never be able to do so. Add in a pinch of curiousity, and the fact that she was dating a sexually experienced white boy she believed to be too good for her, and of course she had sex.
And then she discovered that the jerk she was dating was only in it for the novelty (and sex), as he offered his best buddy a chance at her that same evening.
And then she found herself pregnant, told her parents, and was hustled off to the doctor for a quick abortion.
It was my impression when she told me this story more than a decade ago, that abortion was the only logical and reasonable solution to her problem–she was not equipped to raise a child at that point, and couldn’t have coped with feeling like she was abandoning a mixed race child by giving it up for adoption. And she was on drugs which are contra-indicated for pregnancy.
But she still had mixed feelings because of how it was handled–she felt like her parents made the decision without her input and too quickly.
I do not consider myself to be pro-choice–I feel too strongly that life begins at conception. But I don’t kid myself that abortion is the worst possible ending for a given pregnancy, for either the child or the mother.
I mean, I WANTED to have children and I still had sex lots of times when I either didn’t want to conceive, knew I could conceive (during my period or something) or even WHEN I WAS ALREADY PREGNANT!!
For most people, sex is pretty darn fun, even if they’re not trying to make the babby.
Further to the OP - good for you for sharing such a personal story - and yes, while I don’t think abortion is shameful in anyway, it is sort of personal. A bit like if you needed to have uterine polyps removed you probably wouldn’t tell someone you just met while waiting for the bus.
As a teen my parents/mother were the exact opposite of your parents - mom used to say if I turned up pregnant she would take me in to have it ‘sucked out’. Needless to say, I was DRILLED about birth control options and typically used three or four types at a time so I was able to avoid an unwanted pregnancy. With that in mind I would certainly have got one in your circumstances and while I’m ashamed to admit that my eyebrow goes up a little when I hear about people who’ve had multiple, multiple abortions (I personally know a woman who’s had 7. :dubious: have you not figured out what’s causing them??) I would never condemn a woman for exercising her right to choose.
My mother took me so it wasn’t an issue. I was an irresponsible fifteen year old. I would have lived in denial until it was too late but SHE took responsibility and dragged me out there to a place much like PP but they seemed very brusque and unfriendly. My boyfriend paid but he was in the military so he couldn’t get off to come with us. It hurt tremendously and I was ashamed and crying the entire time. I was more ashamed because the other young ladies in the room looked at me like I was an blubbering idiot. I guess I was, but I was so alone and scared. They wouldn’t let my mom in to be with me, and she said she heard me crying from across the building.
The only comfort was when they gave me nitrous and I remember telling the nurse she had pretty eyes. Then the sound of the hose sucking and I had to lay in recovery for a while. They gave us cookies and little cups of juice.
About an hour later I felt okay and we stopped off for Chinese on the way home. I had a few flashbacks from those needle sharp pains but I never regretted the decision, not even once. I did wonder sometimes, like after a few years what the baby might have been like if I carried the pregnancy to term, but eh, I never saw the boyfriend again and I had a few more years of growing up to do.
Sorry I ended up telling my whole story when I just meant to answer that one question.
I don’t think parents should be notified.
I would want to know, but it wouldn’t be my business. There are some things a young woman shouldn’t have to tell anyone she’s not ready to tell, and this is one of them.
My reason may be different from most, but I had sex because I wanted my boyfriend to love me, and I knew he didn’t. It made sense at the time. I thought it would keep him from joining the military or he’d marry me and take me away with him (as if I needed to be more than 100 feet from my mama!)
But he left me anyway.
I didn’t really enjoy it that much. I didn’t really enjoy sex at all until I was in my late 20s.
This wasn’t meant for me but I want to say that I was never offered anything at all for pain. The nitrous took the edge off but after 26 years I can still vividly remember the pain.
In my case:
I wanted to terminate the PREGNANCY, I hadn’t even gotten to the point of thinking about a baby yet. I would choose abortion now too over carrying a pregnancy to term then shuffling it off into the system. It’s a baby, not a puppy. But before the baby, there’s a pregnancy. Having the abortion was just as responsible as adding another human to the population. It’s not just more physically and emotionally difficult; it’s pointlessly difficult. There’s no reason not to have an abortion if a woman wants one and this whole pro-life thing is a bunch of babble intended to control women. There are millions of babies out there who have horrible lives. Why can’t potential adopters consider institutionalized children to save if they’re so concerned with their welfare instead of harping on women who choose to terminate their pregnancies before babies are made?
I’m sorry it’s just the pro-choicer in me. Not the rabid, shoot-a-prolifer type, but I’m pretty staunch in my opinion. No offense to the adopted or the adopters.
Yes. It is. She’s undoubtedly had a very rough life. But when she said: “I was born out of wedlock and my mother cast me aside and never looked back. It hurt me so much I was never willing to do that to a child” I didn’t get the impression she was talking about what she was taught, but rather what she actually believed. I’m still not grasping why adoption wasn’t a viable option for her and how she can believe both that adoption is both something she is supports wholeheartedly, yet it is something that she could never do to her child.
That’s something I’ve never understood in the pro-life stance, and forgive me if this is a hijack - but so what if “life” begins at conception? It’s a very little life, and certainly not a human baby. It’s a potential human, but millions of potential humans get flushed naturally by a woman’s body every year. It’s a life, but so’s a fish, and sort of on the same level as a fish - and most of the pro-lifers I know aren’t even vegetarians.
Is perfectly rational to me ni believe that the idea of adoption is great and it can make people very happy. But at the same time, were I a woman, I would nit carry a child for nine months, give birth and then hand the baby over to someone else for adoption. Not wanting go have a baby is not just not wanting it on it’s day of birth. It also means not wanting to be pregnant fornine months and go through childbirth and then the wrenching experience of separation, and then also the lifelong knowledge that your child is out there somewhere thinking who knows what about his or her origin and just being out there as a free radical with my genes.
All this stuff is just way too complicated for strangers to stick their noses in with their flat declarations of what you should or shouldn’t do or believer limiting hour choices because of some strager’s idea of morality. It’s just too fucking personal.
Ok, I see there are some questions specifically directed at me. it’s almost two in the morning, here, so please bear with me if my comments are a bit loopy. Also, yay for the multi-quote feature!
To be honest, I kind of feel that someone who has never had sex really doesn’t get to have a say in whether or not I shall ever have sex or why I would want to. I don’t mean it as snarky, but I believe sex is one of the fundamental drives of the human race, and I am just as average as everyone. But to answer your question, I plan to go my whole life without having children. Must I go through my whole life without having sex because someone else thinks it’s wrong? I do not want to live without sex. I don’t believe in a god or an afterlife, but if I did, I’d believe that god gave us sex because he loves us so very much. He might have said, Children, this one feature all animals can do but you are one of the very few animals that can fuck all the time and enjoy it all the time and do it without having babies. This is my blessing to you.
Not believing in a God, I feel sex is more than natural. I think the unnatural thing is expecting people to not have sex, then get married, and magically be good sexual partners, and then spend the next fifty years together without any chance of divorcing/separating and maybe with a terrible sex life to boot.
Childbirth does not have to come with it, or we’d be back to the days of women spawning children every year or so and then dying after the tenth or the fifteenth childbirth. It was horrid. So if everyone is not trying to get pregnant after every sexual encounter, why is my sexuality questioned?
I think adoption is a wonderful thing, if done right. Truly. It’s just not for me. Many people believe wholeheartedly in abortion but would never get one. Many people believe in things they would never do themselves. I will keep my personal hypocrisy.
But adoption is goddamn hard, it seems to me. That little clump of cells I aborted - that was nothing to me. I never invested anything in it. I never had my heart in it. To bear a child for nine months and then give it away - that has got to be incredibly brave and difficult. I don’t feel capable of doing it, and I would forever beat myself up morally.
As an aside: I found out that I was adopted when I was fourteen. It wasn’t the *most *traumatic way possible, but it was pretty bad, and it was the worst age, I think. Since then I spent most of the next ten years wondering why I was so bad at birth that my own mother and father didn’t want me. Father? He was married, and once he found out I was a girl, he told my mother’s family to throw me in the street. Mother? Well, she *said *she wanted me. She is the one who told me I was her daughter - right before disappearing out of my life for the next eight years. And then she had two sons and all she cares about now are her two boys. I( know about her, still, and still hear about her time to time.) My adoptive mother refused to talk about it. Is it any wonder I pretty much felt unwanted? It fucked up my life.
I won’t take the chance, not even the littlest chance, of doing that to my daughter. If somehow I **had **to have a baby girl, I’d take care of her, and in answer to another question, if she *had *to have an abortion, I would try so very hard to be strong enough to be there by her side, holding her hand, instead of letting her be all by herself. Even if I disapproved, I’d try to be there for her.
To add another thing. My SO and I both had childless aunts who gave us all the boundless love in their hearts. That’s what I am now. His brother has two little children and I’m hoping my brother will have children soon and they will all benefit from our love. It takes a village indeed. If I had my own kid to tend to, I would not be able to bestow as much extra love, time, and attention on them. When they get older they’ll get money from us. We have put money aside to help with their college education. We buy some of the big gifts for them. In short, we love them.
I feel like I was meant to pass forward what my aunt gave me - all of that unconditional love that you don’t always get from parents. They have to be strict. I can spoil. So other children are benefiting grandly from us not having kids.
And of course I believe in other women’s choices. Look at ppth. She is in almost exactly the same spot in her life as me, just a little younger (and richer!) and some of the same moral opinions. She is having her baby. I am entitled to think she is crazy. (:)). But that’s her choice. (Although the richer part will change, I think, sweetheart - the baby’s going to take it all! :D)
And I just want to add, I have had a *good *life. A lot of emotional trauma, that’s for sure, but if I spent my whole life angsting about that, that’s all I’d do. I always have to say that I never wanted for anything material. My adoptive mom brought me to this country, and I am eternally grateful to her for that. My dad gave me his last name, which may not be a big deal here, in my mind, but in his mind, I know it was. He took in someone else’s cast-off *lawaaris *child, which just doesn’t happen.
I don’t remember getting anything for pain. I don’t know if that was an option.
I know one woman touched on this, but I’ve wondered about this in the other cases. Did anyone of the other women who’ve had abortions and decided they were having kids, or never wanted them like the OP, look into getting their tube tied? I’m not really prolife, but I didn’t enjoy reading a few women post that would have NO problem simply having another abortion in the future.
But as Hamlet has pointed out, you said in regards to adoption that you’re “never willing to do that to a child” (emphasis mine).
The reasons you stated above, such as the “bravery” required and the “difficulty” of giving up a child for adoption, and how you feel you aren’t “capable” of it and you’ll “beat yourself up morally” about it. Those are your problems to deal with, not your child’s.
Can you clearly explain what it is that adoption does to the child that has made you decide you could “never do it to them”? I’d like to hear your answer within the context of your earlier comment (also highlighted by Hamlet), that you support adoption “whole-heartedly”.
Unfortunately, doctors willing to sterilize a woman under about 35 who hasn’t had kids already are pretty goddamn thin on the ground. After all, you’re young yet and things change and you don’t want to do anything drastic or permanent. Which is stupid, because it’s not like there’s anything this side of dying more drastic or permanent than parenthood. A fair number of doctors don’t even want to offer long-term birth control like IUDs to women who haven’t had kids, on the off chance that it might potentially in some cases affect future fertility. Which is even stupider because a) that doesn’t actually happen and b) a G0 looking for long-term birth control is often childless by choice and actively wants her future fertility impaired.
To sum up, the most effective forms of birth control are often denied to people who are most opposed to carrying a pregnancy to term and are thus most likely to abort in the event of birth control failure. It’s all just phenomenally stupid and counter-productive.