Abortion: The Non-Debate

In the immortal words of some pathetic character in a Muriel Spark novel, 'It is with great trepidation that I take up my pen,' to make a few observations on the unending, unresolvable question of you-know-what. Ordinarily I don't get involved. My private opinion on abortion is that it sucks, and that banning it is not the way to end it. Your mileage may vary; I certainly will not try to alter anyone else's opinion.

No, I merely have a couple of observations, speaking as a woman who has now traversed two pregnancies. The second resulted in the most objectively wonderful baby ever conceived in all of time :-). The first miscarried.

The first time I was pregnant, I felt like a glass bubble full of magic. I tiptoed around in a state of exaltation. I made sententious speeches to long-suffering friends, about how my attitude toward abortion, gender, politics and life in general was transformed; how I could never, ever conceive of having one, even though I had been pro-choice for twenty years previously.

Then I came down with a raging fever and strep infection. I was terrified, particularly as a dear friend had recently lost a pregnancy under similar circumstances; I hastened to a doctor, got a blood test and some antibiotics, and miscarried eighteen hours later. The doctor later informed me that my hormone levels indicated that the pregnancy had probably terminated before I'd come down with the strep.

Whatever. I didn't want to talk about it, mainly because if I didn't talk about it, I was okay. It was only when someone said something like "I'm so sorry" that I had an emotional breakdown. It is worth mentioning, however, that exactly one regular reader of right-wing extremist web fodder bothered to say, "I'm so sorry." The rest either ignored the issue entirely or said actively cruel things.

But whenever I did tell people, I discovered that first trimester miscarriages are incredibly common. At least sixty percent of the women I confided in replied with, "Yes, I had one too." It almost came to seem that a miscarriage was a prerequisite for a healthy pregnancy. People just don't talk about it.

So when anti-abortion activists count every first trimester abortion as 'one murdered baby,' this is, on the most fundamental level, not true. A pregnancy in the first trimester is a potential baby, whether abortion is legal or not. Nature is not moral; it is profligate, extravagant and wasteful. It flings the seeds of life around with wild abandon, letting them blossom or rot where they fall, without a focused plan. Human intention is not the master of all.

When I got pregnant again, I didn't tell anyone for quite awhile. My attitude was, "okay, we'll see." When I had my first ultrasound and they said, "There's your baby," I said, "Really? Are you sure? Is it alive?" I got attached gradually, fearful of another betrayal.

But this one was, of course, wildly successful. Which brings me to my second observation; that bringing a baby to term is, in the most literal sense, labor. It is really really hard. I didn't expect to get so stupid; I lost nearly all creativity, mental acuity and physical power while I was pregnant. I didn't make art, I scarcely wrote, I got breathless going upstairs. By my eighth month I was unable to give a massage without almost passing out. Pregnancy was comparable to building a house with my bare hands, in terms of the drain on my mental and physical resources.

It would behoove anti-abortion activists, then, to recognize this fact if they are truly interested in ending abortion for good and all and forever. Expecting a woman to undertake this task without physical, financial or emotional support for the duration is absurd. Too many (mostly male) persons seem to believe that babies are things which just happen if you don't interfere. The reality is a bit more complicated than that.