I remember what it was like the moment I realized I might be pregnant from a broken condom and failed Plan B. I remember standing in a crowded store buying a pregnancy test – which I had never even thought about having to buy until that moment. And then I remember the test instantly changing to positive.
I go to a conservative Christian college in the southeast and you can only imagine the nightmare that I felt finding out that I was pregnant at a school who denounced even having sex before marriage – much less ending an unwanted pregnancy.
Then the nightmare of having to tell my boyfriend set in. The boyfriend who a week prior to this happening decided we couldn’t have sex anymore before he felt like he was sinning. He couldn’t even come with me to get it and essentially I was alone. He came to be with me after but I had to walk from my car into the place with screaming WHITE MEN outside the clinic. Telling me I didn’t have to do this. “Just come talk to me,” they said while simultaneously holding signs that called me a murderer. I had to sit in the waiting room scared to death of what if a lunatic decided today was the day to shoot up an abortion clinic. The funny thing is after leaving the clinic the same people being nice before were now shouting at me calling me a murderer- I should go to hell they said. I felt like I was in hell in that moment.
The worst part is that I felt shame for what I was doing – not based on my own beliefs but because of the beliefs of the school I attend. A school that can’t even have a conversation about sex in general even though half the students are having unprotected sex because they don’t know any better. I’ve felt shame every time someone at my school mentions the sanctity of life, it’s like I want to shrivel into a ball and escape the conversation because they can’t even imagine that someone at their precious perfect school could ever even imagine about having an abortion.
Sometimes I wonder if everyone knew what I did if I would have any friends at the school or not. I know I made the right choice… but I wish everyone else did too.
