Don’t know if this is okay here since it’s not an abortion story per se, but it is connected. Feel free to delete if not. I had an abortion about 2 years ago as a 38 year old married mother of two. The IUD I had placed after I gave birth to my younger child was expelled from my body, unbeknownst to me. I wrote the following recently about a friend, who, though she is religious, I always thought was an honest, compassionate, caring person. I don’t know why I took it so personally upon discovering that she attended the “March for Life” in DC, but I did.
Here is what you’re telling me when you say you’re “pro-life”: You’re saying that you think I should suffer through 3+ months of tortuous Restless Legs Syndrome and the resulting little to no sleep it brings while I’m caring for two small children. Normally I’m able to manage my RLS, but it gets exponentially worse during pregnancy, a time when you can’t take medication for it. I have also tried every safe natural remedy I could find and none of them worked. Last time it was so bad I was at the point where I wouldn’t have minded dying just to make the feelings stop. That is in no way an exaggeration. You are saying that you think this condition should be a normal consequence of sexual intercourse for me. You’re saying I should risk my physical and mental health, that I should divide my time and attention yet again, that I should give my two very much alive and sentient children less of me than they really need. You think I should risk further straining my relationship with my husband and endure at least another 2 years of sleep deprivation on top of the 5 I have endured already. (I welcome you to go 7 years without adequate sleep and see how you feel.) It means you want me to stretch our family’s financial resources to their limit. We would need to buy a larger car, to buy back all of the baby items we’ve already given away, and to delay my career for years longer than we planned. You’re essentially saying that I should give up having a physical relationship with my husband if I don’t want more children because no birth control (not even sterilization) is 100% effective. I’m sure that would work out really well for us as a couple. You’re saying that, at best, I’m misguided and gullible and, at worst, I’m a murderer and a whore. You’re saying you’re not a caring, compassionate person and I can’t count you as a friend. If you don’t care about my life, my family’s, and those of countless other women whose stories are not mine to tell, then what you’re really saying is that you’re not actually pro-life at all.
