Pro-choice bloggers are speaking out today about the right to choose. I've been thinking about this subject and how my feelings about abortion have changed since I had Tori.
There is no doubt that looking into Tori's face highlights for me exactly what is lost when a pregnancy is terminated. The pangs I feel when I think about my sons Nicholas and Zachary is tremendous; since Tori's arrival, I find myself thinking about them several times a day. How I wish that I'd had another alternative, some better medical treatment that could have prolonged that pregnancy without endangering me further so the boys could be here with me now, glorious and rambunctious at nearly two years old.
But then I look at Tori and I think about how her adorable and tiny body harbors an equally adorable and tiny uterus. And I think about how my mom had preeclampsia when she was pregnant with me, and how her mother probably had it with her children. There is evidence to support the fact that preeclampsia may be a hereditary disease, meaning that Tori has a chance of developing it with her (far, far in the future) pregnancies. And since there has been little in the way of improvement in the treatment of preeclampsia since my mother was pregnant with me nearly forty years ago--they just put her on hospital bed rest and gave her magnesium sulfate, just like they did with me and the twins--well...
I think that now, more than ever, I must fight to keep abortion SAFE, LEGAL, and RARE.
I hope and pray that no other woman is told that a much wanted pregnancy has to be terminated in order to survive. I don't want anyone, ever, to have to through what I went through. It sucks. It sucks ass in a big way. That day remains the worst day of my life, and I would give anything to prevent that horror from happening to someone else.
But it does happen. It happens all the time, and someday it might happen to my daughter. And I want, no, fuck that, I DEMAND that my daughter have the right to save her own life.
So I stand before you as a mother, as fiercely Pro Choice as ever. Giving birth to my daughter has only deepened and re-affirmed my resolve to fight for the right to control our bodies. For the lives of all of our daughters, I will continue to stand on the front lines of this battle.
Pro Child, Pro Family, Pro Choice. Rock on.
