.png)
Like most Americans, I remember exactly where I was on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. I was healing from a very recent abortion. It was early in the morning at the suburban apartment complex where I slept in my boyfriend’s bedroom, a room with walls covered in his drawings and artwork, multi-colored Christmas lights strung across the tops of the walls, the scents of marijuana and cigarette smoke permeating the fabric of the comforter under which I lay. A month prior, on my 19th birthday, I had been in that same apartment, this time sitting on the edge of the toilet in the dingy bathroom he shared with his two other roommates, staring at a positive pregnancy test, heart racing, hands clammy, full of disbelief at what I was seeing. I thought I had done everything right. I was on the pill. But those pink lines glared back at me, my own twin towers of grief.
I didn’t have my shit together at nineteen in the slightest. I mean, does anyone, really? My boyfriend was a drug dealer and an opioid addict, his roommates were some combination of the same, and I suppose in hindsight, I could also have fallen into that category as well. I lived my life in a cloudy haze of whatever numbing agent got me through the days, mostly marijuana, hot-boxing in my car while listening to PJ Harvey as I drove to my retail job at Urban Outfitters. A+ mother material.
I recall thinking that even if I did carry the baby, it probably wouldn’t make it to term because of my lifestyle. Honestly, I knew as soon as I saw that positive result, that this child was not ready for the world, and I was not ready for it. I find it amusing now that I had the common sense to know, deep in my bones, that having a baby was a bad idea, yet I still couldn't bring myself to leave the emotionally and physically abusive boyfriend who would have been its father for at least a few more years. If I was tied forever to this person—who frequently spit in my face, fed me drugs, and choke-slammed me against walls—for the rest of my life, it would have been detrimental to both me and the baby. I did know that much. I made the plans to take care of it.
My boyfriend didn’t protest. It seemed to just be a given that this was what I would do. He didn’t even offer to take me or help pay for the medical procedure. I asked a girlfriend who recently had an abortion to help me navigate getting medical coupons through the state since I had very little income from my retail job. I booked a cheap hotel room for the night of, and my best friend accompanied me to the appointment. She stayed with me in that grimy hotel afterward while I cried and vomited, and hugged myself in a fetal position from the bleeding and cramps. I made the right choice, but that didn’t make the experience any easier. I questioned my intuition for months afterward but every time my boyfriend abused me or emotionally blackmailed me, I sent a silent message to the baby, “I did it to protect you. I did it to protect myself. It wasn’t our time yet.”
A month after my nineteenth birthday, on that fateful Tuesday morning, I was still foggy from pain meds when one of the old boyfriend’s roommates stormed into the bedroom yelling, “Turn on the TV! America is under attack!” He was wild-eyed and excited, the way one gets when our adrenaline is pumping but we haven’t fully realized the true danger of the situation. The towers hadn’t fallen yet. I called my parents to see if they had heard from my oldest brother, who was living in New York City for graduate school at that time. They told me he was okay, having stopped in a shoe store to buy some tennis shoes for the miles-long walk back to his apartment. Tears streamed down my face as I watched those poor souls jump from the top of the building, sealing their fate. What a choice to make. What a choice I had just made. What can you do when there are no good answers, only a choice that will hurt a little less than the other?
***
I have been thinking about that day and this story for the past year. A continuous voice in my subconscious urging me to process it on the page. I am writing this on the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks. I am thirty-nine. I have a child, born one month prior to the global pandemic that has raged on for the past eighteen months. In August, America finally pulled the last of its troops out of Afghanistan, marking twenty years of a failed war against an enemy of our own construct, a direct result of 9/11. The Taliban is beating and whipping journalists and protestors, as women are forced back into an ultra-conservative existence of erasure. In Texas, they just passed a draconian law restricting abortions after six weeks; enabling everyday citizens to target and report anyone who aids in a life-saving abortion procedure, from the doctor to the Uber driver who provides the patient a ride. Everything changed on September 11, 2001, and today it seems that on September 11, 2021, nothing has changed. The world does not feel safer. Women, minorities, and members of the LGBTQ community are still fighting for equality.
My baby came into this world greeted by loving parents and a safe and caring home. They are the greatest gift I have ever received, and I am grateful every day for the life I was able to choose for us; for the life I am able to give them now, when I was physically and emotionally ready to do so. [I would add financially ready, but like millions of others, I lost my job in the pandemic. Prior to that, my partner and I stayed up nights, wracking our brains, struggling to figure out how we would manage the astronomical cost of childcare on our mediocre salaries. As I write this, I haven't been able to go back to work full-time because we can't afford full-time childcare.] I want my story to serve as a reminder that there is no perfect circumstance for bringing life into the world. Raising a child is really fucking hard, beautiful, but fuck, did I mention it’s hard? Even with all the cards seemingly stacked in your favor, things can shift very quickly. The decision to carry a child should be forced upon no one.
I often think of 9/11 and all those children who lost their parents. I think of how a celebrity, of all people, Jon Stewart, had to plead with our government to extend the Victim Compensation Fund to provide money to the families of people who died or were injured when the World Trade Center’s towers collapsed. Where were our "pro-life" representatives then? I often wonder what would have happened to me if I hadn’t had the option to make my own healthcare choices. Would my child and I still be tethered to an abusive person? What would that alternative life look like for us? It's unfathomable to me why every citizen in this country isn't pleading for paid maternity leave, universal healthcare, subsidized childcare, and accessible mental health care for parents. Why aren’t we all fighting for food justice and affordable housing while children are sleeping in cars? The "pro-life" argument is utterly hollow if we aren’t fighting for the adults and children already alive, breathing, and in need of care right now.
Much on this topic has already been covered by people who are vastly more knowledgeable and eloquent than I am. As the overturning of Roe v. Wade looms large, it feels urgent to share and normalize our abortion stories. Having an abortion wasn't a choice I made lightly and it angers me that there are people who think else does. But it was the right decision for me. Abortion is health care, and future parents deserve the right to make an informed decision with their medical provider as to what is best for their body, their baby, their family, and their life.
The "unborn" are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don't resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don't ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don't need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don't bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It's almost as if, by being born, they have died to you. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.
Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.
*The original piece was written in September of 2021 and updated in May 2022.
Comments