Article: "I wish my mother had aborted me"

[emilyj]

I thought this was a really interesting piece.

I wish my mother had aborted me
This is no 'I wish I'd never been born' howl of angst. I love my mother, and having an abortion would have given her a better life

If there is one thing that anti-choice activists do that makes me see red, it is when they parade out their poster children: men, women and children who were "targeted for abortion". They tell us "these people would not be alive today if abortion had been legal or if their mothers had made a different choice".

In the last couple of months, I have read two of these abortion deliverance stories that have been particularly offensive. The first story is one propagated by Rebecca Kiessling, the poster child for the no exceptions in cases of rape or incest. On her website Kiessling says that every time we say abortion should be allowed, at least in the case of rape or incest, we are saying to her: "If I had my way, you'd be dead right now." She goes on to say, "I absolutely would have been aborted if it had been legal in Michigan when I was an unborn child, and I can tell you that it hurts [when people say that abortion should be legal]."

The second story was on the Good Men Project this week. In an article entitled Delivered from abortion: healing a forgotten memory, Gordon Dalbey tells a highly unlikely story about his mother's decision to abort him and her eventual change of heart. I say the story is highly unlikely because the type of abortion he says his mother was about to have was not available until 50 years later. However, Dalbey claims to have recovered a memory of being "delivered" from the abortion because as a fetus he cried out to God. He claims that the near-abortion experience had caused him psychological suffering throughout his life. Since recovering the memory, he has experienced survivor's guilt because he was saved when so many other fetuses have been aborted. In explaining how he overcame this guilt, he quotes a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust who says that the purpose of surviving is to testify to the experience.

What makes these stories so infuriating to me is that they are emotional blackmail. As readers or listeners, we are almost forced by these anti-choice versions of A Wonderful Life to say, "Oh, I am so glad you were born." And then by extension, we are soon forced into saying, "Yes, of course, every blastula of cells should be allowed to develop into a human being."

Stories like Dalbey's are probably effective because they follow the same model. First there is a woman facing the unplanned pregnancy that poses severe problems. In Dalbey's case, his family is suffering from extreme poverty, and in the case of Kiessling, her mother is dealing with the aftermath of rape. The story shifts so that the mother has a divine or moral enlightenment and knows that she must carry the baby to term. We are left with an adult praising the bravery of their mothers and testifying that their lives were saved for some higher purpose. But the story goes on to tell us how even the contemplation of abortion was horribly scarring for the person. The moral of these stories is clear: considering abortion is like considering genocide.

Here is why it is so effective: people freak out when you tell an opposing story. I make even my most ardent pro-choice friends and colleagues very uncomfortable when I explain why my mother should have aborted me. Somehow they confuse the well-considered and rational: "The best choice for both my mother and me would have been abortion" with the infamous expression of depression and angst: "I wish I had never been born." The two are really very different things, and we must draw that distinction clearly.

The narrative that anti-choice crusaders are telling is powerful, moving, and best of all it has a happy ending. It makes the woman who carries to term a hero, and for narrative purposes it hides her maternal failing. We cannot argue against heroic, redemptive, happy-ending fairytales using cold statistics. If we want to keep our reproductive rights, we must be willing to tell our stories, to be willing and able to say, "I love my life, but I wish my mother had aborted me."

An abortion would have absolutely been better for my mother. An abortion would have made it more likely that she would finish high school and get a college education. At college in the late 1960s, it seems likely she would have found feminism or psychology or something that would have helped her overcome her childhood trauma and pick better partners. She would have been better prepared when she had children. If nothing else, getting an abortion would have saved her from plunging into poverty. She likely would have stayed in the same socioeconomic strata as her parents and grandparents who were professors. I wish she had aborted me because I love her and want what is best for her.

Abortion would have been a better option for me. If you believe what reproductive scientists tell us, that I was nothing more than a conglomeration of cells, then there was nothing lost. I could have experienced no consciousness or pain. But even if you discount science and believe I had consciousness and could experience pain at six gestational weeks, I would chose the brief pain or fear of an abortion over the decades of suffering I endured.

An abortion would have been best for me because there is no way that my love-starved, trauma-addled mother could have ever put me up for adoption. It was either abortion or raising me herself, and she was in no position to raise a child. She had suffered a traumatic brain injury, witnessed and experienced severe domestic violence, and while she was in grade school she was raped by a stranger and her mother committed suicide. She was severely depressed and suicidal, had an extremely poor support system, was experiencing an unplanned pregnancy that resulted from coercive sex, and she was so young that her brain was still undeveloped.

With that constellation of factors, there was a very high statistical probability that my mother would be an abusive parent, that we would spend the rest of our lives in crushing poverty, and that we would both be highly vulnerable to predatory organisations and men. And that is exactly what happened. She abused me, beating me viciously and often. We lived in bone-crushing poverty, and our little family became a magnet for predatory men and organisations. My mother found minimal support in a small church, and became involved with the pastor who was undeniably schizophrenic, narcissistic and sadistic. The abuse I endured was compounded by deprivation. Before the age of 14, I had never been to a sleepover, been allowed to talk to a friend on the phone, eaten in a restaurant, watched a television show, listened to the radio, read a non-Christian book, or even worn a pair of jeans.

If this were an anti-choice story, this is the part where I would tell you how I overcame great odds and my life now has special meaning. I would ask you to affirm that, of course, you are happy I was born, and that the world would be a darker, poorer place without me.

It is true that in the past 12 years, I have been able to rise above the circumstances of my birth and build a life that I truly love. But no one should have to make such a Herculean struggle for simple normalcy. Even given the happiness and success I now enjoy, if I could go back in time and make the choice for my mother, it would be abortion.

The world would not be a darker or poorer place without me. Actually, in terms of contributions to the world, I am a net loss. Everything that I have done – including parenting, teaching, researching, and being a loving partner – could have been done as well, if not better by other people. Any positive contributions that I have made are completely offset by what it has cost society to help me overcome the disadvantages and injuries of my childhood to become a functional and contributing member of society.

It is not easy to say, "I wish my mother had aborted me." The right would have us see abortion as women acting out of cowardice, selfishness, or convenience. But for many women, like my mother, abortion would be an inconvenient act of courage and selflessness. I am sad for both of us that she could not find the courage and selflessness. But my attitude is that as long as I am already here, I might as well do all I can to make the world a better place, to ease the suffering of others, and to experience love and life to its fullest.

ETA to actually add the link

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/15/i-wish-my-mother-aborted-me?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=feed

[overture]

"The second story was on the Good Men Project this week. In an article entitled Delivered from abortion: healing a forgotten memory, Gordon Dalbey tells a highly unlikely story about his mother's decision to abort him and her eventual change of heart. I say the story is highly unlikely because the type of abortion he says his mother was about to have was not available until 50 years later. However, Dalbey claims to have recovered a memory of being "delivered" from the abortion because as a fetus he cried out to God. He claims that the near-abortion experience had caused him psychological suffering throughout his life. Since recovering the memory, he has experienced survivor's guilt because he was saved when so many other fetuses have been aborted. In explaining how he overcame this guilt, he quotes a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust who says that the purpose of surviving is to testify to the experience."

What a fucking load of shit. Asshole.

::continues reading::

[pixy0stix]

Aug 15, 2012 22:23:49 GMT -5 emilyj said:

But no one should have to make such a Herculean struggle for simple normalcy.

Excuse me, I need to go have a sobbing mental breakdown now. :-(

[overture]

"I wish she had aborted me because I love her and want what is best for her."

:-(

Thanks for posting this. Very compelling.

[marynjoe]

A few years ago my mom told me that if abortion had been easily available to her when she conceived me, she would have had an abortion.

Gee, thanks mom.

[heightsyankee]

This is hard for me to read. My mother got pregnant just before abortion became an option for her. It was hard, we did live in poverty (although not bone crushing). She finished college in 5.5 years but was never able to do much with her degree and worked in a factory. Maybe this would have been very different if I was never born. She wasn't abusive or preyed on been men and I didn't have to fight quite so hard for normalcy. Maybe this last part is why I am glad that she didn't have an abortion? I dunno. I am fanatically pro-choice but always knew, if it was me, I would not have an abortion. I guess I'm just rambling now but this was kind of unnerving/weird for me to read...

[mcgee]

That was a very thought-provoking read. I think it's hard for some people to hear "My mother would have been better off if I hadn't been born."

I keep thinking back to that horrific photo essay we were discussing the other day with that little boy born to a 14 year old, who was growing up in poverty with no father and a shitty mother. Clearly this is a woman whose life would have been easier if she had had an abortion.

[overture]

My mom had an abortion about four years before she had me. She was married to my older sister's father (the abortion was after my sister, who was her third child), and their marriage was on the rocks. She was in a tough situation emotionally and financially when they divorced, and my older sister's father took custody of her until she was 17. I wonder what her life would have been like if she'd not terminated. Would they have stayed married? Would she have struggled even more than she did? Would my sister's father have raised two children by himself?

I have no idea what may have happened, but I do know that I would not have been born. I don't know if she considered abortion when she became pregnant with me, but with the way her life was at the time, I can't say I would have blamed her.

[emilyj]

overture, I had a similar reaction to Dalbey's part of the story. It just pissed me off to no end. I said out loud "What a fucking load of horseshit", and my husband said "The Holocaust dude?"

Just...grrrr.

[emilyj]

Aug 15, 2012 22:47:56 GMT -5 marynjoe said:

A few years ago my mom told me that if abortion had been easily available to her when she conceived me, she would have had an abortion.

Gee, thanks mom.

OMG. I'm so sorry. That must have been awful.

[sopsyched]

Don't you love when people make vague, inflammatory claims? "I cried out to God as a fetus"...WOW

[Jermys]

I was supposed to have been an abortion, but when my mother went to the teaching hospital, they told her I was dead and that she would have to wait to see if she passed me or if they would have to do a D&C. Then when she came back for the D&C like a month later, I was alive and too far along to abort.

No question, her life would have been easier with one less mouth to feed. We were fucking poor as shit my entire childhood and barely had a pot to piss in.

[Jermys]

And the part about struggling for normalcy? I get that. My mother should never have had kids and the world would be just fine without my brother and I. I'm incredibly thankful that she had an abortion when I was ten. I was already firmly raising myself and I certainly didn't need to raise another child and try to figure out how to make the food stretch to four people.

[gretchenindisguise]

Thanks for posting this.

The other piece that I find highlighted in this essay is one of my biggest beefs with the pro-life movement. Absolutely zero support once the baby is born and an organization that was supposed to help (church) that only added to the abuse. It pisses me off more than I can say.

[emmybean]

I love this piece. Love. I especially love that it makes people uncomfortable. It should. Its good that they are.

[sillygoosegirl]

I've often thought this. Though it doesn't apply to me directly. I'm sure my mom would have aborted my sister if she could have. And by extension my brother also never would have been born, since my mom wouldn't have married her jackass first husband and had a second child with him if she hadn't been forced to keep the initial accidental pregnancy. Of course, if it had been post-Roe, perhaps she would have been able to get BCPs and never would have gotten pregnant with my sister in the first place. Or maybe if my mom ha a better upbringing she never would have dated such a jerk. No abortion, but ultimately the same result.

I love my sister and find the idea of a world without her kind of horrifying. But that's not logical and it's not relevant. If my sister hadn't been born, I'd probably have a different sister or brother whose bio father was not a jackass. I'm sure I'd love him or her just as much and he or she would also be a great asset to this world. It's a crap shoot which sexual encounters lead to conception, which egg happened to be released that month and which sperm caught up with it, which conceptions become viable pregnancies, and what those people turn out like... Even without human intervention, it's a crap shoot. It is in our nature to love the people who come into our lives, but who are we to say that one person is really better than another combination that might have been achieved if the parents had sex on another night or in another position? Should I be greatful that my mom had a miscarriage a few months before she conceived me? I never could have been born if that other baby hadn't died.

[overture]

Aug 16, 2012 0:17:30 GMT -5 sillygoosegirl said:

It's a crap shoot which sexual encounters lead to conception, which egg happened to be released that month and which sperm caught up with it, which conceptions become viable pregnancies, and what those people turn out like... Even without human intervention, it's a crap shoot. It is in our nature to love the people who come into our lives, but who are we to say that one person is really better than another combination that might have been achieved if the parents had sex on another night or in another position? Should I be greatful that my mom had a miscarriage a few months before she conceived me? I never could have been born if that other baby hadn't died.

This reminds me of that Dawkins quote that always makes me teary.

"Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here."

[summer]

The bulk of the issues my mom and I have come from me trying to make up for the wreck I believe her having me caused on her life. She was 19, ridiculously emotionally immature (and continues to be), dropped out of first year college (she would have been the first in our family to go to college), and worked a number of low-paid jobs just to keep our heads above water.

Our relationship is and has always been very dysfunctional, full of resentment, manipulation, and guilt. She's "offered" to commit suicide several times since I was a teenager to "ease my burden" and has no idea what a massively fucked-up thing that is to say to your child. Now she is alone, disabled, and poor, having never had the opportunity to maybe develop into the person she could have and I will feel completely responsible for her to the detriment of the family I have now built for myself.

Every interaction I have with her I have the pressure of making up for the fact that she could have, but didn't, abort me. But she had me because she was lonely and depressed and wanted a friend to be there and take care of her for the rest of her life. Shitty reason to have a child.

[Deleted]

Very interesting!

[marie427]

Thanks for sharing this.

[twotrue]

This is a great piece. My MIL probably should have had an abortion. She had 7 children and was married and divorced all before 24. FIL wasn't around. And while I respect my MIL for keeping her kids together and a roof over their heads, their childhood was seriously fucked up. She made bad choices in partners simply to provide. Perhaps with a few less kids she wouldn't have had to make those choices. Of the 7 kids some are function better than others. Most had kids too young and started the cycle over. I love all my SILs but I imagine a few less would have given the remaining children a better foundation from which to grow.

[Melissa W.]

Aug 16, 2012 8:40:27 GMT -5 @littlemoxie said:

Warning: I can be morbid and am not a particularly emotional person, so the below may sound very harsh. It's what I have felt for years and not directed at anyone in particular.





My mom wanted me (too much, she shouldn't have even been with my cheating ass of a dad anymore), so maybe it's easy for me to say this, but I wouldn't give a shit had I been aborted.

Is anyone truly sad about not being alive and experiencing the sinking of the titanic? Does that haunt anyone on a daily basis? That is what your "experience" is like not being born. Which is to say, not a problem. The pain argument is not compelling to me as I don't remember crying for shots, being dropped, having my ears pierced, or other painful things that happened as a newborn, much less what happened in utero. I'm not Powder.

I am a decent person that is a productive member of society, but I don't think the world would be suffering a great loss had I never been born. Your kids wouldn't be there to miss you, your husband would have another wife, etc. the world would keep turning.

I guess I just think that abortions don't really matter on a macro level (well, except for the freakonomics less crime thing, perhaps). So if someone wants one for whatever reason, fine. I don't need a tear-jerking story to get on board. There are 7 billion+ people on earth. Not every single one of those people is super special that the rest of us can't live without.

I'm rambling. I guess I just feel like the emotional manipulation on both sides of the issue is too much. And the "I wouldn't be here" stuff is unnecessarily dramatic. For me, the response to that is usually "so?"

However, once you have the kid, don't be an ass and tell them you wish you had aborted them. That's uncalled for. Once someone is out and about, so to speak, treat them with love and dignity.

This is how I feel about it. My mom once said that if she had to do it all over again, she wasn't sure she would have kids. I think it is an okay thought to have but she didn't need to tell my teenage self. It came across as "welp, man, this wasn't worth it." However, I am not at all surprised anymore by the shit my mom says. This was actually tame.

[ringstrue]

MIL was raped in college and abortion wasn't an option for her at that time, so she carried the baby and gave it up for adoption. I know being a rape victim is pretty life-changing anyway, but I can't help but think of how differently her life would have gone as a budding journalist if she hadn't had to go through that long ordeal during the middle of her schooling.

[marynjoe]

Aug 15, 2012 23:11:21 GMT -5 emilyj said:

Aug 15, 2012 22:47:56 GMT -5 marynjoe said:

A few years ago my mom told me that if abortion had been easily available to her when she conceived me, she would have had an abortion.

Gee, thanks mom.

OMG. I'm so sorry. That must have been awful.

Thanks, but considering some of the things my mom has said, it didn't bug me as much as it should. Funny though, is that I'm the only child that is always looking out for my mom, making sure she is taken care of, helping her with bills, going to the doctor with her, things like that. Weird how things work.

[NitaX]

Aug 15, 2012 23:35:31 GMT -5 Jermys said:

And the part about struggling for normalcy? I get that. My mother should never have had kids and the world would be just fine without my brother and I. I'm incredibly thankful that she had an abortion when I was ten. I was already firmly raising myself and I certainly didn't need to raise another child and try to figure out how to make the food stretch to four people.

Sounds like my H's life. He's 34 and his siblings are 29, 23, 20, 16. He was never able to do anything. He wanted to play football, but was told he couldn't because he had to take care of his siblings. They were equally poor. Didn't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out.

[caitlinbree]

I can totally understand this.

My mom was 16 when she got pregnant with my older sister. She was incredibly smart, and had already gotten early admissions to college, etc, etc... Abortion was legal, but frowned upon obviously, so when she got knocked up and her loser bf proposed, she dropped out of school and got married at her parents insistence. She had a second kid with him, divorced, got married to another guy and got pregnant again, and then divorced again. By 23 she had three kids and two divorces under her belt.

Unfortunately she grew up with lots of her own issues and abuse. It made her extremely codependent and choose men who were terrible for her, and us kids. In over 30 years every single one of her boyfriends has been an addict or an abuser. Every single man she had in the house while we were growing up was either emotionally, physically, or sexually abusive to her and us kids.

I still have my own issues, but I have overcome a lot to get where I am. I have to imagine it would have just been easier for everyone had us kids not been born.

[ladybrettashley]

Aug 16, 2012 8:40:27 GMT -5 @littlemoxie said:

Warning: I can be morbid and am not a particularly emotional person, so the below may sound very harsh. It's what I have felt for years and not directed at anyone in particular.





My mom wanted me (too much, she shouldn't have even been with my cheating ass of a dad anymore), so maybe it's easy for me to say this, but I wouldn't give a shit had I been aborted.

Is anyone truly sad about not being alive and experiencing the sinking of the titanic? Does that haunt anyone on a daily basis? That is what your "experience" is like not being born. Which is to say, not a problem. The pain argument is not compelling to me as I don't remember crying for shots, being dropped, having my ears pierced, or other painful things that happened as a newborn, much less what happened in utero. I'm not Powder.

I am a decent person that is a productive member of society, but I don't think the world would be suffering a great loss had I never been born. Your kids wouldn't be there to miss you, your husband would have another wife, etc. the world would keep turning.

I guess I just think that abortions don't really matter on a macro level (well, except for the freakonomics less crime thing, perhaps). So if someone wants one for whatever reason, fine. I don't need a tear-jerking story to get on board. There are 7 billion+ people on earth. Not every single one of those people is super special that the rest of us can't live without.

I'm rambling. I guess I just feel like the emotional manipulation on both sides of the issue is too much. And the "I wouldn't be here" stuff is unnecessarily dramatic. For me, the response to that is usually "so?"

However, once you have the kid, don't be an ass and tell them you wish you had aborted them. That's uncalled for. Once someone is out and about, so to speak, treat them with love and dignity.

This is where I'm at too. Would anyone actually care if I was never born? No. It wouldn't matter. So I really have a hard time understanding pro-life people getting outraged over something that doesn't affect them at all. It affects no one. There is no one to mourn.

[aw]

My mom got pregnant with my older sister at age 17 by my father. They were each other's firsts and my mother had not graduated high school. It would have been so easy for her to get an abortion.

My dad manned up and proposed to my mother and they were married when she turned 18. They struggled financially for years, but pushed through. They have now been married for over 30 years and are two of the happiest people I know.

It's a shame more men don't do the right thing. I can't imagine the pressure being a single mom.

[AJL]

Aug 16, 2012 10:00:57 GMT -5 aw said:

My mom got pregnant with my older sister at age 17 by my father. They were each other's firsts and my mother had not graduated high school. It would have been so easy for her to get an abortion.

My dad manned up and proposed to my mother and they were married when she turned 18. They struggled financially for years, but pushed through. They have now been married for over 30 years and are two of the happiest people I know.

It's a shame more men don't do the right thing. I can't imagine the pressure being a single mom.

What a very lucky outcome. However, I can't get past these phrases though. Judgmental and condescending.

[EllieArroway]

Thanks for sharing this.

A family friend once confessed to me that if she wasn't Catholic she would have aborted her first daughter. And sadly, it probably would have been the best decision. She got pregnant in high school, dropped out, married her loser boyfriend who then became her abusive husband. She had two other kids with him before finally getting divorced, then they struggled for years because she was a single mom of three kids without even a high school diploma and her ex was a deadbeat dad who never paid child support or visited his kids. Now her daughter is pregnant at 17, so it looks like the cycle might repeat itself.