Content: This post talks about abortions and reproductive health in general and describes the circumstances of my abortion. There’s no mentioning of medical details.
I’ve had an abortion. It’s almost ten years ago now, but considering the political situation I want to write about it. I don’t live in the US but the right to safe abortions is actually threatened where I live too, although not as blatantly (yet).
When I had my abortion, I got pregnant by accident. I’m not going to get into specific details more than that it’s very unlikely for a pregnancy to occur the way it did for me. I discovered that I was pregnant very early, because even though I didn’t think it could have happened I felt so bad and my body was in such a chaos that I decided to buy a test anyway. I was shocked when it turned out to be positive, really shocked, but I knew that I wasn’t ready to become a parent. Two weeks later I had the abortion, and even though it was sad, it wasn’t traumatic. There were things going on in my life that were sad and very difficult around that time, but having the abortion was a decision I was comfortable with.
I was an adult when this happened. I had a a job with a salary that could have been enough to support a child with, and I had a stable living situation. The pregnancy happened through consensual sex. Still, I was simply not ready to be a parent. So I had the abortion, and I have never regretted it.
My abortion was sad but not traumatic, and one of the reasons for that is that I wasn’t judged for having it. The nurse and other healthcare professionals didn’t judge me for it, the friends I told about it didn’t judge me. I didn’t have do give any kind of explanation or justify why I made the decision I made, because everybody agreed on that it was my right to decide. This is what reproductive health is about – respecting every individual’s right to decide what to do with their body. It’s about giving people autonomy enough to decide when to become a parent without risking your own life through illegal abortions.
Access to safe, affordable abortions means that children can be born to parents who want to be parents. That is a beautiful thing.
the uninspirational 