Confession

I used to be anti-choice. I was rasied that way. Not by my mom, but by my school.

My mom was a single parent and she wanted the best for me so she put me in private school--Catholic school. From as early as I can remember, I was handed plastic fetuses and shown videos of abortions and told about all the suffering abortions cause. So I remember being 11 and 12 and thinking that abortion was the worst thing on earth. I was never the "let's bomb abortion clinics" kind, but I did believe that the women that had abortions were horrible people.

Anyway, I remember being 12 and spouting off the crap I had been force fed in class, and my mom inturrupted me. She told me that I was wrong. She apologized that she let it go so long. She told me how she herself had almost had an abortion and why.

My father had told her to get pregnant..he had said he was going to marry her. So she did. And then he changed his mind. He said he didn't want to rush things. He started drinking again and beating her. Finally it became apparent that he was having an affair.

So now my mom was left with a pregnancy and a low paying job and nobody to help her. She was scared and she didn't know what to do. So she considered an abortion. She didn't choose it she said, and she is glad she didn't. But ehe said that that was her decision to make, and nobody elses, and that even though having the baby worked for her it might not have worked for everybody.

She also called my aunts and asked them to talk to me. One aunt was just not at the point in her life where she wanted a baby. 15 years later, she was. She now has 2 happy, healthy kids. My other aunt was again abandoned by someone who told her he would take care of her. She too later went on to have a child and continue with her life.

I finally got the point. I had another 6 years in Catholic school but I never again believed what they told me.

I still feel badly though. If my mom had not talked to me about her own experiences and those of people I loved, I would still be a clueless anti=choice moron.

and I was in a class for gifted and talented kids. one of the things we had to do that year was debate different topics.

Among the topics were global warming, abortion, death penatly, etc.

I kind of new what abortion was but wasn't sure. I told my teacher that I wanted to debate abortion and she said "oh but that's such a horrible thing!" and I figured she was a smart lady and knew what she was talking about.

At the time, my mom had a friend--a single mother with 1 child, living below the poverty level. There was one weekend where we had to babysit her daughter for the weekend and I happened to ask my mom why and she said "Because X had to have an abortion. Do you know what that is?" and I said "I think so. My teacher said it was horrible though. I thought X was a good person. Why would she do a horrible thing?"

So my mom sat me down and talked to me about abortion. I already knew the birdz-n-beez because my mom was a single parent who had me through unprotected sex and I was quite the epitome of an unplanned pregnancy. I knew that pregnancy could happen, and that there were alternatives if you didn't want to be pregnant. I didn't know what those alternatives were, though.

So she told me about abortion, and she said that it wasn't a horrible thing, and that i was to never let her friend know that I knew she was having an abortion.

Back then--late 80's, Charleston, SC--no planned parenthood. The only abortion place in town was this absolutely crummy office building in a drug-infested part of town. There were always horrid protesters outside with pictures of aborted fetuses. Until my mom talked with me, I never knew why those people were there, or what they were showing pictures of.

I asked her why those people were protesting, and she said that some people don't like women who have abortions. I asked why it was any of their business and she said "it's not". I remember saying that there were alot of things I didn't like, but I wouldn't stop someone from doing them, and my mom said "that's the point"

That was my first interaction with Abortion. My mom's friend had a few more over the years, and I have no opinion of that because, much like the protestors outside the building, it's not my business. I'm sure there are many things I do on a daily basis that several people would find unseemly or whatever, but it's not their business, and I have no room to comment on something that 1) I don't know occured and 2) isn't my issue.

Now, looking back, I wish I knew more about abortion at the time so that I could have stood up to my teacher. Over the years, she made a few other hateful comments towards things she didn't like, like homosexuality and things like that. Again, I was too naieve to stand up to her and let her know that not everyone felt the way she did.

---

Don't feel badly. You were a child, and you were being taught by people who had no regard for the feelings or experiences of others.

In my time, i've taken friends to abortion clinics, walked through picket lines, and held the hands of girlfriends whose boyfriends abandoned them at the mention of the 'p' word.

I hope that my actions as I was older makes up for the naievity of my younger years. We're not born with knowledge, and I think that when we know we thought or did wrong, and make active strides to change our thinking and make the world better, that absolves us of our unmature thinking skills in childhood.

I went to Catholic school, too, though somehow, I missed much of that abortion nonsense. (My schools tended to be associated with either Newman Centers or Jesuit training schools, so that may explain it. Neither Newmans nor Jesuits go in big for 7 month miscarriage pictures and violating Matthew chapter 5.)

For me, it was the notion that Communism and socialism were inherently evil (though what is a convent but a small commune, I ask...) and that we must pray for the end of both... I feel the same way about socialism now as you do about abortion - ashamed that I ever once believed it was wrong, since I consider myself a democratic socialist (or Social Creditist more precisely) as well as as much of a liberation theologist as an atheist can be. (I strongly believe in a preferential option for the poor as a necessity of just social policy.)

If we didn't learn, we'd all still think that strained spinach was the height of cuisine.

I was so indoctrinated after 10 years of Catholic school, that when I found myself pregnant at 16, abortion wasn't even an option for me -- I was horrified at the thought of it. Instead, I was sent to an unwed mother's home, brainwashed into believing I was a horrible person for getting pregnant, would make a horrible mother, and the only way to be a 'good girl' again was to surrender my baby to a 'deserving' married couple. I had the baby, was coerced into signing away my rights, and then my parents acted as if nothing had happened after it was over. I lived with a lifetime of regret and guilt.

When I discovered I was pregnant at 19, I knew I could not go through that horrible experience again. My boyfriend and I decided it was best to end the pregnancy. We later got married and had a baby boy, who is now 24 years old and a wonderful young man.

So believe me, you have nothing to feel badly about.

www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2991/marybb.html

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Must have been a good one to be deleted so quickly!

I promised my mom I'd get myself expelled if she made me go to a Catholic high school. Luckily we moved before I started 8th gr and she didn't know of any parochial schools in the area.

In 6th gr we had a class debate on the death penalty and I choose against it. Well it was more like the entire class including the teacher v me. Soon after I found out the church's views on the subject. Later that year when they decided we were old enough to learn about abortion we had guest speakers come in with plastic fetuses and graphic pictures. I called them on their propaganda. When my teacher started to chastise me I told her that if she could pick an choose which of Catholicism's stances to believe in I could too. I also said she would fail me for making an argument as weak as theirs on one of my papers and I hoped those "welcomed guests" of our weren't getting paid well.

You shouldn't feel bad. Most people would react just like you did in your situation. If I actually like my teachers or trusted what they said and that was my introduction to the subject I might've too.

but as long as you weren't one of the women that voted pro-shrub in 2004, we have no problems.

:pals: :hug:

:puke:

At least I can say that...never in my life was I a republican.