as a man:

Age 20, lover age 20. Contraceptive failure. Chose to terminate. I sat with her during the procedure and in the recovery room.

Both of us were emotionally distraught, both of us knew we made the right choice, and both of us still, to this day, agree that we would make the same choice again. We are no longer together, but we are in communication, and we both still have regrets - mainly that we were in such a position that we had to make the choice at all,

It was hard, but it was the right thing to do.

I was in college and a girlfriend got pregnant. She and her boyfriend decided this was not time to have a child and she went into the hospital to have the procedure done - this was before Roe, but the ban had been lifted in my state.

My girlfriend and I went to visit the other girl and what I recall most vividly was the emotional pain the woman and her man experienced. It has been over thirty years. I especially recall she wanted to view the children at maternity.

The couple's decision was painful and private. What right did I, or anyone else have, to tell them about the cost of finish out school versus supporting a family before they were ready?

It was not like they had just fallen off the back of the potato truck and they took it lightly or they needed some mob yelling at them - inflicting a religious view that the couple might not share.

After that we never spoke of it again. It has not come up since.

i've been lucky enough never to have needed an abortion. not sure why really. it's not because i was particularly careful all the time. since i've never chosen to have children, i'm not sure that i could get pregnant if i tried. so who knows why? happenstance? biology? in any event, i've been lucky enough not to need one. but i know myself well enough to know that i did need one, i'd get it without hesitation and without regret.

i have three abortion stories to relate from people close to me. one, a cousin, was well into her second trimester when she learned the fetus would be born with spina bifida and other birth defects. although she grieved the loss of the child she wanted to have, she never questioned whether it was the right thing to do. the child would have known nothing but a short life of agony. she didn't want to inflict that fate on anyone. my cousin's husband was with her all the way and they mourned their loss together.

story two is a friend who was in her 30s when she got divorced. she had two teenage children and was just starting to get her life together. she was seeing a new guy but it wasn't going anywhere. she got pregnant, but she had enough on her plate as a single mother of two teenagers while trying to jump start a career stalled by motherhood. and she certainly didn't want to be tied to this new guy in a co-parenting relationship for the next 18 years. so she promptly got an abortion. she had no regrets about the abortion. her only regret was that she let the guy accompany her instead of one of her girlfriends. the guy was a total shit, emotionally distant, insensitive, etc. didn't speak to her the whole way back, dropped her off at home and didn't even bother to make sure she was settled and comfortable before leaving.

story three is a friend of mine who has two daughters, both addicts. both have had abortions. multiple abortions. daughter one is an alcoholic who also uses crack and heroine. daughter two is a crack and heroine addict who also drinks. both have abusive partners. this last time out daughter two spent her abortion money on crack and ended up carrying to term. the state has that baby now. i don't know how these girls feel about their abortions. i don't know that they even know how they feel. but i do know that those abortions were the right thing to do. neither of these young women were in any position to have a healthy pregnancy or to parent a child.

so three stories, three situations. in all three, abortion was the best possible solution.

I got pregnant at 17, 2 months before I was going away to college. The boy asked me to have it. I explained why it was a bad idea, and he agreed, and we started saving money. I was at college for two days when I began to miscarry. It took me three days. I got no help because I thought they might call my mom. When I told the boy, he cried for me having to be in such pain alone. I still love him, though we broke up.
The next time I got pregnant I was 19. This boy yelled at me for wanting him to take a day off work to go with me. I borrowed money from a friend to have it done; it took me two years to pay it back, since the boy wouldn't help. Sometimes I cry at how much I still hate him.
The third time I got pregnant I was 21 and had been dating the guy for a month. He offered to marry me. I told him how afraid I was of marrage, and we agreed that parenthood should wait until commitment. A 'christian' nurse at the hospital called my mother to tell her what I was doing. I didn't get spoken to for five years after she kicked me down the stairs. I am now married and the mother of two with this man.
Where in here did I commit a crime? Where in here did I need to be punished any more than circumstances already did? Where in here was a child a good idea, a safe, intelligent decision that would have benefitted all parties? The first boy was wonderful, but a boy. The second boy was horrible and would have grown more so. The third man deserves to be the father of my children because he supported my decision on when and how they should occur. And deciding to have a child in those circumstances would have been a MORE responsible decision?

I have never joined a weblog before, but I was so moved by the personal stories above I couldn't stop myself. I have had abortions in my early twenties, a miscarriage of a planned pregnancy, and two live births resulting in two great kids. The only regret I have is the miscarriage, which I had nothing to do with. I made my choices out of necessity and realism. I would do so again.

Now, I represent young women going before the Court to bypasss the state requirement that they obtain their parent's consent to an abortion. In Ohio, we are appointed as Guardian of the child as well as attorneys for the child. The Court always asks me if I believe the Court's action to grant the young woman the right to make her own decision is in the young woman's best interests. I always say yes, because I believe fundamentally that we should all have the right to make choices about our own bodies. Moreover, if the young woman is not sufficiently "mature" to make this decision, how is she sufficiently prepared to cope with parenthood? I always say yes.

After the hearing, I explain to the young woman that the Court has not made her choice for her, but rather, that she has been granted permission to make the choice for herself. What a bizarre system.