I was a teen when my girlfriend got pregnant. I still think about what might have been.
The issue of abortion is simple for many people. But that's why it is so complicated for many of us.
The complex concerns of a woman’s health, the sacred right of a woman to have sovereignty over her own body, the deep hardship that could come with having to care for a child one is not ready to care for – these are realities that make the freedom to choose to have an abortion the only moral position for millions of Americans.
The truth of these circumstances sometimes leads people who couldn’t imagine having or supporting abortion to change their views.
'Should be a personal choice'
Maureen May is a nurse providing care for underserved communities at Temple University hospital in Philadelphia. Raised in a strong Catholic home with a father who was a deacon in the church, Maureen remembers attending March for Life rallies and passing out pins with fully formed baby feet urging people to choose life.
When she got pregnant in her senior year of college, however, her views began to change. She ultimately decided to keep her baby. But the security of knowing that abortion was an option made her believe that it should be an option for all other women as well.
“It should be a personal choice,” Maureen says.
Layla Houshmand of Maryland knows this. Eight weeks into her pregnancy, she woke up to discover her vision blurred. A relentless migraine worsened and suddenly she could not keep her food down. She threw up 20 times during a visit to the ophthalmologist shortly thereafter.
What Layla would eventually discover, according to FiveThirtyEight, was that she suffered from a life-threatening infection of her optic nerve related to her pregnancy. But although abortion was still technically legal in Maryland, legal ambiguity and resistance to abortion among certain medical providers made it difficult for her to obtain the procedure.
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Layla would ultimately find a private clinic that provided her this service. But the damage to her body was done. A year later she finds herself legally blind in her right eye after suffering through multiple surgeries, antiviral eye injections and post-traumatic stress disorder.
“When you’re pregnant, you’re a second-class citizen in your own body,” she told FiveThirtyEight. “Everyone was prioritizing this eight-week embryo over me.”
'The event that changed everything'
In an interview with the conservative network Daily Wire, Dr. Stephen Hammond, an obstetrician in Jackson, Tennessee, recalled his year and a half spent as a provider of abortions – and the moment that made him change his view forever. Hammond and his colleagues would perform 20 to 25 abortions on a given Saturday. These tended to be procedures reserved for pregnancies no further along than 13 weeks. On one occasion, however, a patient was brought to him whose pregnancy was more advanced than he realized.
“Usually, when we do an abortion (at 13 weeks) there’s only … 3 or 4 tablespoons of amniotic fluid that come out when we do the procedure," Hammond said. "This was different.”
A quart of amniotic fluid, and blood, poured out. “And then it happened; the event that changed everything: the baby kicked me,” he said.
Hammond reflected on months of handling little “broken limbs, torsos … all the pieces of those babies.” But it was this experience that changed Dr. Hammond’s mind. “It really hit home … the fact that I was taking a life,” he said.
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The question of abortion and whether to terminate a pregnancy does not have equal consequences for everyone. It is women who bear the weight of this responsibility and who shoulder the bulk of this agony whatever choice they decide to make.
From my vantage point, as a man, it is incumbent upon me to speak with a good deal of humility when discussing the subject of abortion. Nevertheless, I also have a history with abortion. It has left a mark on my life in ways I have not widely shared.
Young, scared and ready for a child?
When I was a teenager, I found myself in a relationship, perhaps before I was ready for one, that resulted in a pregnancy. In many ways I was immature, even for my age. I had never taken care of myself. How could I, with a partner little more prepared than I was, raise a child?
My partner, however, was adamant – she wanted to have her baby. How could I argue? It was her choice. And on some level, I wanted to have the baby as well.
But I was also scared, more scared than I had ever been of anything (imagine how frightened she must have been … and brave she was to want to go through with it).
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I remember lying awake in my bed that night thinking. My heart raced and my sweat was cold. I was a mediocre student whose performance never lived up to his potential. I had never had a job. How could I do this?
I imagined the disappointment of my parents, my grandparents. Would they think I had thrown my future away before it began? I considered everything I didn’t know about raising children, and the scariness of what I did know: long, sleepless nights; the need to nurture and provide; the full and unending dedication, across not just years but decades, to the well-being of someone other than myself.
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I thought of the life I might never have because I had been irresponsible one time. I didn’t sleep at all.
And yet, as the sun rose, I came to a new conviction.
There was one other thing I knew for certain: I would love this child. She would love this child. Our parents and grandparents would love him or her. And in this love was a new opportunity: an opportunity for me to grow up. To finally live up to the things people said I was capable of. I wasn’t a man by any stretch of the imagination … but with courage and help I could become one.
And as the morning light streamed in through my window, I told myself I was ready even if I wasn’t ready. I would embrace the craft of being a father.
Then the phone rang.
I answered it quickly. My friend’s voice spoke, small and sullen, on the other end of the line.
“I talked to my mom,” she said. “I’m not going to have the baby. We’re going to get it taken care of.”
“Oh,” I responded. “I see. Do you – do you want me to go with you?”
“No,” she said. “It’s fine.”
She hung up. I breathed a sigh of relief … and uncertainty.
My story is a hopeful argument for choice
In the aftermath of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, I have discovered feelings in myself that, to be honest, I scarcely knew were there. They have been the cause of profound reflection.
I cannot say my experience with abortion naturally leads to the moral certainty that others possess on this issue.
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In the years that have passed, I believe I have come closer to being the man that teenage boy only dreamed he might be. I have traveled America, found fulfillment in deeply meaningful work, and have raised three children with a beautiful wife who is the woman of my dreams. And though I haven’t seen my friend in years, I know she came to raise a beautiful family as well.
These things might never have been if she had gone with her first mind. The counsel of her mother may have saved us from a life in which we never realized the dreams that would actually come true for us one day.
In this, our story is a hopeful argument for choice.
Yet it may also have been that the vow I made to myself to stand by my child would have made me a better man … and sooner. My friend and I could have had a family of our own, and maybe we would have brought out the best in each other. We would have loved our child, passionately, with our whole hearts through all of the difficulties. And our own families would have, too.
Instead, the dashed dreams of what could be were replaced by mournful thoughts of what might have been. In this, our story is a tearful tale in favor of life.
There is deep humanity on both sides of this divide
Of one thing I am certain: I cannot hate my fellow Americans who have dedicated their lives to either side of this issue.
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I love you all for the moral commitment you bring to this deeply painful topic that nevertheless highlights the deepest agonies and greatest hopes of the human condition: the pain and joy that come with bringing life into the world, and making the choices that will determine the course of one’s own life for all time to come.
Perhaps healing is still possible. Perhaps we can reach across the divide to create a society in which children brought into the world by parents who are not ready will nevertheless be cared for. Perhaps we will grow into a nation where we love with compassion those among us who make choices that we disagree with, but who may still bear wounds from which they must heal.
Perhaps we may become a country where we do not stigmatize each other for our deeply held moral convictions. Rather, we may become a nation in which we reason together, seeking to persuade from a place of kindness and goodwill.
There is deep humanity on both sides of this divide.
Raise your voice for what you believe is true. But please do not forget that this is true as well.
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John Wood Jr. is a columnist for USA TODAY Opinion. He is national ambassador for Braver Angels, a former nominee for Congress, former vice chairman of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County, musical artist, and a noted writer and speaker on subjects including racial and political reconciliation. Follow him on Twitter: @JohnRWoodJr
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: After Roe v Wade overturn, abortion remains complicated for Americans
