So, you may wonder why I still care about abortion when my story isn’t statistically reflected.
Though I’m not in the numbers, I’m in the reasons why some Black [child-bearing people] seek the procedure, and why quite a few cis women — in solidarity with [some] trans men, trans women and non-binary people of many races and ethnicities — fight so hard to keep it legal.
My mother did an excellent job of both encouraging me to get my education and discouraging me from having children while I was a teenager. My mom failed to convince me in my 20s and 30s to “have children.” My co-workers failed, too. The rare co-worker nowadays still tries to talk me into it — and yes, even my mom still tries — appealing to some notion of an impending spinsterhood if I don’t essentially create my future caregiver and “someone who’ll love me.” As I had to remind Mom, having children is, essentially, a crap shoot as far as their “loving you” and you “loving them”: how many stories have we heard of people who give birth but who don’t form that “nurturing instinct” with their newborns? How many stories have we heard about children disowning and getting disowned by parents, let alone loving you enough to want to take care of you in your old age? (The resentment and burnout of grown children taking care of elderly parents are real.)
My long-held reason, I tell them all, is that I simply do not like children enough to gestate or adopt and rear one (or two or more). I don’t have the patience to provide that long-term emotional support and don’t wish to share my material resources with a child. This is very much in line with a study cited by the Guttmacher Institute in August, 2011: “The reasons women give for having an abortion underscore their understanding of the responsibilities of parenthood and family life. Three-fourths of women cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals; three-fourths say they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner.”
Now that I’m entering the middle part of my life, a colleague summed up my new viewpoint about [having] children: “She’s not just running down her biological clock. She’s taking the clock and throwing off the Empire State Building.”
–Excerpted from “Heading Toward Menopause, Still Caring About Abortion,” On The Issues
Photo Credit: caribdirect.com
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