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[rm]

Today is Blog for Choice day.

tammy212 writes about the world before Roe v. Wade and it's a must read for all of us too young to remember such a world, and for that matter, all of us who have forgottnen the true power of words like bastard and whore

http://tammy212.livejournal.com/31940.html

Thanks to christinenorris for the tip.

Comments

[bobblegra.livejournal.com]

I thought you might find this mildly interesting.
Being adopted has made me consider the issue of abortion carefully and from a slightly different perspective than many. I am pro-choice with the full understanding that, as my birth mother was fourteen when I was born, I could very easily not exist at all. Though I have come to the same conclusion as most of the people I know, I think I have put more thought into it than most of my friends and am more sympathetic to the concerns of those on the other side of the debate. My sister, whose birth mother was sixteen, has come to the conclusion opposite to mine and is pro-life. I don't blame her. I can understand why she feels this way. It makes a huge difference when you are considering your own fate not that of some hypothetical baby.
I was fourteen, the same age my birth mother was when I was born, when I found I was firmly pro-abortion. Fourteen seems very old to a nine-year-old. When I turned fourteen I was terrified to realize that I was still a child myself. I could scarcely fathom the idea that I could be a mother. I still played with dolls and thought boys were icky (though strangely fascinating and capable of making me too shy to speak.) I have taken many other things into consideration in my decision, but this sudden ability to sympathize with the mother as well as the child played a large part, I think.
It may say something about my generation and milieu (New York City private school) that while I was acutely aware of abortion issues the idea of stigma seemed incredibly old-fashioned. I have certainly underestimated the power of the word "bastard." When I was sixteen a theatre friend called me one as a joke. When I considered carefully and told him that yes, I thought I actually was one, his face fell, and he spent the next three days apologizing to me. It really had never occurred to me that someone might still be upset by such a word. I simply found it amusing to think I fell into the same category as, say, William the Conqueror.