Baby Better

There are many changes going on with my neighbours south of the border regarding terminating pregnancies. There’s a lot of chatter about what this means for women, body autonomy and human rights. I wanted to offer up objective reasons why some women makes the choices they do. There often isn’t a good outcome because if she tells anyone she’s judged, or she shamed into silence and tells no one. It’s enough that the decision being made is life altering and will change your life-it’s not for me to say for better or worse. I offer to those of you who may have chosen a side that there is a third option-compassion.

Many people like to dress their concern in religion, or the right a being has to live. Again, from a place of compassion think about why your opinion (based in religion) should be imposed on others? Others who say there’s a right to live, but live what kind of life exactly? Of the women I know and stories I’ve heard a choice is made based on the kind of life that would be potentially lived. I’d like to also point out some women and their parents do everything they can to prevent pregnancy and it still happens. Thinking outside of the obvious and traumatic scopes of why people may seek termination there are many more reasons that are traumatic in their own right that we don’t know about. They should have a choice on what they want to do. Have a heart, and be empathetic.

Being on the other side of going through with my decision there are more days I think about the “what ifs” than not. I sought out therapy, a few months after because I had a lot of conflicting feelings-I was also getting closer to what would have been my due date. I’ve experienced grief early in life, and a lot of it earlier than any child should. I will say this kind of grief is different, because each day you wonder if you did the right thing. I wonder if I damaged my reproductive system, or if I’ll have difficulty conceiving later. The one thing I am certain of is that the life I want to give my children is not the life I was able to provide in the months and years that followed.

Lastly are you pro-life or pro-birth? You can listen to this episode across all available podcast platforms.