My Grandmother's Desperate Choice
~snip~
As a child, I knew only that my grandmother had died when my mom was still a baby. The one time I asked what had happened to her, a bolt of panic flashed across my mothers face. A household accident, was all she said.
I was twelve years old when she finally told me the truth. Some friends and I had got into a long after-school discussion about abortion, prompted by the gruesome posters that a protester had staked in front of the Planned Parenthood in our Vermont town. I had already begun reading my mothers Ms. magazines cover to cover, but this was the first time Id encountered a pro-life position. When I hopped into my moms car after school, I was buzzing with new ideas. I had almost finished repeating one friends pro-life argument when I saw the look on Moms face. Thats when she told me: the household accident that had killed her mother had, in fact, been a self-induced abortion.
Her hands were tight on the steering wheel as she spoke. I realized later that it wasnt the topic of abortion itself that made her so uneasyshe was a nurse and a Roe-era feminist who usually responded straightforwardly to even the most embarrassing health questions. Rather, her anguish arose from sharing a truth that shed been brought up believing was too terrible to speak.
Sitting beside her in the passenger seat, I struggled to absorb the meaning of what shed told me. I had only just grasped what abortion was a few hours earlier, and was still trying on this new pro-life idea. O.K., I said, but what about the uncle or aunt I never had? Mom whipped toward me, face taut with a rage and fear that I somehow understood had nothing to do with me. What about the mother I never had? she said.
Read More: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/my-grandmothers-desperate-choice
Liberty Belle
(9,528 posts)It ruins their stereotype of promiscuous single women who could just prevent abortion by not having sex.
In many cases married women find themselves unexpectedly widowed, or their husband leaves them, or he is physically abusive. They may feel financially and emotionally incapable of caring for more children.
BigmanPigman
(51,430 posts)married and wanted an abortion. This was a big deal to have on TV in the 70s. They should run that on TV again and refresh people's memories or better yet, make that a plot on a current show.
FoxNewsSucks
(10,375 posts)Back when TV was good, instead of pumping out crap like honeybooboo or the apprentice. . .
BigmanPigman
(51,430 posts)CaliforniaPeggy
(149,296 posts)And this is what the republicans are driving us towards.
OVER MY DEAD BODY.
MLAA
(17,162 posts)iluvtennis
(19,756 posts)back alley abortions with a coat hanger.
orleans
(33,986 posts)back in the day, even before the "great" depression
she had two children
the family was poor, life was hard
it was self induced
she did not die--thankfully
she later had two more kids (my mom being one of them)
we had the conversation at the kitchen table one summer afternoon
it was the summer after the supreme court ruled on roe
i was 14
(there was a lot to our conversation that i won't get into. she was glad it was finally legal.)
Martin Eden
(12,802 posts)I don't know the details, but she already had 5 children and did not want any more.
My father was the middle child, born in 1922.
marble falls
(56,353 posts)mopinko
(69,803 posts)i was politically active, and being next to hyde's district, it was personal. that, and the fact that cook county hospital then stopped doing them.
we were already a hotbed of resistance here, and a lot of the women who were fighting had been part of jane.
one of the activists said that we should all ask our grandmothers about abortion. many people had stories.
many like this one, about someone lost.
many had harrowing stories, but they survived.
another story that went around locally was jeannie morris (?) who was a local newser that was married to a famous football player.
the marriage went south, there were already 3 or 4 kids, and she found herself pregnant and on the verge of divorce.
she went to mexico and got an abortion.
she told her story in those days, on the teevee, w her head held high and no tears.
this has always been the antidote to the hairsplitting about who can have one and where and how safe it will be.
people really need to understand that having an unexpected pregnancy is always a sad story, w a lot of complications, and a simple rule will always be WRONG.