My Choice A.M.

Hinton
For A.M. Hinton, abortion was simply another issue to debate over drinks. Then she became pregnant. The bathroom. In a poll, this would emerge as the most common answer to the question: where were you when you learned you were pregnant? In a bathroom, watching a line of colour darken on a plastic stick. My bathroom was small and square, with a ceramic tile floor, a pedestal sink and, on the wall, a retro soap ad in which a little girl stood next to a wash basin, pinning dolls to a clothesline. I held the stick to the window. Its a girl, I thought. Maybe shell like dolls. his surprised me. I always thought I would wish for a boy. !or someone who wasnt acti"ely trying to become pregnant, I took to the idea of motherhood instantly. hen I went and told my partner the news: the stick had spoken. It was #$$#. I had %ust turned thirty& 'arl was thirty(three. It was our fourth winter in a trendy )ttawa neighbourhood, and our sixth as a couple. hough we werent married, we had committed to one another in that spirit: we were in it for the long haul. *ut we had agreed that we were not ready for children, and had left uncertain the possibility of e"er being so. +hen the prospect of a real child was put before me, I thought: holy shit. *ut also: ),, we can do this. 'arl concurred-at first. +ithin days he began doubting his readiness. .iscussing the pregnancy stirred up other issues: he was unhappy, or at least uncertain, in our union. here were di"isions between us that I hadnt noticed, or had willfully ignored. /s we talked late into the e"enings, raising a child together seemed less and less tenable. In those days, I worked for a museum downtown. I liked to walk the hour in: o"er the train tracks, through 0ittle Italy, up the hill into 'hinatown, then past the 1ational +ar Memorial, across Ma%ors 2ill 3ark and into the curatorial wing behind the grand, glass cathedral of art. I was in a fog, functioning under dual shock: my pregnancy, and my suddenly faulty relationship. .uring those long walks, I carried on a silent, one(way con"ersation with my tiny companion. Hey, I would say. Im doing my best or you. Im doing the best I can. 'arl didnt think he could do it. In the midst of one of our late(night discussions, he said, 4I %ust dont want to become that guy who lea"es.5 hat was when I twigged: sooner or later, I would find myself alone with this child. 1e"er mind the future& I would be, in spirit, a single mother, pressing ahead on my own. hese were not circumstances under which I felt equipped or willing to proceed. I thought hard, and mulled our options. *etween 6788, when the 9upreme 'ourt abolished 'anadas abortion law, and #$$:, the last year 9tatistics 'anada compiled data, 6.8 million abortions were performed in this country. In #$$:, there were #8.; abortions for e"ery one hundred babies born-a ratio

that has held steady since the early nineties. 3ut another way, each year since 677#, more than #$ percent of pregnancies <discounting miscarriages= ha"e been aborted. Marital status, education le"els or professions arent tracked, but we know ;$ percent of abortions performed in #$$: were on women o"er thirty. My point is that abortion is not rare. he right to choose an abortion may still be up for debate in the minds of many 'anadians-one recent poll found that >? percent belie"e abortion should be legal only in certain circumstances-but the choice exists nonetheless. It is a"ailable to pregnant women as a common course of action, which one in fi"e will take. !or some, the decision of whether to continue or end a pregnancy will be a straightforward one-sometimes grounded in religious con"iction, sometimes in basic sur"i"al. !or others, uncertainty rears. 2owe"er you define the fetus, there can be no dispute that a pregnant woman contains the early makings of an as(yet(unknown person engaged in slow but steady de"elopment. o opt for an abortion is to call a halt to these profound proceedings. +hat does it mean to turn away this new life? /nd how is this fundamental question obscured by the way 4choice5 has been politically cast in the modern debate as a womans 4right5? he subtext is that the woman is putting herself first, and the general feeling is that she should ha"e a good reason for doing so. *ut what is a 4good reason5 in your eyes? In mine? Its one thing for 2enry Morgentaler to assert: 4@"ery child a wanted child. @"ery mother a willing mother.5 Its another to be lying on the bed beside your partner, staring at the ceiling and trying to talk it through, pee stick in your hand. 9o if you ha"e any doubts about how to proceed, as I did, you begin to understand all too clearly the flipside of choice: exercising it can be tough. It is here, wrestling with your own circumstances and feelings, where the more producti"e and necessary con"ersation lies. I had seen many ultrasound images of babies in utero before I saw my own, some held by magnets to friends refrigerators, some as email attachments. Mine looked much like any other. !uAAy and wobbly, tadpole(like, remarkable. he woman performing the procedure told me I was at eight or nine weeks. I closed my eyes, taking this in. I had been looking up the stages of fetal de"elopment online. 9o I knew that the being in that grainy image could mo"e its limbs& most of its ma%or organs would be partly formed& its heart would ha"e begun to beat. It would be nearly two centimetres in length, almost the distance from the tip of my thumb to the knuckle. his would be as far as it would get, as large as it would grow. It was a mid(morning 9aturday in March. I was in the Morgentaler clinic on 9t. Boseph *oule"ard in Montreal, where 'arl and I had come because the wait in )ttawa was se"eral weeks long. It cost C;$$ to go out(of(pro"ince, but we could afford it, and preferred to forego the wait, which would ha"e put me near my second trimester. +hen my name was called, 'arl and I rose together, but he was not permitted to follow. 9o here

I was, on my own, looking on a screen at our child. +ere I to change my mind, now would ha"e been the time. / few weeks earlier, Id stood in the li"ing room doorway and said, 4Maybe we shouldnt ha"e it.5 My words were almost inaudible. I hadnt known I was going to say this. 'arl didnt respond right away, but his face, which had been tight for days, relaxed. 2e was relie"ed. .eep down, he did not want the child, and I did not want it without him on board. *etween then and now, Id been watching myself, waiting for a change of heart. Id felt an emotional attachment to the Aygote-to the reality of an actual indi"idual taking form, one that depended upon me for its sur"i"al. +as I really willing to let it go? .id I e"en belie"e this was ),? My feelings about abortion were muddy. I was raised by 'atholic parents whose only o"ertly political stance was the one they held-and still do-against abortion. My dad kept a pro(life sticker on his dashboard, and the whole family once took part in an anti(Morgentaler march on Dueens 3ark. hat day, we walked past a woman in %eans on a stoop, a mug in her hands and a 4pro(choice5 sign propped beside her. I asked my mother what it meant. 9he told me it was a sneaky way of saying you were 4for5 abortion. *y my twenties, Id "eered far enough toward the woman on the stoop to belie"e that there were clearly circumstances in which a woman ought to ha"e the right to terminate a pregnancy. *ut I also felt that there were times when such a course would seem to fall into the category of unnecessary e"il, and I felt pretty sure that I myself would ne"er require one. 4I dont think Id e"er do it,5 I had said to friends during those con"ersations that take place in pubs, o"er pints, late at night, when e"eryone feels like a little frank talk could sa"e the world. 4*ut that doesnt mean it shouldnt be a"ailable for people who need it.5 *y 4people who need it5 I meant those who, by "irtue of their circumstances, might otherwise be compelled to seek an illegal, expensi"e or potentially dangerous procedure. +hen I began making phone calls to abortion clinics, I couldnt help but notice that, in my case, none of those circumstances applied. I was not young. I was not poor. 2ealth was not an issue, nor education, and I had not been raped. I was not e"en single <though that possibility seemed in the offing=. I now understood 4need5 in a "ery different way. I also understood that, for a large number of 'anadians-my parents included-my circumstances might not appear to %ustify what I was about to do. In this light, abortion was not 4a way out5 of a scary situation. It was profoundly frightening in its own right. Meanwhile, I had no way of predicting what the future would bring in terms of my %udgment upon this act. !acing me were two unknowns: lonesome parenthood or potential demons. I turned from the image on the ultrasound machine and followed a nurse into another room, where I was set up on a table naked from the waist down, co"ered in a sheet, my heels nesting in cool metal stirrups. / woman appeared, introduced herself as .r. 9uch( and(9uch, and explained what was about to happen. he nurse stayed beside me and held

my hand while the doctor inserted a succession of needles, e"er wider, into my cer"ix. hen there was a sudden sucking sound, which I felt in my abdomen like a %olt. I gasped. hat quickly, the baby was gone-and with it, a part of me. here had been other such markers: my fathers heart attack when I was younger, and later, the death of a close friend. 2ere was a new before(and(after line. I had read that the procedure would hurt. It didnt. *ut my cheeks were soaked with tears. /nd I was gripping the nurses hand as if for dear life. Humanity has never been able to make up its mind about the practice of deliberately terminating pregnancies. he 3ythagoreans and the 9toics in ancient Ereece "igorously disagreed on the sub%ect-in essence holding the pro(life and pro(choice stances of their day. In Fictorian times, both in @ngland and /merica, abortions conducted pre( quickening-before a fetus can be felt to mo"e, which takes place somewhere between the fourth and sixth month-occurred without serious qualms. @"en after abortion became illegal or strictly regulated in the G9 during the nineteenth century-a change that had more to do with physicians efforts to professionaliAe their trade than with widespread political or religious beliefs-abortions remained common, if discreet. /nd that discretion likely had more to do with sexual mores than with ethical concerns regarding the fetus. I learned all of this in the months and years following my abortion. hanks to the time and place in which I li"ed, I was able to ha"e one without breaking the law. I didnt ha"e to ask a friend of a friend of a friend for the name of someone who would do the deed. /nd there was no panel of doctors before whom I had to present my case. 1obody made me %ustify my decision. !or all of this, I am grateful. *ut I did ha"e to %ustify my decision to myself. I thought often of an older cousin who had raised a child, single(handed. 9he would ha"e been in her late twenties when shed become pregnant, a little younger than I had been and, unlike me, definitely alone. I thought about her son, now a thoughtful and talented teen, and how we wouldnt ha"e known what we were missing if my cousin had chosen another path. +as she bra"e, and I a coward? I wondered. I wondered this a lot. It is common for women who ha"e had abortions to grie"e& I did. /t the same time, I found myself engaged in a years(long attempt to locate my decision on my moral compass. his became, in part, a research pro%ect. I picked up a solid history of fluctuating G9 abortion mores in sociologist ,ristin 0ukers book Abortion and the !olitics o Motherhood. I pored o"er whole sections of the legal ruling for Hoe ". +ade, which includes its own history on attitudes and laws regarding abortion, including that in Homan times 4it was resorted to without scruple.5 )nline one night I listened se"eral times in succession to a passionate, six(minute exchange between Morgentaler and a caller broadcast on '*' Hadios 4.ouble ake5 in Bune 67?$. he caller: 4I think that youre breaking your promise as a doctor. Instead of preser"ing life youre trying to destroy life.5 Morgentaler: 4 his whole argument that youre killing a baby is %ust plain, unscientific nonsense.5 /nd so on. Eods will comes up& the potential life inherent in spermatoAoa& and the rights of fathers. I found myself inwardly cheering Morgentaler on as he asked, in se"eral different ways, with increasing

impatience, 4+hy do you want to impose your "iews on other women?5 he callers final words were, 4+ell, Im against it, anyway.5 /n article on 0ife9ite1ews.com described abortion as 4the systematiAed, institutionaliAed killing of millions of innocent human beings around the world.5 )n other pro(life websites, the plight of unexpectedly pregnant women was compared to that of the Firgin Mary, and young women claimed their parents 4brainwashed5 them into ha"ing abortions. I watched The "ilent "cream-a classic pro(life "ideo from 678> that Im fairly certain was shown to the entire student body of the 'atholic high school I attended -astonished by its graphic nature and extremist tone. 4/nd so for the first time,5 says its narrator, .r. *ernard 1. 1athanson, 4we are going to watch a child being torn apart, dismembered, disarticulated, crushed and destroyed by the unfeeling steel instruments of the abortionist.5 +hat was I doing? esting the depths of any guilt I might ha"e felt? 9eeking absolution? +allowing? 3erhaps all of the abo"e. *ut I was also on the hunt for ideas about abortion that werent grounded in religious doctrine or political rhetoric. I wanted something that felt like an honest attempt at understanding. I watched and re(watched the film #era $rake, about a 67:$s *ritish woman imprisoned for conducting illegal abortions. I found /lice Munros short story 4*efore the 'hange,5 which tells of a twenty(four(year(old woman who disco"ers her father has been secretly performing illegal abortions. +hen the housekeeper <his accomplice= becomes ill, he enlists his daughters aid. +e later learn that the daughter has dealt with her own surprise pregnancy by ha"ing and gi"ing up the child. he re"elation occurs when the narrator confesses that she refused to abort, though her boyfriend wanted her to. 9he was angry, hurt and disappointed-not considering the baby at all. I thought about Munros story for weeks& I retold it to friends. he question she lea"es for anyone who would presume to %udge anothers actions is astounding: who is swimming in murky waters, morally speaking? he abortionists, the women partaking of their ser"ices, or the mother who bears a child at least partly out of spite? o truly determine right or wrong, to name moti"ation, may be impossible. /t the clinic, before the ultrasound, I was asked-without my partner present-whether this was what I wanted, and whether it was my own choice. I understood that I was really being asked whether Id been pushed into an abortion against my will. I assured the woman seated across from me that the decision was my own, though it felt more complicated than that. My partner and I had made the call together in the same way we would ha"e made the call to have a child together. @ither 4we5 were doing this, or 4we5 werent. It wasnt e"en exactly about what either of us 4wanted.5 It was about what seemed possible at that time, in our situation. hat said, her question was exceedingly rele"ant. I was the one with the fetus inside me, and-%ust as I would ha"e been the one gi"ing birth-I was the one who would ha"e to climb up on the table and allow the doctor to remo"e it.

2ad abortion been prohibited, or less accessible, would 'arl and I ha"e %ust gulped and accepted our fate? +ould we ha"e become the broken family Id foreseen? +hate"er challenges we might ha"e faced, it is human nature to succumb to existence: once someone wanders into our li"es, it is next to impossible to contemplate the world without them. )b"iously I would ha"e lo"ed my child, and would ha"e rearranged my life around it. 9till, I had an abortion. I made the decision to ha"e it, and to li"e with ha"ing done so. Recently I watched the #$$I documentary %ake o Fire, a film twenty years in the making that tracks the /merican pro(life and pro(choice mo"ements, gi"ing each side equal say. he longer I watched, the more I could feel myself siding, almost militantly, with the abortion clinic nurses and doctors who were crossing protest lines on their way to work. 9ome of these people risked being shot, or had been, or had lost colleagues in this way. he work they do is not easy or pretty. 9ally isdale, a former abortion clinic nurse, wrote about the experience in 2arpers in 678?. 4+e do abortions here& that is all we do,5 her piece begins. 4 here are weary, grim moments when I think I cannot bear another basin of bloody remains, utter another kind phrase of reassurance.5 I was reminded of the nurse who held my hand while my uterus was cleaned out, and who let me squeeAe her fingers tight-and who probably had to clean up afterward. I wondered whether these moments cost her anything, and why I hadnt thought about this before. +hen I first spoke of my abortion, to an old friend I was "isiting in oronto, I felt as though I was confessing a dark secret. I broke down in her kitchen. I ha"e since been surprised to learn how many of my friends and acquaintances also ha"e abortions in their pasts. )ne friend, now in her se"enties, was a young @nglishwoman in 3aris in the 67:$s, where abortions were neither legal nor easy to come by. 2er pregnancy would ha"e cost her her %ob, the support of her relati"es and, she told me, 4any chance of making a decent match.5 /nother, a fellow %ournalist in her fifties, told me of a weekend get(together shed had with four old high(school friends. It emerged that all but one of this gang of fi"e had undergone abortions. Jet another friend told me that his wife had one early in their relationship. 1ow, many years later, they ha"e a son. 9ome of these people ha"e mixed feelings about the choices they made& others dont. )ne friend, pregnant at fifteen, was ushered through an abortion by her mother-no 4choice5 for her. 9he told me that shes always aware, in the back of her mind, of how old that phantom child would be. hese con"ersations ha"e been re"elatory. Its one thing to grasp statistics& its another to know real people who ha"e wrestled with this decision and who also carry it with themor who ha"e made the choice without much wrestling at all. )nce, on a long(haul train trip from Montreal to Moncton, I dined with an older woman who told me shed had two abortions, the first back in the early 67?$s in 1ew Jork 'ity, for what at the time equaled a months rent in Montreal. !or her, there had been no quandary, and she had no regret: she was not mother material. 9he wouldnt ha"e done anyone any fa"ours by ha"ing those kids. +hen I said many people feel they ha"e the right to %udge the decision to ha"e

an abortion, she turned fierce. 4I li"e with this,5 she said. 4 hey ha"e no idea what thats like.5 I thought of this woman in particular a few months ago, when I came upon a head( spinning paragraph in a no"el Id picked up at a used bookstore. he book, The Hearts and %ives o Men, by *ritish author !ay +eldon, was first printed in 678?, the year before abortion ceased to be illegal in 'anada. he passage in question deals with the female protagonist, 2elen: twentysomething, unexpectedly pregnant and terrified. +e find her in the de +aldo 'linic, about to submit her fetus to the ministrations of .r. Huncorn. Meanwhile, elsewhere, her lo"ers fiendish ex(girlfriend is letting him in on what 2elen is about to do. he text crackles with tension: +ill 'lifford try to stop 2elen? +ill they ha"e the baby? @ither way, will he forgi"e her this choice? +ill she forgi"e herself? +eldon writes, 4/bortion is sometimes necessary, sometimes not, always sad. It is to the woman as war is to the man-a li"ing sacrifice in a cause %ustified or not %ustified, as the obser"er may decide. It is the making of hard decisions-that this one must die so that one can li"e in honor and decency and comfort. +omen ha"e no leaders, of course& a womans conscience must be her Eeneral. here are no stirring songs to make the task of killing easier, no "ictory marches and medals handed around afterwards, merely a sense of loss.5 I was so astonished by these lines, I copied them out. *y using the comparison she does, +eldon reminds us that abortion is a reality as e"er(present as war has been in human history. In this, she lays bare a fundamental hypocrisy in the way society "iews mens morally ambiguous actions as opposed to womens. Its as if shes exca"ated a long(lost truth, or created one that eluded us all along. / woman facing an unplanned pregnancy must proceed decisi"ely under intense pressure, amid troubling moral equations. 0ike a soldier, she deals in life and death, and walks, fundamentally alone, into an aftermath she has opened up, beneath whate"er shadows may fall in that place. 9ometimes we make choices that bring us pain, pain that compels us to re"isit the circumstances, thoughts and feelings that led to those decisions, all the while asking, 4'ould it ha"e gone the other way? +as there some answer that I missed?5 I knew my abortion was to be one of those choices. It would lea"e me with the ghost of an unrealiAed child, and that sorrow, after entering my life, would ebb and flow, but ne"er disappear.