Anna explained, “Everyone in Quebec thinks that abortion is normal; nothing to fuss or be upset about; the obvious and easy solution to an unplanned pregnancy.” But, when she unexpectedly found herself pregnant, she didn’t feel that way and sought support to continue the pregnancy. Everyone told her, however, to “get on with it” — have an abortion.
Anna, first, asked her mother whether she would help her, if she had the baby. Her mother flatly refused, saying, “I do not want to waste my life babysitting.” Her male partner said he “wasn’t interested in a kid” and their relationship has since broken up. She tried to get an appointment with her gynecologist to discuss her options, but the first available one was two months away. She then contacted an abortion clinic, which gave her an appointment in two weeks, at which time Anna was nine weeks pregnant. She said, “I went to them to get information on abortion, to know more about my options, the consequences of an abortion. I was open to getting an abortion, because that was what everyone around me recommended I do. I saw abortion as an option, but was really not sure. I was hoping for some answers.”
Anna met, first, with a nurse for a “consent interview.” She said, “The nurse told me that at this stage of the pregnancy the fetus is just a bunch of cells. I also asked her if the abortion would have any impact on my health, my future pregnancies, and so on. She said abortions had no impact at all, no consequences at all, that all that I had read (to the contrary) were myths. The nurse said, ‘In two weeks, it will be as if all this never happened’.”
...
And, one of the most pernicious myths propagated in relation to abortion — one that we can see in the nurse’s reassurance to Anna that in two weeks she will have forgotten about all of this — is that abortion will restore the woman to a situation as if the pregnancy never occurred. That is impossible, as many women like Anna come to realize too late.
Anna speaks about her consent in this way, “In that time of my pregnancy I had a lot of nausea and was on a real hormonal roller coaster! The difference between my decision process in my ‘normal’ state and that ‘state’ are two worlds. I think that when a woman is pregnant, from my experience, she is much more vulnerable, and thus can be ‘pushed around’ more easily. This should be taken into account when a clinic is looking to have consent from a pregnant woman.”
It is really unfortunate that no one directed her to a Crisis Pregnancy Centre, or no one stopped her on the sidewalk to offer her another solution.
To think pro-choicers want to criminalize these activities. It makes them look bad, doesn't it?
H/T: Run with Life
