“Capitalism aborted my pregnancy
In 2010, after an unexpected night with a friend, I found myself at the pregnant end of a broken condom. Perhaps even more unexpected, as someone who had always been a strong advocate for abortion rights, is that I had a strong desire to keep my zygote and become a mother. My friend had told me that he would support any decision I made, but this proved to be untrue when I shared my decision to continue the pregnancy. About two weeks later, he moved to Arizona and changed his phone number.
As the weeks went on I quit smoking; set up doctor appointments; started taking vitamins; and applied for Women Infants and Children (WIC), a food assistance program. I picked out a beautiful name.
Weeks went on. I read an article in The Chronicle about possible cuts to Medicaid. I remembered that I was a minimum wage worker with a temp job. I remembered that I was paying down student debt, sharing a studio apartment and barely making rent. I thought about my embryo and the life I wanted to provide once it became my child. When I compared that daydream with my reality, I had to accept that another decision had to be made.
I looked into open adoption. It was a perfect solution. I would pick a family who could provide all of the things I could not. I would pick a family that wanted the birth mother to be part of their child’s life. After many interviews, I picked that family. And then I cried non-stop for three days.
On the evening of the third day I realized that I loved my fetus more than I thought I could love anything — and it hadn’t even started moving yet. I realized how impossible it would be to carry my deepest love to term and then hand my whole heart to strangers.
It is entirely horrific that I have to call myself “lucky” because the state in which I live was able to provide a basic health care service. I have to call myself “lucky” because I was able to safely and legally break my own heart by taking the rationally correct action, based on my living conditions under capitalism.
–Sarah C., San Francisco
See original post here.
