The Stories Behind a Choice

"Planned Parenthood Kills Babies."

It's a sign that pro-life protestors had been waving outside of the Planned Parenthood clinic in Aurora, Illinois, for the last few months. The clinic finally opened its doors two weeks ago, after protesters tried to prevent it, and as Aurora has become a new ground zero for the fevered argument about reproductive rights.

We live in a country where the debate on one of the most powerful and complex issues -- reproductive rights -- is being waged via bumper stickers and signs waved across the street from health clinics. It consists of such bumper stickers as: Abortion Stops a Beating Heart. Abortion: A Doctor's Right to Make a Killing. Chastity: The Choice of the Next Generation. Choose Life: Your Mom Did.

There is an unsettling vagueness to these one-line proclamations. For every choice is more complex than a slogan. As Francine Prose notes in her essay for our anthology, Choice: True Stories of Birth, Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood and Abortion, which I co-edited with Nina de Gramont, the language of Roe V. Wade describes the decision to have an abortion as influenced by "one's philosophy, one's experiences, one's exposure to the raw edges of human existence."

What is it like, after all, to make any sort of reproductive choice? What is it really like to use birth control, to have an unplanned pregnancy, to give birth, to use the morning after pill, RU-486, or have an abortion? What is it really like to adopt a child, to place a child for adoption, to be adopted?

As writers and teachers of writing, we believe in the specific. We tell our students to stay away from name-calling, clichés, and vague writing. For when a story becomes specific, we find out what it is truly like to make any sort of choice -- we find out the faces behind the slogans.

Listen to Professor Janet Ellerby, who was forced to place her child for adoption when she became pregnant at 16. When she finds out she is pregnant, she says, "My body was not my own; perhaps it had never been. When it had escaped my control, Alec had immediately taken it up, and when he had abandoned it, a baby had claimed it. I did not completely understand that my body was my own dominion, that I could say what did and did not happen to it. In significant ways, women were not led to believe that they owned their bodies."

Or listen to writer Susan Ito, who developed toxemia of pregnancy and had to terminate her pregnancy two weeks before the fetus would be viable. On the verge of having a stroke, she said that having a stroke at age 29 would not be a big deal; she had an image of herself leaning on the baby's carriage, supporting herself "the way elderly people use a walker."

"I'm not going to lose this baby," she told her husband.

"I'm not going to lose you," he said. And after the longest night of her life, she relented.

Or listen to writer Katie Allison Granju, who found out, when she was pregnant, that she had Cytomegalovirus, which could lead to congenital neurological impairment of the fetus. She was advised by many people, including her doctor and minister, to consider her options; she even scheduled an abortion. Then she cancelled it. Her daughter was born infected with the virus. She says, "I am deeply aware that I was graced with this experience, which has allowed me to see that the blessing is sometimes as much in the struggle -- from which I have learned so much -- as in the outcome."

These are the raw edges of human experience that Roe v. Wade alludes to; these are the complex places that a bumper sticker can't address.

Tom Brejcha, Chief Counsel for the Fox Valley Families Against Planned Parenthood said that the pro-lifers want to buy the Planned Parenthood building and lease it to health professionals who "strive to heal, and not kill human beings."

Perhaps Brejcha might want to hear the stories of all the women who go to Planned Parenthood -- who go also for contraception, cervical exams, to get screened for STDs. And he may want to hear the stories of why some are getting their abortions -- and how they may be important to them at this particular moment in their lives.

He -- and the protesters at the Aurora clinic -- may want to stop for a moment and listen.

Karen E. Bender is the author of the novel Like Normal People and is co-editor, with Nina de Gramont, of the anthology Choice: True Stories of Birth, Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood and Abortion, to be published on October 19 by Macadam Cage.

Comments

[coolmaiden]

Thank you, Ms. Bender, for your post. I am looking forward to reading the anthology. Unfortunately, the protesters in Aurora have one-track minds, and I don't think they will listen to anyone else, like you requested in your post. At first, they said they were upset because Planned Parenthood submitted their plan to open to the city under the name of one of their subsidiaries, which is perfectly legal. Then, when they lost that battle, they resorted to their uninformed argument that Planned Parenthood is a death mill. I'm sure, after a while, most of them will find some other issue to complain about and leave the health professionals of Planned Parenthood alone. The antichoice movement is not as large as people think it is. They just make a hell of a lot of noise so the MSM and middle-of-the-road Americans can hear them.

[olivia]

I will believe the self-described "pro-life" people are sincere when they stop oppressing women and start holding father accountable and pushing legislation that will help women and men prevent or deal with unplanned pregnancy:

guaranteed health care for mom & baby
sex education
free birth control available to everyone
job training
keep a few unskilled jobs in the U.S.
MAKE THE MEN PONY UP

So far, the "pro-life" movement is mostly white men trying to oppress women without holding themselves accountable.

[Deni]

Amen to that. Pro Life seems to only mean pre-birth. Once the kid is born they don't give a crap about it as shown once again by our idiot-in-chief's veto of the SCHIP program and the congressional failure to override the veto. And how can you be pro life and pro death penalty? Just asking.

[sdskelton03]

To answer your question:

It's a matter of innocence. An unborn child has committed no crime for which to be held to account.

[ihavenobias]

They'll argue that the death penalty takes the life of guilty people as opposed to taking the life of innocent children.

I think an even *more* absurd contradiction is "pro-life" people voting for an unnecessary-war president who also banned federal funding for (zygotic, not really embryonic, but that's another issue) stem cell research.

These SAME people that argue that we can't destroy potential life (in the form of stem cells), even if there is the potential to *save lives in the long run*.

Oh really? Yet they support a "war on terror"?

Isn't the bottom line of this war supposed to be that we're destroying lives (not just potential lives but actual ones, directly or indirectly) to *save lives in the long run*?

I don't hear enough people framing it quite that way, they usually just let them get away with saying "well, it's unfortunate but this war is to protect us and save lives."

In other words, it's *sometimes* ok to take life in order to save life but sometimes not. I'd be interested to read Bible passage on that one.

[klmebane]

Deni said: And how can you be pro life and pro death penalty? Just asking.


i asked the same question of a pro-lifer myself. his answer was that the two aren't comparable because one is punishing the guilty. i dunno about you, but that sounds like a load of horse shit to me. what about the people who were wrongly convicted?

i live very close to aurora, and i've seen yards littered with signs that say "planned parenthood is BAD for fox valley". i have to ask, isn't UNplanned parenthood bad for EVERYONE? is UNplanned parenthood what perpetuates the cycle of welfare and living off of the system?

if pro-lifers really wanted to lower abortion rates (which they obviously don't) they would try something that might actually work. i recall a time when abortion WAS illegal, but, amazingly, it still happened. gee, i wonder why. the only thing making abortion illegal will accomplish is forcing more young girls to live off of the system having a baby they can't afford, or more young girls dying trying to do it themselves.

also, if everyone waited until they could "afford" a baby, the earth would be much less populated. i don't see them coming down on the church for telling people to "go forth and multiply." the world is pretty crowded already, but they think adding to that number will help the problem. it will only put further strain on our collective resources and bring us more quickly to our demise.